Prinzessin vom Nil

With looks that could kill, and a willingness to display her charms, Paget's sensuality leaves no doubt as to where her assets lay...

She plays a sultry-innocent 13th-century princess who rouses her people to save Egypt from the ambitions of a powerful Beduin (Michael Rennie) and joins her forces with the son of the Caliph of Baghdad (Jeffrey Hunter) to save her trembling throne... She also finds time to fulfill a great deal of exotic dancing... Her luscious legs make her hard to forget!

The emphasis is not on the plot, but on the visual pleasure of a great number of beautiful girls in sensual Technicolored costumes...

An absolutely amazing cast (Lee Van Cleef! Jack Elam!) enlivens this utterly preposterous yarn which passes off an Egyptian Hareem that's straight out of Minsky's (down to a few blondes and red heads).

Paget is both lovely and acrobatic, handling action sequences charmingly. Hunter is a stiff. And who knew Michael Rennie fenced left handed?

This film has recently been seen in criculation on AMC, and it's worth catching. The technicolor production design combines with the two-dimensional characters to create the effect of a Prince Valient comic on celuloid. But the appaling acting, ham-fisted dialog and cardboard sets only enhance the film's charm.

This is one of my favorite films for many reasons. To begin, there are standout performances from lovely Debra Paget as a princess/dancing girl, from Michael Rennie as the villain, handsome young Jeffrey Hunter investigating crime in her city/state and others. The film is an unusually colorful adventure, and we even see the princess rehearsing the dance she later performs (for once). She manages to skewer Hunter before she learns he is on her side; also the photography, the costumes by Travilla, Lionel Newman's music and the film's style are unusually fine. Add to this rousing action, intelligent characterization and fine direction by veteran Harmon Jones of a Gerald Drayson Adams' script set in 1249 AD, and you have the ingredients of an enjoyable Grecianized Near-Eastern. But there is much to praise about the unusual and well--developed storyline here, as there is much more to praise other than the film's swift pace, well-managed physical action sequences and superior technical aspects. Classically-trained actors such as Michael Ansara, Edgar Barrier, Wally Cassell, Jack Elam and Dona Drake are not commonly found in one "B" film together; nor are there fascinating sets, a variety of locales and a mystery of the quality that is supplied here. One way of assessing a film is, "If I were guaranteed to live through the experience, would I choose to undergo these events and perform these actions?" Since my answer is a resounding "yes" in this case, this film remains one of my choices as a favorite and very-underrated cinematic work. Could it be that US critics' all-too-frequent disdain for females as warriors and thinkers that as in so many other cases has caused closed minds to misprize this estimable film's obvious anti-tyranny and pro-entertainment qualities?

Even the Maria Montez/Jon Hall technicolored baubles of the '40s are eclipsed by "Princess of the Nile," Fox's entry in Hollywood's mid-'50s obsession with things Egyptian (see "Land of the Pharoahs," "Valley of the Kings," etc.) Pure, unadulterated, mindless hokum, lavishly produced (low-budgeted, actually, but using sets and costumes left over from "The Robe," this Technicolored spectacle looks like it cost millions). 71 minutes of eye-candy (the plot, having something to do with nefarious derrings-do in ancient Egypt, is beside the point) offers the cinematographer and audiences the delectable sight of Debra Paget wearing an assortment of see-thru veils, most of which hit the ground when she shakes and shimmies thru a slave-girl production number unparalleled in film history. Female moviegoers were not shortchanged: Fox's handsomest young contract player, Jeffrey Hunter, is as photogenic as Ms. Paget, while Michael Rennie lurks around in the background, stirring up evil doings in the land of the pyramids. For those who might think Paget & Hunter can't act and were only hired for their physical attributes, check out their subtle, overlooked, heartbreaking work together a few years later in "White Feather" (another Fox production that has sadly vanished into the realm of "lost films"). "Princess of the Nile" still stands in a class by itself as a cheerfully mindless, breathlessly fast-paced, dazzling testament to the glories of 3-strip Technicolor--and the seductive charms of Ms. Paget (all of 20 at the time). Put this one-of-a-kind kitsch classic at the top of your "guilty pleasures" list, and enjoy. Satisfaction guaranteed!

I first saw this movie as a Saturday

Matinee, at the Crest Theater in Portland,

OR. I adored it -- it had the

incomparable Debra Paget doing her

patented hip-wiggling Exotic Maiden role,

evil villains, secret passages, secret

identities, 50's-style exotic scenery and

costumes -- the works. I'd love to have

it on video, but as a hootch-cootchy

adventure flick it's not likely to be

available soon, if at all. What a shame!