Reminded of my frustration by EnriqueH's post concerning a film he remembers from childhood, I thought I'd ask you all if anyone can identify a film that has haunted me for more than two decades based on the following:
It was on TV in the late 80s. I don't know when it was made.
The setting was (I believe) colonial Africa (MAYBE the Caribbean) between 1890-1900, or so. It was tropical and people were sweating profusely.
The main villain was a German naval officer in command of an ironclad or armored steamship. He had round glasses and a pith helmet.
The German allied himself with local pirates/mercenaries against the heroes.
I believe the heroes and the German were both after some treasure or another.
The heroes were ragtag independents, included a woman, were I think Brits, and had to face down the ironclad with just a wooden sailing vessel.
The climax of the film was a boarding action to take the ironclad, which ended up with the Germans battening down their hatches and bunkering in the main turret after the heroes cleared the upper decks of mercenaries.
The heroes then wedged one of the ironclad's own shells inside the mechanism that rotated the main gun turret and retreated to their sailing vessel. Victory came when they sailed in such a direction that the ironclad's turret had to rotate in order to fire on them.
As the German officer watched the heroes through a periscope inside the main turret and shouted for one of his men to frantically crank the manual controls to rotate the turret (the automatics had been damaged), part of the turret exterior impacted with the wedged shell's nose tip detonator. The resulting explosion set off the ship's magazine and the whole thing exploded while the heroes cheered and sailed off with the treasure.
I saw this just once as a child and thought it was the coolest thing ever at the time.
I've scoured the internet, looked at thousands of entries on imdb from the 1960s-1980s until my eyes bled with no luck. No one I know has ever seen this film, not even the people who should have been watching me at the age I originally saw it on television
.
Any help at all would be much appreciated. I feel like some day I'm going to die and my last words will be, "What the hell was the name of that damn movie?!"
It was on TV in the late 80s. I don't know when it was made.
The setting was (I believe) colonial Africa (MAYBE the Caribbean) between 1890-1900, or so. It was tropical and people were sweating profusely.
The main villain was a German naval officer in command of an ironclad or armored steamship. He had round glasses and a pith helmet.
The German allied himself with local pirates/mercenaries against the heroes.
I believe the heroes and the German were both after some treasure or another.
The heroes were ragtag independents, included a woman, were I think Brits, and had to face down the ironclad with just a wooden sailing vessel.
The climax of the film was a boarding action to take the ironclad, which ended up with the Germans battening down their hatches and bunkering in the main turret after the heroes cleared the upper decks of mercenaries.
The heroes then wedged one of the ironclad's own shells inside the mechanism that rotated the main gun turret and retreated to their sailing vessel. Victory came when they sailed in such a direction that the ironclad's turret had to rotate in order to fire on them.
As the German officer watched the heroes through a periscope inside the main turret and shouted for one of his men to frantically crank the manual controls to rotate the turret (the automatics had been damaged), part of the turret exterior impacted with the wedged shell's nose tip detonator. The resulting explosion set off the ship's magazine and the whole thing exploded while the heroes cheered and sailed off with the treasure.
I saw this just once as a child and thought it was the coolest thing ever at the time.
I've scoured the internet, looked at thousands of entries on imdb from the 1960s-1980s until my eyes bled with no luck. No one I know has ever seen this film, not even the people who should have been watching me at the age I originally saw it on television
.Any help at all would be much appreciated. I feel like some day I'm going to die and my last words will be, "What the hell was the name of that damn movie?!"
