Pierre Benoit was then a famous writer :his extravaganzas seem out of time now but at the time his novels were transferred to the screen at such a speed it makes you feel giddy:Feyder ,PW Pabst ,George Ulmer and others made their "L 'atlantide ". And "Desert Legion"(1953) starring Arlene Dahl and Alan Ladd is a rip off in disguise. Today,few people still read Benoit in his native land.
Pabst 's movie (1932)outshines all the other versions, by introducing a down-to -earth explanation ,turning the whole story into illusion and mirage ;he had chosen Brigitte Helm (Maria "from "Metropolis") who appeared a dozen of minutes and had four lines to say; it might be questionable,but the queen kept her mystery.
......which is not the case in the 1949 version : Maria Montez is certainly beautiful ,but she is an extremely limited actress ,and her playing is so weak that she makes Antinea a lascivious harlot ,devoid of mystery , making the outré story even more ridiculous ,which Jean -Pierre Aumont (her real life husband) does nothing to rectify .A romantic male lead of the French thirties , his performance is sometimes theatrical.
The legionnaires had hardly begun their expedition when they were captured by the turbaned soldiers and voilà ! They are in Atlantis where they find one of their mates mummified in gold !An interminable erotic dance is pure filler, the settings are cheap ,and the final sentences of the officers are not feminist! Stick with the Pabst's version!
Pabst 's movie (1932)outshines all the other versions, by introducing a down-to -earth explanation ,turning the whole story into illusion and mirage ;he had chosen Brigitte Helm (Maria "from "Metropolis") who appeared a dozen of minutes and had four lines to say; it might be questionable,but the queen kept her mystery.
......which is not the case in the 1949 version : Maria Montez is certainly beautiful ,but she is an extremely limited actress ,and her playing is so weak that she makes Antinea a lascivious harlot ,devoid of mystery , making the outré story even more ridiculous ,which Jean -Pierre Aumont (her real life husband) does nothing to rectify .A romantic male lead of the French thirties , his performance is sometimes theatrical.
The legionnaires had hardly begun their expedition when they were captured by the turbaned soldiers and voilà ! They are in Atlantis where they find one of their mates mummified in gold !An interminable erotic dance is pure filler, the settings are cheap ,and the final sentences of the officers are not feminist! Stick with the Pabst's version!