BY JERRY ROBERTS

October 13, 2003

"In Ninteen-Hundred Ninety-Two Columbus sailed TWO big screen boo-boos" -- Leonard Maltin

Leonard, I couldn't have said it better myself.

1992 may have been the 500th anniversary of Columbus' historic voyage but it couldn't have come at a worse time. 1992 was the year in which political correctness was in flourish and any discussion about old Chris was bound to be met with collective teeth gnashing. While the dubious festivities were welling up for the event, native americans were reminding us that Columbus, in reality, discovered nothing.

That would be my argument about the two big screen efforts spewed forth to mark the occasion, both of which evoke the swashbuckling epics of yesteryear, both are successful at getting Chris across the ocean but neither figures out what to do when he gets there. Neither has the nerve to help us understand what he went through and both convince us that Columbus was nothing less than a typical man too stubborn to ask for directions.

None the less, 1992 was the year in which Hollywood trodded out two screen blunders about the famous explorer. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery and 1492: Conquest of Paradise Nina'ed and Pinta'ed their way into theaters and were met with the kind of reception that usually accompanies ring worm.

First came Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, a disasterous voyage from Alexander Salkind, the producer behind Superman. Chris is played by French actor George Corraface who fills the role with the exuberence of a stale dinner roll. He looks great, he has a great smile and his teeth are brushed but I wouldn't let him help me across the street for fear of falling off the other curb.

As the movie opens we find him swinging and slashing his way around Spain robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Yes, he performs the duties of Robin Hood, it's that bad. When he finds time for a break he tries to prove to the locals that the earth is round by using an apple as an example. Yes, an apple, which is not round. No wonder soundly poo-poos his theories.

He wants to go out and see if his theory is correct but first he has to get through King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel played respectivly by Tom Selick and Rachel Ward. That's right, the fate of Columbus' journey is decided by a fashion model and Magnum P.I. I hope that you're laughing as hard as I did. Laughter too was inspired by Marlon Brando who phones in the role of Torquemada so badly that I wanted to hang up and cancel my service.

Anyway, the voyage to the new world has about the dramatic weight of Gilligan's Island. After three weeks at sea (and on screen), the crew grows restless and Columbus helpfully offers to be beheaded if land isn't spotted in three days. Sure enough three days later his head is on the block and the axe in position when land is spotted. Discovering a new continent couldn't have come at a worse time.

He gets to the new world where all the natives are pretty, copper-skinned and naked. Apparently realizing that the movie is thusfar a deadly bore, the producers set the chief's buxom bare-breasted daughter at the center of every shot hoping that we will think that this excursion might have it's advantages after all. If history were rewritten in the context of this movie, early America would be little more than a picture postcard from a nudist colony. Heck the way this movie bashes history, the ships could have been piloted by Burt Reynolds.

After having dinner with the natives, Chris waves goodbye and heads back to the old country where the movie mercifully leaves this three hour tour behind.

Slightly better but no less labored is "1492: Conquest of Paradise" which, unlike CC:TD was at least released the Friday before the anniversary (the previous came out in August). The title role here is occupied by another French actor, Gerard Depardieu who does a pretty good job of at least showing Columbus broody and thinking. My problem is that Columbus was an Italian living in Spain but here played by a Frenchman. That wouldn't bother me so much if Depardieu's accent weren't so unquesionably French that, suggested by his dialogue, he won't PROVE that Asia can be found in the west, he will PROBE it.

Depardieu does his best but it's the rest of the cast that drags the movie down including Sigourney Weaver as Queen Isabel who doesn't chase any monsters except for maybe the screenplay. Depardieu utters every line at if it were his last, lines like "Paradise and hell both can be earthly." Yeah! Okay! You bet!

The supporting cast includes the usual cast of subordinates and naysayers, the worst of which is Armand Assante as the second in command who looks and acts like a Spanish vampire and spends 95% of the movie on the back of his horse. No kidding, you've never seen as actor more attached to his equine companion since John Wayne. Assante plays the villian in the film and you just know that every time he goes near a native, he is going to whip out his sword and shish-kabob someone from atop his steed. I was kidding when I said he would do that and not terribly floored when he did.

This movie doesn't find Chris swashbuckling, but instead poured over his maps in the middle of a Spain ravaged by the black death and drippy set decoration. He gets permission from Ellen Ripley to sail across the sea but in terms of screentime the voyage is just a jaunt across town. The trip takes up about 8 minutes and no sooner does Chris get his paddles in the water before he's naming the land San Salvador for reasons never explained.

The movie got less of a critical bashing than the previous film, I think, because it looks so good. The costumes and art direction (after we get out of the streets of Spain) aren't bad. Adrian Biddle baths Queen Isabel's court in a wash of gold. There isn't anything really wrong with that except that he doesn't leave in the court. The Pina, The Nina and the Santa Maria are bathed in that golden light too making less it seem like less of an arduous journey than a Love Boat cruise sans Fred Astaire.

The music doesn't help. The score is provided by Vangelas, the self-taught musician behind Chariots of Fire, the only movie in history that ever won Best Picture because it had a catchy soundtrack. The angelic chorus wells up and the jungle drums beat rhymically, so much and so often that they become less a musical score and more of a hearing test

We are informed in the end that Columbus died alone, penniless and forgotten in 1506 and that he never knew that he name would become one of the most famous in all of history. But to his fortune he never got to see two these shipwrecks.