LAND OF THE PHARAOHS: Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1955) Warner Home Video

Meant to capitalize on the mid-fifties’ craze for sword and sand spectacle, and featuring a mint Joan Collins, cavorting in the skimpiest of costumes, director, Howard Hawks’ Land of the Pharaohs (1955) landed with a colossal thud at the box office as an impressively mounted anomaly in the director’s career. Under the auspices to make a ‘Cecile B. DeMille-type picture,’ Hawks aligned a competent script by Harold Jack Bloom, Nobel-lit-prize winner, William Faulkner and Harry Kurnitz with an, as equally accomplished cast to include the aforementioned Collins, alongside Jack Hawkins, James Robertson Justice, Dewey Martin, and, quite literally, a throng of thousands. Regrettably, none of the aforementioned, carried the hit-maker status over the threshold of box office returns. Arguably, Collins was the biggest draw. And yet, she had barely the time to make a splash on this side of the Atlantic and was, by 1955, rounding out the end of her first marriage to Irish actor, Maxwell Reed, who allegedly raped her on their first night together.

Collins was already branded Brit’s bad girl for her role in Rank’s I Believe in You (1952), her reputation for largely fictionalized wickedness, enough for Hawks to cast her as the slinky Egyptian sexpot, Princess Nellifer, who lures a trusting king onto his inevitable doom. While Land of the Pharoahs made little more than a blip at the box office, it did convince 2oth Century-Fox’s mogul, Darryl F. Zanuck that Joan Collins had the potential makings of a great star. And thus, she signed a 7-year contract that went positively nowhere fast. Of her many mediocre pictures at that studio, Collins would later muse that Zanuck could not see beyond her more 'obvious' charms to offer her more distinguished roles. And indeed, Collins would remain in the backdrop of Hollywood, rarely glimpsed playing second, or even third fiddle to major stars being promoted to the front of the line ahead of her.

The experience soured Collins on Hollywood. After being passed over for the lead in Cleopatra (1960), her Fox contract expired, Collins retreated to her native Britain where, again, she suffered for her art in run-of-the-mill fodder to keep her working, yet seemingly also to further the distance between her and inevitable stardom. It would not be until Collins appeared in the cheaply made films gleaned from her sister, Jackie’s pulpy trash novels – The Stud, and The Bitch – that Joan would at last arrive upon the kind of notoriety to launch her into movieland’s stratosphere. Joan Collins today is arguably best known for playing the uber-bitch, Alexis Morrell/Carrington/Colby/Dexter on TV’s long-running prime-time soap, Dynasty (1981-89). Yet, retrospectively, there are flashes of Alexis in Princess Nellifer, with Collins’ come hither allure offset by a spiteful streak of passion, well-played, and even more affectingly to emanate sinfulness from the screen as Nellifer tempts and toys with the affection of several nebbish males caught in her web of desire. 

Howard Hawks was given a considerably lengthy gestation period on Land of the Pharaohs, more than 50 days to shoot his epic, employing between 3,000 and 10,000 extras daily, half of whom were actual soldiers in the Egyptian Army. The girth of this embarrassment of riches can actually be seen in a single shot, photographed at a limestone quarry in Tourah, near Cairo, and, a granite quarry at Aswan, some 500-miles away. For the rest, Hawks proceeded to lens his titanic production on location; also, at Rome’s Titanus Studios. In the days before Egypt had established a preservation society dedicated to its own antiquity, Hawks had his crew cleared a ninety-foot shaft from the unfinished pyramid of Baka, constructing a ramp and foundation to approximate the original structure into which he staged his cast of thousands pulling huge stone blocks. Meanwhile, French painter, Mayo, who had worked on Les Enfants du paradis (1945) and La Beauté du diable (1950), designed the costumes to adorn Hawks’ principal cast.

The Bloom/Faulkner/Kurnitz screenplay begins in earnest with the backstory of Pharaoh Khufu (Hawkins) who has amassed great riches during his reign. Believing, as was the custom then, that royalty would find eternal youth in a state of absolute luxury on the other side of death, Khufu wishes to be entombed with his wealth, denying the grave robbers their greed. To this end, Pharaoh orders his architect/slave, Vashtar (James Robertson Justice) to design an impregnable structure. Vashtar agrees, but only if his people are freed once his work is done. The burial chamber is built to Vashtar’s specifications, creating an intricate labyrinth that will automatically seal itself off via a system of moving blocks, powered hydraulically by flowing sand. Time passes. Construction commences. But descension brews when the populace begin to understand the true nature of the pyramid, not as a holy shrine, but Khufu’s way of keeping all of his riches to himself, even as they have suffered through a lifetime of drudgery in service to obtain them for their king.

To finish this costly endeavor, Khufu levies taxes on the outlying provinces. In reply, the cash-strapped Cyprus offers up its most beautiful citizen, the Princess Nellifer. Diverted by her beauty, Pharaoh makes Nellifer one of his wives. Now, Nellifer conspires to prevent Khufu's treasure from being hermetically sealed inside the tomb upon his death. Time again passes. The now aged Vashtar’s sight begins to fade. Thus, he entrusts completion of the tomb to his son, Senta (Dewey Martin). As fate would dictate, Senta rescues Khufu from a runaway bolder and is granted a reward for his heroism. He chooses Nellifer’s slave girl, Kyra (Luisa Boni). Unwilling to part with the girl, Nellifer takes her case before the court, believing she will win. Instead, Khufu admonishes her before a gathering of her peers. From this moment forward, Nellifer will plot to have her husband meet prematurely with an untimely end. Manipulating Khufu to suspect his captain of the guard, Treneh (Sydney Chaplin) is out to murder him, Khufu engages in a sword fight. Although he defeats Treneh, Khufu is also wounded. Nellifer refuses to get help, instead watching Khufu expire from extreme blood loss. She now believes his treasures belong to her.

Instead, Khufu's high priest, Hamar (Alexis Minotis, dubbed by Robert Rietty) frees Vashtar and his people. Hamar then orders Khufu's treasure relocated to the tomb. Powerless to prevent the relocation, Nellifer presides over the ritualized burial, plotting to rule Egypt as regent to Khufu's young son, the heir apparent. After the funeral, Hamar has Nellifer accompany Pharaoh’s remains into the burial chamber. Once inside, she gives the command to seal the sarcophagus. But this triggers the tomb to begin to fill with sand. Knowing this all along, Hamar and his muted priests glower at the wicked queen, Hamar informing Nellifer, “There's no way out. This is what you lied and schemed and murdered to achieve. This is your kingdom!"  A terrified Nellifer begs for mercy as the descending stones seal her inside the labyrinth for all time. From a distance, Vashtar and Senta pause to reconsider the fate of those left to die in the burial chamber before turning on their sojourn home.

Land of the Pharaohs is an impressively mounted picture. Hawks imbues it with his considerable film-maker’s finesse and an eye for achieving some truly mesmerizing compositions. Tragically, the screenplay is never entirely up to the heavy lifting. There are entire moments that bear witness to a sort of narrative dearth over-compensated for by the picture’s production value elephantiasis. Joan Collins makes for a slinky minx, barely sheathed in one draw-dropping costume after another. It is too bad Collins, at least at this juncture in her career, cannot bear the brunt of some truly lackluster dialogue, only to amplify her early shortcomings as an actress. There is no spark – romantic or adversarial – between Collins and Hawkins who, in his Egyptian finery, appears even more effete and avuncular than Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s Seti in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956). Dewey Martin is meant to fill the void as the young buck/stud/rival love interest. And although in fine physical form, he comes across as more brittle than a stick of kindling.

And thus, the picture’s fate, like Khufu’s tomb, is sealed in a vacuum of antiseptic wish-fulfillment for a more robust and satisfying melodrama set in ancient times. The all-consuming grandeur of the piece further dwarfs what little dramatic vigor gets sustained until the penultimate tomb-sealing finale when Hawks pulls out all the stops for a truly invigorating/terrifying spectacle of impending doom. Alas, minus the drawing power of a star’s name above the marquee to sell the picture, and, given its other shortcomings, Land of the Pharaohs was never to recoup its $3,150,000 outlay, falling some $450,000 short on Warner’s ledgers. Perhaps most interesting of all, the picture was banned in Egypt on the grounds it distorted history beyond all recognition. Aside: those who seek truth from their movie-going experiences are doomed to disappointment. Go to the pictures to be entertained - period - and leave truth and history to reality, which is usually very depressing.  The box office thud from Land of the Pharaohs was deeply felt by Hawks who, believing he might have lost his artistic touch, departed Hollywood for nearly four years, returning in 1959 to make Rio Bravo.

Retrospectively, Land of the Pharaohs has developed a solid cult following. It is easy to see why. The movie is a cornucopia of mid-century Hollywood’s absurd need for lavish escapism. There is nothing outside of Joseph L. Mankewicz’s Cleopatra to touch the scene depicting Khufu’s triumphant processional into Egypt. If Joan Collins lacks artistry in her acting, she more than makes up for it as the kinky voluptuary in whose veins, pure arsenic flows. It is largely due to Collins sinfully manipulative performance that Land of the Pharaohs endures and enjoys its reputation as a cult classic.  Hawks’ meticulous craftsmanship, despite the deficits in the screenplay, holds up under scrutiny. If anything, his 'mass' ensemble sequences are bafflingly glamorous. In the last analysis, Land of the Pharaohs may not represent the pinnacle of this kind of picture-making. But it does share in the very best endeavors of its vein to provide us with a handful of truly thrilling scenes, skillfully executed and mesmeric in their beauty.

The Warner Archive’s (WAC) Blu-ray vastly improves on the careworn DVD from 2001. Shot in anamorphic Cinemascope on Eastman-WarnerColor film stock – an incredibly flawed color process – the denizens at WAC have managed another minor miracle in resurrecting much of the visual beauty in Lee Garmes and Russell Harlan’s stunningly handsome cinematography. The image here favors a warm palette with exquisite reds, blistering purples and oranges, rich and enveloping earth tones and some nice departures into robin-egg blue and vibrant greens. The distinct fading that was present in the DVD has been color corrected here. Save transitions, fades and dissolves, the image here is crisp and free of age-related artifacts. The old DVD also suffered from some minor gate weave. This too has been corrected for this hi-def reincarnation. The 2.0 DTS stereo recaptures much of the vintage ‘scope’ sound – though still with a strident strain to reveal dialogue that has been utterly manufactured and post-synced. Extras are limited to the film’s theatrical trailer and a rather sparse audio commentary by the usually more comprehensively prepared, Peter Bogdanovich with vintage inserts from Hawks recorded during an interview conducted in the early 1970s. Bottom line: Land of the Pharaohs is a titanic footnote in the annals of picture-making. As an epic for the ages, it falls short of expectations. That’s a shame. The Blu-ray has advanced image and sound quality and should be considered the ‘go-to’ edition for decades to come. Judge and by accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

FILM/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1