An interesting adventure movie. I remember seeing ads for this. It looked like a scary Disney flick. The movie poster made it look like a voodoo island with lots of skeletons, but only one briefly appeared in a cave scene. I remember the Revell model kits from this movie with… More
An interesting adventure movie. I remember seeing ads for this. It looked like a scary Disney flick. The movie poster made it look like a voodoo island with lots of skeletons, but only one briefly appeared in a cave scene. I remember the Revell model kits from this movie with skeletons sinking in quicksand.
The movie opens with a catchy oh-too-cool 70's theme song about "Matecumbe".
We soon have two boy pals finding a secret map and going off in search of the "Treasure of Matecumbe" in order to save their plantation. The boys are assisted by a wacky medicine show man (Peter Ustinov), a runaway bride (Joan Hackett) and the scoundrel father of one of the boys (Robert Foxworth). They are an unlikely group, who eventually bond and become likeable.
Chasing them are no-good Mr. Spangler (poor Vic Morrow) and his band of hairy thugs. Much of the movie is spent on a Mississippi River Boat chase down to Florida. There are various perils and adversaries along the way, including stock-footage crocodiles, deadly swamp Indians, cheap super-imposed mosquitoes and wacky dancing river scoundrels. It's all very fun and interesting. The baddies met a grim future at the end; but no worse than they were dishing out to their own slaves.