Secret of the Incas (1954)

[Edgy MD]

Chahlton Heston stars as a complete dick of a treasure-hunting desperado in the Edith-head movie that inspired Indiana Jones' wardrobe. Unfortunately, seeing it now, you just think "That smug dick thinks he's Indiana Jones --- how embarrassing."

Anyhow, it all comes off as a budget Indy movie as he traipses around Machu Picchu with Robert Young as a gentle archaeologist and Nicole Maurey a glamourous Rumanian exile on the run. Uncle Billy is a competing treasure hunter --- a rather pathetic villain in a heavily stained cardigan -- and Yma Sumac sings Incan songs with a bizzarre super-human range and what sounds like New York night club arrangements behind her. Probably added to the movie a lot of what passed for sophistication at the time, but it brought the derring do to a screeching hault.

Worth watching anyhow, interestingly enough, as it's connection as Speilberg source material makes it an archaeological treasure in itself.