Land of the Pharaohs
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Movie Reviews of Land of the Pharaohs
Movie Review: Money well spent
Summary: 4 Stars
Land of the Pharaohs was a movie that had always remained in my memory as one that had all the contents of a good movie.Movie Review: Not DOLBY DIGITAL but great copy
Summary: 4 Stars
Full wide screen, great colour, pro-logic audio. On DVD case
it states Dolby Digital. However, fantastic DVD.
Movie Review: Opulence and sex in the Fifites...
Summary: 3 Stars
Joan Collins, the Grand Dame of Soap Operas, in one of her earlier roles, in which she was even allowed to show some skin, and what skin indeed!
A forgettable History movie, since there is no relation with any historic fact, pertinent to the Reign of Cheops in it.
It is more a nice Fantasy/Love Lost/Revenge approach, that still has its qualities to this day.
Many where made in those days, just look at "David and Bathsheba", starring Gregory Peck, or even "Solomon and Sheba" starring Yul Brynner. It has to be considered as the "Great Couples of Antiquity" trend that went on almost to the Mid-Sixties, ending perhaps with "Cleopatra", starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton (a triangle?).
But nevertheless, they were all highly entertaining and in their ingenuity even well-done movies.
Actors like Jack Hawkins or James Robertson Justice are bitterly missed nowadays, and left us some powerful performances even with products like this one.
My three stars are not diminishing the value of the movie at hand, but rather stand for the true esteem I have for products of this sort.
It cannot be considered a history lesson, but rather a nice and vivid extravaganza, and as such it should receive 5 stars.
But since we are talking about people who actually lived, and who had a well-documented past or at least a summary of their deeds, even in the 50's, I must say that Hollywood did not go deeper than necessary and farther than it is obvious, to bring us such spectacle.
This is why I can only attribute 3 stars and not 5.
Transfer is as usual, well done, and for its price well worth buying.
Movie Review: A boy's own ancient Egypt
Summary: 3 Stars
Warners made full use of the invention of CinemaScope with its extravagant historical epics in the mid-Fifties: this enjoyably trashy story of the building of the Great Pyramid of Cheops repeatedly makes beautiful use of the widescreen aspect to show (via panning shots) a kind of mural effect of zillions of extras quarrying out the pyramid's stones under the hot Egyptian sun. Howard Hawks was the director and "Nobel Prize-winning William Faulker" was the head screenwriter, yet the whole thing seems engineered specifically for the taste of twelve year-old boys. There are almost no distinguishable characters other than the chief architect and his son, both motivated solely by an honorable sense of duty, and the pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins) and his haughty Cypriot second wife Nellifer (Joan Collins), both motivated solely by a greed for gold and jewels (the way children imagine rich people). The real emphasis is on what would most impress prepubescent boys: the awesome labor and planning involved in the building of the pyramid. There's also a great revenge kicker at the end that also seems perfectly pitched to young boys, and remains hard to forget decades after seeing it. Clad almost solely in lamé slinky skirts with matching lift-and-separate haltertops, Collins is at probably her most unforgettable here of all her Hollywood films, despite her distractingly awful violet-grey makeup (with bright orange lipstick).Movie Review: Pharaoh well served by cast of thousands
Summary: 3 Stars
Howard Hawks took a stab at a C.B. DeMille type of spectacular in this story of a Pharaoh and his preparation for the afterlife. It's a large scale Cinemascope production (looks goofy on a 20" screen) where little was spared in art direction and set decoration. Jack Hawkins is suitably regal as the Pharaoh and James Robertson Justice shines as the slave architect who designs his master an impenetrable tomb. A young Joan Collins provides the sexual tension as the slave girl who schemes her way to becoming Pharaoh's wife. The thin plot unfolds as expected, but it's the spectacular cast of thousands and the exotic sets that carry the day. Unfortunately, the casting of Collins has now classified this movie as part of the "camp" collection. And a commentary track by Peter Bogdanovich keeps making excuses for the movie, which is way better than he makes out. Enjoy it. Crank up the audio. And watch it on a big wide screen.