Thoughts on The Jewel of the Nile

 

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*Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) and Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), suspended over a pit, have learned the ropes that bind them will be gnawed on by blood-hungry rats and destroyed by acid, respectively.*

"What kind of sick pervert would go to this trouble? Why don't you shoot us?"

"Jack ..."

"I mean, what kind of ... demented psychopath would even think of this?"

"The Savage Secret."

"What?"

"It was my biggest seller."

Just before watching The Jewel of the Nile, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito's follow up to their big hit and well-remembered Romancing the Stone, I learned about the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie. For the most part, the Jonesverse and the Joan Wilderverse exist on their own, but there are some interesting coincidences. DeVito nearly played Sallah. Joan in Stone is like a considerably more likable Willie Scott. The late Diane Thomas, who wrote Stone but had little to no involvement with Nile, was among the writers involved with what became Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Crusade, like Nile, has our hero realizing the real treasure is right there before him.

Nile is one of those movies that's weakened if you know the plot twist in advance. "The Jewel" is a holy man (Avner "The Eccentric" Eisenberg). He, like Joan, is a prisoner of and then escapee from Omar Khalifa (Spiros Focás). Omar seeks to consolidate power among the Arab population and planned to have Joan write his biography. To the movie's credit, the oddity of a fiction writer getting involved with such a project is acknowledged*. Anyway, it takes over 70 minutes for Jack to learn there isn't an actual gem involved, followed by nearly 20 minutes after that until Ralph (DeVito) finds out. If nothing else, at least now we know the concepts of the other shoe dropping and the rule of three don't really mesh.

*That said, I would have loved for Gloria (Holland Taylor) to ask, "Oh, did Danielle Steel say no? What about Stephen King? Did you try Norman Mailer?"

Directed by Lewis Teague, Nile was written by Mark Rosenthal & Lawrence Konner and rewritten by an uncredited Ken Levine & David Isaacs. Like Stone, it was produced by Douglas. Both Douglas and Turner were contractually obligated to make Nile, with the threat of a lawsuit ensuring her involvement, but to their credit, I didn't think the baggage came across on screen. While I agree with Janet Maslin, who wrote that nothing in Nile wasn't done better in the earlier movie, I'll note that when the overall material is that appealing, it papers over some flaws. Let's use the Nubian tribe's celebration** as an example. We've seen Jack and Joan make a love connection on the dance floor before. They're facing the same issue as before, questionable compatibility. And yet, the moment worked for me. 

**Presumably the most prominent work to date by choreographer Billy Goodson.

*Jack and Joan are kissing up a storm in a hut.*

"I'm sorry I got people shooting at you again, Jack."

"Are you kidding? We're the perfect couple when we got people shooting at us. It's the slow times we're not too good at."

"I guess I just expect too much."

"We both expect too much."

"Oh boy ... Thank you for coming to Kadir with me."

*She's trying her luck, and they both know it. He keeps kissing her.*

Unfortunately, two of the more prominent elements of Nile didn't work for me. I didn't like how Ralph was increasingly sidelined at the movie went on. It's like DeVito was brought back for name value, but everyone involved was more interested in showing off Eisenberg***. To their credit, Eisenberg and DeVito are both memorable in Nile. The former has some good chemistry opposite Turner and I agree with Roger Ebert, who favorably compared him to Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters. The latter gets some okay moments with Douglas, but really comes alive with The Flying Karamazov Brothers, in particular Paul David Magid as Tarak. It takes the edge of some lines that might not fly so well in 2020.

***Who had just finished an off Broadway engagement performing magic before making Nile.

I'm trying not to do Critic's Corner in the actual review, but some relevant points were made. Maslin is right that it's apparent "how much costly, unnecessary trouble went into getting (Nile) made." The $25 million budget is apparent in sequences like Jack causing damage with an F-16 fighter jet, or Omar's failed rally, which concludes with The Jewel genuinely walking through fire. I also agree with Paul Attanasio, who singled out how bad the special effects are during The Jewel's feat. For much of the movie, People wrote, no one's going beyond the motions of an adventure comedy. I am going to stick up for the sequence where Joan's dangling over the side of a train while guards menace her and Jack.

To state the slightly obvious, Nile is the Temple of Doom of the Douglas-Turner-DeVito movies. Or to repeat my point (and throw another franchise in for shits and giggles), it's the Search for Spock of the mid-'80s Star Trek movies. Nile, et al. are not as good as the movie that came before or the movie that came after. Things that worked pretty well before do not have a guarantee to work as strongly. Still, if you watch with an open mind and low expectations, it's passable. Anyway, now that we know we're getting another Indiana Jones movie, perhaps it's time to finally make The Crimson Eagle.

"So how'd they get out?"

"What?"

"In The Savage Secret."

"Oh. Umm ... Jesse had a knife hidden in his boot. You wouldn't happen to have a knife, would you?"

"I'm not even wearing underwear."

Recommended with reservations.

Thoughts:

-- "Look at these guys, Colton. No sheep is safe tonight."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $76 million, this opened at No. 2 and came in at No. 7 for 1985.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "More fun and less touching than the original," according to Attanasio. "What was once a love story is now an out-and-out romp." People: "Making toast is a profound experience in comparison with the plot of this movie." Still, Nile impressed David Denby, who liked it more "than its crass predecessor, Romancing the Stone."

-- Critic's Corner, the cast: Turner and Eisenberg got the best notices. "She comes as close to carrying the movie as anyone can," Maslin wrote. "Douglas again lacks the dash that this swashbuckling role demands." Comparing them to Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, and then Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, Ebert called Douglas and Turner a distinct, ideally matched comedy team. Eisenberg, however was the "true comedy discovery" according to Ebert. Douglas' lack of dash appealed to Denby ("modesty becomes him"), but didn't impress Attanasio ("here's an actor who always seems to be watching himself in the mirror."). DeVito also didn't win over Attanasio: "He always seems to insist too hard that he's the comic relief." Finally, Focás came across as a bronze-level Omar Sharif, according to People.

-- Memorable Music: The score is 59-46. Nile has one entry, "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going." Sung by Billy Ocean, it plays over the ending scene and credits and went to No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the states, behind "How Will I Know." The music video is endearingly cheesy.

Courtesy YouTube

-- One more coincidence: Ralph, as part of his bonding with the Sufis, ends up walking over hot coals. A month after Nile was released, Bette Midler did the same in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. And of course, Midler and DeVito made Ruthless People after Hills and Nile.

-- "Sufis rule!"

-- Next: Out of Africa and The Color Purple. On deck: Brazil and Enemy Mine. Coming soon: The Trip to Bountiful and Murphy's Romance.