I have in my rather large Big Box VHS video collection a film called Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold from 1985, which I have yet to watch.
However, I've always been intrigued by this obscure Victorian super gent, a lost hero from another age and much older than the Golden age of comics and the likes of Namor and Batman!
Here's a potted history.
Quatermain first appeared in the 1885 blockbuster novel King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, he of the later SHE.
An eon later Quatermain turned up in Alan Moore and Co's 1999 graphic comics The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen along with assorted meta-beings like The Invisible Man and Mina.
Moore's League was itself inspired by an earlier 1960 Jack Hawkins film, itself based on a 1958 novel called The League of Gentlemen by John Boland. Check out those balaclavas!
Coming right up to date, Quatermain next graced the screen in the form of Sean Connery in the oft-panned film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from 2003. Described as dieselpunk, I quite enjoyed this mash-up of monsters, Captains and mavericks.
Connery-Quatermain is the obvious leader of this Victorian Avengers and I particularly enjoyed seeing obscure supernatural characters like Mina the Vampire and Dorian Gray in a modern flick.
There is also Captain Nemo and a new Nautilus to be had. More of a sword than a sub, its completely different to what's gone before. Do you like it?
Nemo has his own FAB1 as well, the Nautilus car! What do you think?
I may have to watch it again now I've written this!
There's naturally more to say about the Gentlemen extraordinaire and Allan Quatermain but for now I'm taking a drive to Royston Vasey and may never be seen again!
Do you like Quatermain and the League?
