Champion exploitation director Jess Franco provides another installment of his brief yet prolific jungle trash series with Diamonds of the Kilimanjaro AKA The Treasure of the White Goddess AKA a bunch of other titles. The movie shares a lot with the more notable Devil Hunter, another Franco flick from around the same era: some of the "native" music is the same, the cannibal-in-chief is the same actress in both movies, and the overall confused hodge-podge of half-baked themes is similar. Of course, there's also Franco's mandatory home-video style panning and zooming into random things (usually leaves), the totally inappropriate groovy jazz music, and that distinctive trash element that marks all of Franco's oeuvre.Diamonds of Kilimanjaro has a deceptively complex plot, a story so confusing that a reasonable synopsis is impossible. A tribe of English-speaking island aborigines ruled by a drunken Scotsman kill all trespassers who attempt to steal their diamonds, except when convinced otherwise by their Goddess, Diana, a topless teenage white girl. Things get interesting when Diana's mother sends an assortment of bickering bounty hunters to return her daughter to civilization. When not arguing eternally over where they should cross the river, the rescuers develop alternate clandestine plans, including bringing back Diana but stealing the diamonds, not bringing back Diana and stealing the diamonds, murdering Diana and stealing diamonds, marrying Diana and bringing her back with the diamonds, marrying Diana but not bringing her back (forgetting the diamonds), and a few others. Just about everyone dies in the process of figuring this out, sometimes in the nude. At one point Jess Franco answers (again) the rarely asked question of whether it's possible to have a plot twist without having a plot to begin with.Those who expected a Euro-cannibal fest here should have known better. In fact, anyone who knows Franco and expected something other than what he saw needs to have himself examined. Those seeking the ever-elusive Franco "gem" might be disappointed, as usual, but might find enough cheap thrills and mind-bending confusion to make Diamonds of the Kilimanjaro worthwhile.

Jess Franco was a busy man in 1983; directing no less than thirteen films. Even if he was directing non-stop, that still works out at more than one film per month. I can't profess to have seen all of Franco's 1983 films; in fact, I only saw this one and the truly awful Grave of the Living Dead; but on the basis of the two films, I would say that less than a month for writing, filming and producing is about right. The film largely takes place in the jungle and is effectively a remake of the classic Tarzan story, although in this case Tarzan is a woman called Diana. Well...more of a girl, actually, as actress Katja Bienert was just sixteen at the time of filming! The lead actress' age doesn't seem to have put Franco off either, as she spends most of the film topless. To the film's credit, the jungle setting is rather well used; and despite being rather dull, the film at least doesn't descent into absolute boredom in the same way that a lot of films like this one have done. The ending is rather amusing - it's like Franco got so far and realised he'd ran out of film stock so just called for a wrap...though the film does run for over ninety minutes, so perhaps it was intended to end abruptly. Anyway, this film isn't really worth seeing unless you're a die-hard Franco fan.

Good old Jess Franco! The always-reliable choice of director in case you're looking for undemanding sleaze, shameless exploitation and 200% gratuitousness. Jess once again really surpassed himself with this utterly trashy piece of jungle "adventure". Let's face it, this film is basically just an excuse to have the ravishingly hot (and underage…) actress Katja Bienert parade around topless. It's actually a rather disturbing thought that an innocent 16-year-old girl had to walk around a film set naked in front of a whole crew and particularly before the gazing eyes of pervert Franco! And it wasn't even the first time, since the duo previously already made "Linda" together. Anyways, just in case you wondered: YES, "Diamonds of the Kilimanjaro" does have a plot, albeit a very imbecilic one. During the opening sequences a plane, carrying aboard a wealthy Scottish guy and a girl child, crash amidst an African tribe of vegetarian cannibals. I say vegetarian because they never at one point in the film so much even attempt to consume human flesh. The obnoxious Scot declares himself the Great White Leader and the girl grows up to become the beautiful and scarcely dressed White Goddess. Several years later an expedition reaches the middle of the jungle to get the girl back to civilization and – even more importantly - to steal some of the tribe's legendary diamonds. This could have been a compelling and action-packed adventure movie, but Jess Franco obviously couldn't be bothered. Why shoot jungle chase sequences or bloody cannibalistic rites when you can just as easily aim your camera at a hot young chick sitting naked in a tree? Most of the jungle settings simply appear to be filmed in someone's garden and there's a massive amount of clumsily edited National Geographic wildlife footage in order to fill up the gaps in continuity. The back of the DVD describes "Diamonds of the Kilimanjaro" as an ingenious, feminist and adult orientated version of Tarzan. Yeah right, they just put that sentence there because Katja Bienert's character swings from one tree to another using a a couple of times.

I have never had such a mixed reaction to a movie that I had with Diamonds of Kilimandjaro. In all fairness, there isn't any movie buff in the world who can make an argument for why this is a good movie. There is no cinematic merit whatsoever, the editing, cinematography, and directing are all poor, and the acting and dialogue are frustrating. Some parts are so slow and drawn out that it's obvious Franco was trying to lengthen scenes to make a 90 minute movie (this could have been done in less than 80). Up against that is the doctrine that as long as there's action, the worse a movie is, the better it gets. Diamonds of Kilimandjaro treads this line closer than any other movie I've seen. It's a sex, schlock, and sleaze filled movie (the three s's to bad movies), intermixed with action, fighting, and cannibal mayhem (though there is no cannibalism; hell, they never even say if it's a cannibal tribe). I tried my hardest to hate such an obviously terrible movie, but I just couldn't. It's another wonder that everything is so insanely bad that it can make it an entertaining movie experience.A plane crashes in the African plains (I guess near Kilimanjaro, but it's never expressly stated). The pilot is killed, and the two survivors, an old man and his young relative, Diana, are incorporated into a nearby primitive tribe, who zealously guard a fortune of gems. Years later, treasure hunters Fred and Payton are searching for the legendary treasure when the tribe captures them. Just when they're about to be killed, they're saved by Diana, who is now 18 (played by the 16 year-old and insanely beautiful Katja Bienert) and is the tribe's white goddess. They do leave, but they also tell Diana's mother that they saw her lost daughter. With a group almost as strange as the group in Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, they head out to bring Diana back, and as an extra bonus, find the treasure for themselves. The "cannibals" don't like this intrusion, especially when they had just let them go. Led by a cannibal priestess (played by Aline Mess), a group of warriors systematically hunt down members of the group. Fred does find the tribe, however, when Diana rescues him (and then subsequently has sex with him). She takes him to the village and to her aging godfather. Godfather "Big White Chief" (as he's referred to) tells Fred that they must leave, but Fred doesn't want to go without Diana (or the treasure, one or the other). He sticks around too long, as the group of cannibal assassins begin to catch up with him.Again, after watching this, I really didn't know what to say or think. I watched the first ten minutes on a separate occasion and thought that it was so ridiculously bad that it wasn't worth my time, but my loyalty to this wacky genre forced me to finish it out. There are some parts that I was so bored I considered turning it off to watch it for another day, but the next minute there was sex and B-movie action covering the screen, and I was helpless but to love it. It's the type of action that a chuckle turns into a laugh as it progressively gets worse and worse. Included are random gun fights, decapitations, and people with their throats slit who had the most hilarious expressions on their dead faces. Scenes of Diana swinging from jungle vines with a Tarzan-like howl nearly had me on the floor laughing (the very sloppy editing of when she lands was equally funny). Also a note of interest (which may be the most entertaining of all) is the Franco standard of nearly pornographic sex that crops up with the lamest excuses to include it (like Mari Nieto just "deciding" to go skinny dipping in a crocodile infested lake). Though Mari Nieto is very beautiful, the main eye candy here is Katja Bienert, who at age 16 made me fall in love based on looks alone. Franco definitely exploited her young body, as she's almost completely buck naked throughout, with that hemp loincloth getting lower and lower every scene.Yes, this movie is almost perfect as bad entertaining movies go, but there are too many qualms that prevent it from being raised high above the rest. As a result, even those who love trash cinema such as myself may not enjoy it nearly as much as I did (as I've said before, I'm just a sucker for exploitation). The other Franco standard of people haplessly walking through the jungle is included here as well, and these scenes are so slow it's mind-bending as you wait for the "good" stuff to reappear. Also in this array is some stock documentary footage that's very grainy and obviously different from the rest of the movie. Some of the sets look genuine, but others look like they rented out the local arboretum instead of using the real jungle. It's a very bland movie (even some of the funny action is watered down) and is terrible as far as good cannibal films go (though it's not quite a cannibal movie). Very limited gore is present, so don't expect a bloodbath when you go to watch it. Those who have seen Tarantini's Massacre in Dinosaur Valley will probably find this unappealing, as this is no where near the league of bad that Massacre is in. Check it out if your expectations are low and your taste in movies is even lower.