Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

William Faulkner (written by) &
Harry Kurnitz (written by) ...

Release Date:

24 June 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

HER BLOOD STAINED EVERY STONE OF THE PYRAMID

Plot:

A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to insure the impregnability of tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.

Plot Keywords:

Pharaoh | Tomb | Egypt | Architect | Ancient Egypt

Cast

Jack Hawkins	...	Pharaoh Khufu
Joan Collins	...	Princess Nellifer
Dewey Martin	...	Senta
Alex Minotis	...	Hamar (as Alexis Minotis)
James Robertson Justice	...	Vashtar
Luisella Boni	...	Kyra (as Luisa Boni)
Sydney Chaplin	...	Treneh
James Hayter	...	Mikka, Vashtar's servant
Kerima	...	Nailla
Piero Giagnoni	...	Xenon (Pharaoh's Son)

Also Known As:

Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

Canada:144 min | UK:105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (RCA Sound Recording) (magnetic prints)

Certification:

UK:U (cut) | Australia:G | West Germany:12 | USA:Approved (certificate #16995) | Finland:K-16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Egypt

Company:

Continental Company

Trivia:

According to the liner notes of the soundtrack CD, the lyrics of most of the choruses heard throughout the film, often thought to be Asian, Semetic or Egyptian in origin, are actually "gibberish" that composer Dimitri Tiomkin concocted to evoke the period and "sound" like ancient Egyptian and are actually meaningless.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Throughout the movie, the palace does not appear to be far from the Pyramids. However, in the latter part of the movie, Pharoah Khufu says he is going to ride to Luxor, the location of his palace, from the site of his raid. Luxor is about 400 miles from the Pyramids. At the time of the building of the Pyramids, the capital was at Memphis (near modern-day Cairo). Luxor didn't rise to prominence until several hundred years after the building of the Pyramids.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Hamar: I, Hamar, Lord High Priest of Egypt, am preparing a chronicle of the reign of Khufu, ruler of Egypt. Word has come that again he has been victorious in the war against our enemies and now Egypt has taken its place as the greatest of all nations in the world! Today, Pharaoh and his armies return.

Movie Connections:

Featured in En construcción (2001)

superlative conception, and beautifully executed

I will not add any details that have not been mentioned before.

True, the film is a melodrama, but only a melodrama because some of the smaller details should have been better researched; for example, at the beginning of the film, Hamar (Hermiun ?) says "..this was pharaoh, direct descendant of our god Amun, who rules the heavens: as pharaoh rules the earth.." - a small boo-boo, Ra was the sun-god then. This is about the only criticism I can make, in fact I think that writers, actors, director and sets did an expert job of suspending my disbelief and on the strength of it the film deserves at least a 9: but I have given it a 10, and I'll tell you why:

A lot of people give excellent reasons why they liked this film, but no one made much of Vashtar's mechanism and yet this was the star of the show. What I loved about it was the self-evident truth staring every cinema-goer in the face; there was no celluloid fancy or anachronism here. This was a piece of engineering that could really have been devised then; and the real Khufu would have inscribed Vashtar's name alongside his own! What can I add? Only my enjoyment of how it all worked: The drama and the look on Khufu's face as Centar lowered the great stone single-handed.. And the monolithic grind of a mechanism which "..once set in motion no power on earth could stop.."