This isn’t an action or adventure film but rather an exploration of how the mystique of buried treasure gets a hold of young minds and leads some people off on that treasure-hunting path in life. If you’re looking for heroes dodging traps and rivals to get rich and donate stuff to museums before the world is destroyed, then this is not a film for you. If you want to be reminded of how it was to hear about lost treasure for the first time and how cool it seemed, then this may well be a good find.
RACE FOR THE YANKEE ZEPHYR
This was a pretty low-budget treasure-chase movie shot in New Zealand in 1980, in which the owner of a helicopter tour business finds himself in a race with a gangster (The A Team’s George Peppard) to find and recover a cargo of gold aboard a plane that crashed in World War II.
The part with the crashed plane carrying loot is actually true – a Douglas DC-3 Dakota carrying payroll for US sailors of the Pacific Fleet did crash off Cape York, at the very tip of Queensland, Australia, in 1944, but this was quickly recovered in reality.
Nobody will ever pretend that this is a classic film, but it works on a more local, grittier kind of level than most treasure-hunt adventures, by not being a globe-trotting chase for a world-famous legend, but simply a rivalry between people for a local find. Call it another guilty pleasure, if you will.
IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
This is a legendary 1963 comedy about a group of motorists who find themselves in a treasure hunt for a gangster’s stolen loot, after they stop to assist him when his car crashes. In essence it’s a chase movie, with everybody racing each other to the hidden loot, so it’s not about archaeological derring-do. It is hugely influential, however, having spawned a sort of mini-genre of such films, which is still going strong today. The Rowan Atkinson movie Rat Race is a more recent example.
Oddly enough, the film itself is also an example of that other type of cultural treasure, the lost film – at least in part. Director Stanley Kramer – better known epic social dramas such as Judgment At Nuremberg – had originally envisioned a film with a more than three-and-a-quarter-hours runtime, but the studio, MGM, hacked it down by almost an hour. Over the years, some scenes were added back in for TV and video releases, but a good half hour or so was thought to be permanently lost, the footage destroyed.
Then, in 2013, this other form of lost treasure was discovered, and the most recent DVD and Blu-ray version is returned to the director’s planned length. In this respect, it is itself partially a treasure trove which you can now view.
RAID SOME TOMBS
A collection of the best treasure-hunting video games:
TOMB RAIDER
Probably the most famous of all videogames based around treasure-hunting archaeologist/adventurers, the original Tomb Raider came out for PC, Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation – or PS One, if you prefer – nearly 20 years ago, and launched a franchise that’s still going pretty well today. In fact, it also is one of the games that really made console gaming – and Sony’s Playstation series in particular – a worldwide success.
Though the original game’s graphics don’t hold up today, the character of Lara Croft, and the mix of action, platforming and puzzle-solving were a recipe for success, and a whole series of games, plus spinoffs in the form of novels, comics and movies have all followed. Lara herself is something of a modern icon, and that isn’t just because of her carefully designed looks, or the use of supermodels to portray her in advertising: people love what she does. They love the independent Lady Croft, who travels the world exploring dangerous ruins and recovering ancient treasures – which, in this franchise, often have mystical powers, rather than just being valuable gold or silver artefacts. Lara also visits a number of fantastical locations during the series, including the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, a lost world full of dinosaurs, Atlantis, and an Egyptian city occupied by jackal-headed mummies. Unlike real treasure hunters, she often has to face off against monsters and supernatural powers.
Not bad going for a character who was originally only made female so that Core Design (the company who made the first six games) wouldn’t get sued over the leather-jacketed bloke they originally intended to have as the lead character.
There have been many games in the series, of varying quality, including sequels, remakes and even a recent prequel reboot. Not all of them are as good as they could be – The Angel of Darkness in particular is pretty rubbish – but the first three games still hold up well in gameplay, if you can accept the graphics of the era. If not, then the original game was also remade for HD a few years ago, and fits neatly into a fun trilogy with Legacy and Underworld. The 2013 reboot is also pretty good.
For what it’s worth, the second movie of the pair, Cradle of Life, is the better one, though it did worse business because audiences remembered not liking the first…
THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND
Back in 1990, Lucasarts – the gaming division of Lucasfilm – released this point-and-click adventure. For those of you too young to remember such things, you’d move the cursor over an object or character and click it with the mouse to interact with it in whatever way the game intended.
This game was basically a Treasure Island kind of idea, set in the golden age of piracy, and had your character explore and solve puzzles to find the elements needed to go up against a ghostly pirate. If this sounds potentially familiar, it may be because the creators of the game admitted to being inspired by a certain theme park attraction named Pirates of the Caribbean. The game was successful enough to spawn several sequels, and was remade for HD in 2009. It had a memorable blend of exploration and puzzlesolving, as well as a fine mix of humour and thrills, though the names of the characters could have used some work (you play one Guybrush Threepwood) and the bad guy character is called LeChuck). Nevertheless, this was one of the most successful PC games ever, and still holds up well today.
INDIANA JONES AND THE
It should come as no surprise that Indy has had a long history of videogame spinoffs, starting with a text adventure called Revenge of the Ancients back in 1987. His greatest gaming acclaim, however, is probably for The Fate of Atlantis, a point-and-click PC adventure from 1992, which is still fondly remembered today (and if you have a Wii, the Wii version of The Staff of Kings also includes the full Fate of Atlantis game as an unlockable extra – its only console appearance.
The series went into proper third-person 3D with The Infernal Machine in 1999, and both this and 2003’s The Emperor’s Tomb are quite good for their day, though the latter should be played on PC or an original Xbox, as the PS2 port is hopeless.
The most recent Indy videogames, of course, have been the Lego ones, which are surprisingly good fun.
UNCHARTED
In a lot of ways, the Uncharted series is what Tomb Raider was originally conceived of as being. There’s a leather-jacketed heroic treasure hunter in the Indiana Jones mould, and the gameplay is a mix of third-person action and platforming, very like in Tomb Raider.
Nathan Drake’s exploits are more grounded in the real world, however, with his enemies being mercenaries, smugglers, looters and so on, rather than supernatural demigods, or monsters. Likewise, the locations he visits are more typically realistic locations, though he does still drop in on Shambhala in the second game.
There’s more of an ensemble cast to the Uncharted series than in Tomb Raider, and the visual style is quite distinctive also, but in a lot of ways the two series complement each other quite well. As with the other franchise, Uncharted has spawned assorted spinoffs, especially in the form of comics and graphic novels, and a movie is planned.
Sadly the series is PS3 exclusive – or PS4 in the case of the upcoming fourth game, Thief’s End, but if you have a PS3, the series is worth a look, with the second game, Among Thieves, being probably the best of the three so far.
ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG
Technically the Assassin’s Creed series has had a certain amount of treasure hunting since Assassin’s Creed
II, in the form of sparkling chests to be found and unlocked for cash, as well as there being occasional artefacts to be found, such as the Pieces of Eden which are a central part of the series’ story arc. Assassin’s Creed III also features missions related to Captain Kidd’s legendary treasure and involves a trip to Oak Island.
Black Flag, however, is worth seeking out less as an Assassin’s Creed game, and more as the best golden age pirate game you’re likely to find. There are treasure chests to locate and dig up, rum to drink and Blackbeard (and several other reallife pirates) to interact with. If the word treasure makes you think of pirates with chests full of loot, digging holes on sandy beaches, this is the game for you, even if you don’t normally like the series.
It also does a good job of reinforcing the fact that, historically, most of what pirates took from ships wasn’t actually chests of gold…
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raiders of the Lost Past – TV series
Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World – TV series
The Sign and the Seal – Graham Hancock (Crown, 1992)
Life Among the Pirates – David Cordingly (Little, Brown & Co, 1995)
In Search of King Solomon’s Mines – Tahir Shah (John Murray, 2002)
The Holy Grail – Richard Barber (Penguin, 2005)
Before the Flood – Ian Wilson (Orion, 2001)
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Search In the Desert – John M. Allegro (Doubleday, 1964)
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