Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s
Fantasy enjoys considerable leeway if its fantastical elements make up for lack of character development and narrative scope. This Jules Verne rip-off – it appeared a few months before Five Weeks in a Balloon – hardly even qualifies as a travelog given the background is simply superimposed and the various locales simplistic in the extreme. And not much point employing condors as a tool of attack unless you’ve got Ray Harryhausen to hand. Even with gorillas and cannibals on the loose and villains putting the heroine on the rack it still falls short of the requirements of a standard Saturday matinee.
Explorer Sir Hubert Warrington (Douglas Kennedy) is imprisoned in darkest Africa for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of the fabled Cleopatra treasure. News of his misfortune reaches London courtesy of a character known only as the Hindu (James Lanphier) who hitches a ride back on a balloon navigated by scientist Dr Joseph Faraday (Marshall Thompson) and carrying as passenger Warrington’s fiancée Ellen (Mala Powers) daughter of financier Sir Adam Burton (Robert Gillette)…