Sandok

Other than the famous maestros Fellini, Antonioni and Leone, Italian directors really never get much respect. But watching Sandok for the first time in its original scope photography, you get the sense that there wasn’t anything Hollywood could put on screen that “spaghetti “directors could do just as well.

Case in point, this rousing old-school adventure based on the popular novels by Emilio Salgari which features just the sort of Saturday matinee ingredients (snakes, rats, tigers, crocodiles, rare diamonds and dangerous thugs) that were later co-opted by Spielberg and Lucas to create Raiders of the Lost Ark. Director Umberto Lenzi is working in the classic Hollywood style, with opulent sets and exotic locations, but he keeps the tone light and loose with his two main characters – Alan Foster (Richard Harrison), an American thief on the run in India and Sitama Wilbert Bradly), a native fakir whose sacred vows are flexible depending on the situation. Their adventures in pursuit of “The Mountain of Light” – a holy stone housed inside an impregnable temple – to repay Foster’s gambling debt makes Sandok half heist film, half safari travelogue. But it’s all entertaining with the sort of eye candy usually reserved for big budget international productions and a bouncy plot that only really trips up at the end.

The title Sandok is used to tie in with other popular Lenzi productions and really has nothing to do with the film in question; the original Italian title being The Mountain of Light. But MYA’s scope transfer helps the film’s chances of a long overdue rediscovery.