Reviews

Since there have been over 250 "reviews' of this already, I'll be brief. There is no suspense, there is little drama and the general feeling at the end of this tedious "spectacle" is "so what?" Egyptological laughs: Five Canopic jars - look that one up if you don't understand the reference. A Book of the Dead that is actually a book - they were on papyrus scrolls. Gilded (not gelded) priests ala "Goldfinger". Etc.

This early silent (1912) is a bit creeky (canvas flats that move in the breeze and a ship pushed on from the wings) but is an early attempt to use ancient history as the inspiration for a film drama. Helen Gardner and her troupe filmed a stage production, typical for the time, with little awareness of the possibilities of the medium. The plot actually comes from another source than Shakespeare and is not the usual Anthony and Cleopatra story. It may be based on a French 19th century opera which, in turn, can be traced back to a short story by Alexander Pushkin. This film is an excellent example of the state of the art in the time that it was made.

For 1939 and early color this is a film to be remembered. As Maltin says, Kenny Baker is not ideal, mainly because he has the only American accent in a cast of English G&S specialists and strikes a somewhat discordant note.

(I saw this film when I was in the second grade and I still have vivid memories of it, I might even say that it opened a whole new world of musical theatre to me).

Badly written adaptation of a bad novel and a badly directed film that relies on exotic locations and glitzy set decoration, featuring a beautiful "Egyptologist" who has never before been to Egypt, who takes a taxi from the Nile Hilton to the Cairo Museum (next door to each other), and goes into the tomb of Tutankhamun with a Polaroid camera to "do research". (If the public does not understand why this is laughable, they deserve this film). The title "Sphinx" has nothing to do with the plot, which is loosely about the discovery of a lost tomb. Not exactly PC because all the "good" Egyptians are played by Europeans and the "bad" Egyptians are played by Egyptians. In the opening credits the cast names are spelled out in hieroglyphs, which seems to be the extent of the research wasted on this turkey.

This film on one level is about the discovery of a cache of royal mummies, rediscovered by a local grave robbing family on the west bank at Luxor in Egypt. On another level it is about the guilt felt by one member of that family for the exploitation of the heritage of the country made by that discovery. This is truly a beautiful film in which full use has been made of the locales and local color, beautifully directed and acted and entirely convincing as an examination of family conflict in a 19th century Egyptian setting. It did not have a large American audience at the time of its release, probably because it is in Arabic with subtitles.

Robert Taylor, with a vocabulary of one word in Arabic ("emshee". "walk" or "get moving") conducts a laughable search for lost tombs. After considerable "adventure" his native guide leads him on a long desert trek to the famous rock-cut temple of Abu Simbel and says, "there it is". He could have just as easily said "go up river until you see some big statues", since this temple has been known to the West since about 1815. One good feature is the use of the French excavations at the Step Pyramid at Saqqara as a background to Taylor's archaeological "work". Shots in Cario, supposedly around the beginning of the 20th century, show a remarkable amount of modern electric and telephone wire. Not for anyone interested in historical accuracy, either ancient or modern.

I seem to be the only person who has noticed the remarkable similarity between "Sister Act" and "Brother Orchid", a 1940 Edward G. Robinson film. Does anyone else agree? Certainly the details of the plot have been changed to make the central character female and a singer. In the earlier play/film the Robinson character was a gangster who took refuge in a monastery when he was in trouble with the mob. He uses his business "talent" to put the institution on a better footing, as I remember, by selling flowers. The basic plot is that of the worldly individual entering a religious setting, at first attempting to con the inmates, and then becoming a real part of their system.