At an isolated fort in North Africa, the sole survivor of a rescue party, Lieutenant Saint-Avit (Jean-Pierre Aumont), is convinced he's killed his friend Captain Morhange (Dennis O'Keefe) in the lost city of Atlantis. During a court inquiry, Saint-Avit relates, in flashback, what happened when his small party was sent to find a missing expedition led by his friend, Gassone. After getting lost in a sandstorm, the party stumbles upon a city high in the Hoggar Mountains where they find Gassone's gold-covered body (along with many others) entombed in a large marble hall. The barbaric land is ruled by a beautiful, cruel, and lusty queen, Antinea (Maria Montez), who is a direct descendant of Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Saint-Avit falls for the ruthless ruler but Morhange, hoping to enter a monastery, is able to resist. Antinea manipulates a drunken Saint-Avit into killing his friend but later, stricken by conscience, he escapes and is found wandering in the desert by his fellow Legionaires. Soon after, the amused court of inquiry acquits Saint-Avit, attributing his memories to mirage, but he is later given an amulet by one of Antinea's minions and heads into the desert. A search party, led by a handsome, young Legionaire, is formed but gets lost in a sandstorm...
Unlike G.W. Pabst's 1932 version, this faithful filmization of Pierre Benoit's novel, "Queen Of Atlantis", produced by Samuel Nebenzel and released by United Artists, plays as straight fantasy. SIREN OF ATLANTIS is pure escapism filmed in black and white and quite a bit darker than the Universal "sex and sand" Saturday matinée adventures popular in the 1940s and 50s. The clever use of light and shadow help disguise a low budget and a number of scenes from G.W. Pabst's film are repeated. Directorial credit is given to Gregg C. Tallas but both John "The Lodger" Brahm and Arthur "The Chase" Ripley did uncredited work and, like Ripley's THE CHASE, SIREN OF ATLANTIS also ends on a deja vu note. Former Universal star Maria Montez is right at home portraying the evil, imperious ruler of a lost empire; sheathed in lamé with a panther by her side, Antinea plays chess with her lovers before encasing them in gold (a la GOLDFINGER) and had the tongue of her alchemist cut out for saying things she did not care to hear. Henry Daniell plays Blades, one of a number of Europeans trapped in Atlantis after becoming lost in the desert before Saint-Avit arrived. In this telling, a native girl falls in love with Morhange and tries to help him escape; when they're caught, she jumps to her death rather than face the Queen's punishment of "the slow fire". There's more than a passing resemblance to the H. Rider Haggard novel, "She", and the story was later reworked by Universal as DESERT LEGION starring Alan Ladd and Arlene Dahl in 1953. "L'Atlantide" was made again in 1961 by Edgar G. Ulmer as CITY BENEATH THE DESERT starring Israeli actress Haya "Ben Hur" Harareet. Jean-Pierre Aumont and Maria Montez were married at the time of filming and the parents of the late giallo star, Tina "Torso" Aumont.
The premise of the Atlantis films isn't as preposterous as it seems. Plato wrote of a city that sank into the ocean after a day and night of cataclysm and the Sahara is, of course, the floor of a long forgotten sea...
Author/satirist Gore Vidal used SIREN OF ATLANTIS as basis for the fictional Maria Montez movie pivotal to the plot of "Myron", his sequel to the movie-mad novel "Myra Breckenridge":
Myra's back -and badder than ever after a sex-change operation makes her male again. Who pushed Myron Breckinridge through the television screen and onto the set of SIREN OF BABYLON? Myron takes stoner late-nite TV viewing to new heights when he finds he can enter Maria Montez' 1948 SIREN OF BABYLON at will. When he goes "in" the whole cast is in suspended animation and he starts changing the scenery around and fiddling with Montez' metal brassiere and adjusting the little gladiator skirts of her guards in an effort to make the film the sexiest movie of all time. He goes to the well once too often and accidentally collides with Maria ...and becomes her! "I AM Maria Montez!!" Watch out... Myra/Myron's loose in 1948 Hollywood -inhabiting the body of Maria Montez- and is going all out to have Maria win the Academy Award and turn SIREN OF BABYLON into the film that changed the world. Too crazed to have ever pondered (or care about) the fabled "Butterfly Effect" (change even a molecule in the past and the future will be forever altered) the planet will never be the same! Meanwhile, in 1974 Hollywood, Myron's wife Mary Ann (carried over from the first novel) is ready to have him committed because all he does is cry in Spanish for his husband "Jean-Pierre" and jabber on about getting "back to the set"...
Unlike G.W. Pabst's 1932 version, this faithful filmization of Pierre Benoit's novel, "Queen Of Atlantis", produced by Samuel Nebenzel and released by United Artists, plays as straight fantasy. SIREN OF ATLANTIS is pure escapism filmed in black and white and quite a bit darker than the Universal "sex and sand" Saturday matinée adventures popular in the 1940s and 50s. The clever use of light and shadow help disguise a low budget and a number of scenes from G.W. Pabst's film are repeated. Directorial credit is given to Gregg C. Tallas but both John "The Lodger" Brahm and Arthur "The Chase" Ripley did uncredited work and, like Ripley's THE CHASE, SIREN OF ATLANTIS also ends on a deja vu note. Former Universal star Maria Montez is right at home portraying the evil, imperious ruler of a lost empire; sheathed in lamé with a panther by her side, Antinea plays chess with her lovers before encasing them in gold (a la GOLDFINGER) and had the tongue of her alchemist cut out for saying things she did not care to hear. Henry Daniell plays Blades, one of a number of Europeans trapped in Atlantis after becoming lost in the desert before Saint-Avit arrived. In this telling, a native girl falls in love with Morhange and tries to help him escape; when they're caught, she jumps to her death rather than face the Queen's punishment of "the slow fire". There's more than a passing resemblance to the H. Rider Haggard novel, "She", and the story was later reworked by Universal as DESERT LEGION starring Alan Ladd and Arlene Dahl in 1953. "L'Atlantide" was made again in 1961 by Edgar G. Ulmer as CITY BENEATH THE DESERT starring Israeli actress Haya "Ben Hur" Harareet. Jean-Pierre Aumont and Maria Montez were married at the time of filming and the parents of the late giallo star, Tina "Torso" Aumont.
The premise of the Atlantis films isn't as preposterous as it seems. Plato wrote of a city that sank into the ocean after a day and night of cataclysm and the Sahara is, of course, the floor of a long forgotten sea...
Author/satirist Gore Vidal used SIREN OF ATLANTIS as basis for the fictional Maria Montez movie pivotal to the plot of "Myron", his sequel to the movie-mad novel "Myra Breckenridge":
Myra's back -and badder than ever after a sex-change operation makes her male again. Who pushed Myron Breckinridge through the television screen and onto the set of SIREN OF BABYLON? Myron takes stoner late-nite TV viewing to new heights when he finds he can enter Maria Montez' 1948 SIREN OF BABYLON at will. When he goes "in" the whole cast is in suspended animation and he starts changing the scenery around and fiddling with Montez' metal brassiere and adjusting the little gladiator skirts of her guards in an effort to make the film the sexiest movie of all time. He goes to the well once too often and accidentally collides with Maria ...and becomes her! "I AM Maria Montez!!" Watch out... Myra/Myron's loose in 1948 Hollywood -inhabiting the body of Maria Montez- and is going all out to have Maria win the Academy Award and turn SIREN OF BABYLON into the film that changed the world. Too crazed to have ever pondered (or care about) the fabled "Butterfly Effect" (change even a molecule in the past and the future will be forever altered) the planet will never be the same! Meanwhile, in 1974 Hollywood, Myron's wife Mary Ann (carried over from the first novel) is ready to have him committed because all he does is cry in Spanish for his husband "Jean-Pierre" and jabber on about getting "back to the set"...