Skullduggery

Between an eclectic television career and hitting big with the big-screen DELIVERANCE, Burt Reynolds appeared in mostly westerns and/or adventure b-movies... two of the latter titled IMPASSE and then SKULLDUGGERY, with Reynolds as one of those cocky fortune hunters, here smitten with classy female scientist Susan Clark while paired with friendly sidekick Roger C. Carmel...

But right when the expedition into the scenic, potentially perilous mountains of Papua New Guinea begins... with the man and dame sleeping together too quickly to evolve into an AFRICAN QUEEN-style anti-chemistry romance... a group of ape-like/missing-link creatures are discovered, and quickly exploited...

First in a spontaneous, companion-like fashion by Reynolds, trying to make something of the country's phosphorus that he was initially seeking... then becoming burdened slaves to sophisticated British heavies in what's offbeat enough to derive from European cinema before confusing American audiences, never capturing any particular audience, cult or otherwise, since Burt Reynolds was relatively unknown...

Although he's more affable and loose than the rudimentary monotone before discovering the value of self-deprecating scoundrels... and the moral dilemma turned third-act courtroom drama about enslaved primal creatures is simply too deep and idealistic for what should be (and what somewhat began as a) traipsing adventure.

One of the most boring, silly, insipid, badly scripted and acted things ever to come out of the entertainment field. Even for Burt Reynolds, this was bad news. If you are home alone and bored to tears don't watch this drivel. Avoid at all costs.

The cinematography in Technicolor has always appealed to me and scenes such as the tribal women rowing their four (4) large canoes with the archaelogical safari team and their supplies down the New Guinea river(s) infested with killer native tribes, snakes, and crocodiles, injects the needed adventure and to stamp this movie as a bona fide thriller.

Burt Reynolds and Susan Clark are excellent choices as the two male and female leads who both have romantic inclinations but for very different reasons. The audience is asked to form their own opinion on what their discovery of the Tropi tribe means to the human race.

As with many of the world controversies regarding racism, evolution, slavery, and the industrial revolution, the film Skullduggery will leave you with some questions as to what is fair and what is right when a new discovery such as the Tropi tribe is uncovered.

Skullduggery (1970) starts off as a combination of adventure with some light humor and a romantic twist thrown in for good measure, but it was not how I expected the film to transpire as I had been impressed by Burt Reynolds performance in the later (1972) film Deliverance. Not to say I was disappointed in the film Skullduggery, as I was not. I really enjoy scenic pictures of far away corners of the world, and the directors Gordon Douglas and Richard Wilson captured the landscape of New Guinea with crisp and clean panoramic views of the green forests, huge mountains, and seedy crocodile infested waters.

I enjoyed Skullduggery and will most likely watch it again in a few years. This review is somewhat of a personal reminder to confirm a thumbs up review which I give a 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.

American movie by Gordon Douglas (A Night of Adventure) about Vercors's Animaux dénaturés. The anthropologist Sybil Greame (Susan Clark, Colossus) leads in Papua New Guinea with the father Dillingham (Chips Rafferty, Walk into Paradise, which has inspired the female paddled canoes scene) an expedition backed by the industrial Vancruyse (Paul Hubschmid, Journey to the Lost City) and his lawyer Buffington (Alexander Knox, Bikini Paradise), in order to find old bones and get some skull dug in a remote area, hoping for a Nobel prize.

An adventurer working at the airfield, Doug (Burt Reynolds, Deliverance), manages to take part to the expedition with his pal Kreps (Roger Carmel, Gambit) by getting rid of the mechanic Bruce (Edward Fox, The Day of the Jackal): they want to discover on their side an important deposit of phosphorous highly valuable for color TV tubes. Arriving in the highland mountains, they find a strange tribe of prehistoric creatures which could be the famous missing link of evolution. As Kreps manages to make contact with a female of the tribe, whom he called Topazia (Pat Suzuki, The Year of the Dragon), the great question arises: are they apes or humans?

The film lacks unfortunately of rhythm, focusing and common thread in its first part, but then regains in interest for the trial development full of trickery, with characters such as the judge Draper (Rhys Williams, How Green was my Valley), the Attorney General (William Marshall, The Boston Strangler), the racist doctor Eaton (Wilfrid Hyde-White, The Third Man), or the Black Panther like Smoot (the Motown manager Booker Bradshaw, Coffy).

As another person has commented, this movie deals with some very important social and very HUMAN issues and should be viewed for what it is, not what you wish it would have been.

If you are looking for a brainless action film, look somewhere else. This film is more likely to generate a strong emotional reaction than to wow you with fancy stunts and cliché jungle adventure shtick.

People today are so used to excessive action films that gems like this one seem to be misunderstood or simply ignored. I am hoping this makes it's way to DVD so it can be appreciated in it's original theatrical format.

For the thinking person who can appreciate something with a lot more depth than the 'tomb raider' ilk it may get lumped in with it is definitely worth a viewing.