La Source de feu

This once seemingly lost, or at least taken out of circulation, film is now back in a magnificent Kino colorized version with restored footage and sound, all of which will surely bring new fans to this unusual film.

The story has been filmed at least six times, with the Kino DVD showing excepts from the (poor) 1911 and (better) 1925 silent versions. The 1966 version may have had the best looking 'She', a regal Ursula Andress, but this one has great art deco sets (now even more amazing in color); bizarre Busby Berkeley like dance sequences (nominated for a 1935 Oscar, no less!); a stirring Max Steiner score; the cute as a button Helen Mack--also seen in the weak 'Son of Kong' (1933); and Nigel Bruce in a major role playing it straight.

Helen Gahagan plays 'She' in a passionate, mannered way with almost Shakespearian dialogue. Unfortunately she is poorly off set by a dull Randolph Scott as Leo, making her 500 year old love for him seem a little unconvincing.

Much better would have been RKO star Joel McCrea who had a more handsome profile, physique, energy and acting skill. McCrea does an outstanding job in 'The Silver Horde' (1930), 'Bird of Paradise' (1932), and 'The Most Dangerous Game' (1932). Why he wasn't in this one is a mystery, and a detriment to the film.

The only other really weak spot is that though they were in the Frozen North, you never see cold breath coming from the characters' mouths. Contrast this with the impressive 'Lost Horizon' (1937) or 'The Thing' (1982), where when it's cold, you can see their breath!

Other notes: The evil queen's purple costume in 'Snow White' (1938) is an exact copy of one of She's royal 'gowns' complete with spiked tiara! We also see the the Skull Island Kong Gate from 'King Kong' (1933).

High points: The final sequences beginning with 'The Hall of The Kings' elevate the quality of the film tremendously. The colorization really is the best here. Helen Gahagan gets several strong scenes about the burden of immortality. The love triangle focus of the film actually works because of Ruth Rose's dialog and the acting skills of both Helens.

Watching it in black and white (also included on the Kino DVD) gives the story a more nightmarish quality and is also recommended. For both, I give them a 7.

This is an uneven movie, with an uneven script and uneven acting (Randolph Scott is particularly unconvincing too much of the time), but its strengths are remarkable.

She's music and sets are astonishingly good. Steiner's score is aptly suited to the twists and turns of the action, and at times it even sounds as though there's a theremin playing, although it's probably just a violin at the high end of its range. (Note/wuestion: why doesn't the spellchecker for a film website not recognize the word "theremin"? Surely that instrument has been used to notable effect in many movies.)

The "natural" sets (ice cliffs, snowy plains, and spooky caverns) are dramatic and artful, and the architectural sets, influenced by cubism, expressionism, and art deco, are among the finest pieces of design in the history of film. The abstract costumes of the inhabitants of She's kingdom (desighed by Aline Bernstein) are also breathtaking in their stylishness and imaginativeness. The lighting and cinematography is also noteworthy, and the special effects are very good for their time.

This may sound like I'm dwelling on peripheral issues, but when the score, art direction, and camera-work are this inventive, they turn an OK film into a wonderful one. Few movies have ever been such delights to the eye and ear.

"She," adapted from H. Rider Haggard's timeless tale, has been produced multiple times, although never as entertainingly as the 1935 version, starring the imposing Helen Gahagan as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, the eternally beautiful ruler of the lost kingdom of Kor. This would be the only film appearance of Gahagan, a noted stage and opera star who later entered the political arena as Helen Gahagan Douglas. Reportedly, Gahagan was embarrassed by the movie and vowed never to heed Hollywood's call again. But perhaps she was her own severest critic, since "She" represents Depression Era escapism at its very peak.

The movie was produced by Merian C. Cooper, who'd struck it rich two years earlier with "King Kong." Those with sharp eyes will note that the enormous gate cutting Kor off from the outside world is the same one which served -- for awhile -- to hold Kong in his natural habitat on Skull Island. This outrageously opulent adventure tale stars the stoic Randolph Scott as American explorer John Vincey, who ventures into the Arctic to find the story behind a cryptic, 500-year-old letter. Accompanying him are the jolly Holly (Nigel Bruce, later to become a familiar face as Dr. Watson in the Nigel Rathbone "Sherlock Holmes" movies) and the feisty Tanya (Helen Mack), who's secretly attracted to John.

After surviving an avalanche and battling cave-dwelling cannibals, the intrepid trio comes face to face with a much greater danger, the imperious She, who has been bathing in a flame of eternal life and biding her time for centuries, looking for true love. "I am yesterday and today and tomorrow," She muses, shortly before deciding John is the man worth waiting half a millennium for. Tanya, however, has other ideas. Thrillingly scored by Max Steiner and featuring backdrops you won't believe (check out the patio of Holly and Tanya's apartment), the movie climaxes with a dazzling ceremony in the Hall of Kings, featuring hundreds of extras performing some of the most bizarre choreography ever filmed. That sequence alone would make the movie worthwhile, but it turns out to be only one of the many treasures of "She."

Anyone who loves epic music in pictures must see, or at least hear, this movie, which has little enough otherwise to recommend it other than its often striking visual inventiveness. It is, in a sense, the feminine flip side to "King Kong", and even shares certain thematic elements. My perspective is a bit unusual; I fell in love with the music when I was 16, years before I actually saw the film, by way of scratchy old transcription discs taped and distributed by the Max Steiner Music Society ages before "movie music" had won the respect it now enjoys. Steiner's score is in his most expressionistic mode, highly akin to "Kong" but more operatic; there is even a full-scale ballet in the last act! The music is a perfect accompaniment to Haggard's novel, of which I am also very fond despite its old-fashioned elements. I have this marvelous fantasy of a new remake, faithful to the book, with a new recording of Steiner's score! Alas, not too likely. Both the novel and the music are of an earlier age probably not commercial enough today. Helen Gahagan was actually an opera singer (years before becoming the famous "pink lady" of the Nixon campaign for California!) and her approach to the part is remote, perhaps more suited to a silent movie. Cinematographer Roy Hunt positively roasts the woman with light in an effort to give her an otherworldly quality. Randolph Scott and Helen Mack are both in way over their heads, although subsidiary actors like Samuel Hinds, Lumsden Hare, Noble Johnson and the immortal Gustav van Seyffertitz come off rather better. Nigel Bruce does his standard pompous British ass, which is a pity, as he was capable of much better. The decor is great fun: this is the palace of the Emperor Ming the Merciless' dreams, if only he'd had the budget! But the superb score overrides all else. It would probably not be appropriate for me to openly hawk CDs in this place, but the original soundtrack of this picture is available from Brigham Young University archive. Beg, borrow or steal it today! The ballet sequence is as powerful as anything in Stravinsky, and no higher praise is possible. A pity the movie is not equal to its soundtrack; but that's a problem Steiner ran into more than once in his career.

H. Rider Haggard's SHE was one of a number of late Victorian fantasy/romance novels I read when I was in high school back in the late 1960s. I ran across stills from a 1935 production of the story in a book about KING KONG which I'd purchased for my mother in 1976 (KONG was one of her favorite movies). The stills were included because SHE was produced by the same creative team who had made KONG. For many years it was thought that SHE had been lost in a vault fire, before being re-discovered by a film collector and preservationist in Buster Keaton's garage. A staple of late night TV during the 1960s and 1970s, I never managed to see SHE until it surfaced in the early 1990s on VHS and then debuted on DVD in 1999. Both formats were issued by Kino International (now Kino Lorber).

There is much of KING KONG in this production including the use of redecorated sets (the giant doors that Kong breaks), a screenplay by Ruth Rose complete with choice, campy dialogue, and a throbbing Max Steiner score (some of it also recycled from KONG). This movie marks the culmination of producer Merian C. Cooper's forays into the exotic which began with his two remarkable silent documentaries GRASS (1925) and CHANG (1927) and progressed through THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932) and KONG (1933). This time however, he was without his usual partner, director Ernest B. Schoedsack who was working on THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII at that time. It was also Cooper's most expensive production to date and a box office failure although the film was quite successful when re-released along with POMPEII in 1949.

The title role (originally envisioned for Greta Garbo) was enacted by Helen Gahagen, a Broadway actress, who brings a regal bearing to "She Who Must Be Obeyed" with her sonorous voice and solid presence, but she lacked the screen charisma Garbo would have brought. The initial failure of SHE effectively ended Gahagen's Hollywood career. Years later she would enter politics and oppose Richard Nixon in California but that's another story. As the hero, Randolph Scott is...Randolph Scott. Handsome and heroic. A pre-Doctor Watson Nigel Bruce is at his best as Holly, and as Tanya, RKO contract player Helen Mack acts in her best on-screen role. Silent film actor Gustav von Seyfertitz gives a rare speaking performance as the High Priest. Samuel S. Hinds, James Stewart's dad in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, plays a small but important part as Leo Vincey's uncle in the film's prologue.

Having re-watched the movie for the first time in many years, my wife, who watched with me, pointed out similarities to Boris Karloff's 1932 film THE MUMMY. Both deal with ancient protagonists who await and encounter the reincarnations of their loved ones. There are scenes showing long-ago memories reflected in pools and, most telling of all, the title characters have similar names. Karloff's mummy is Im-Ho-Tep while Galagher's She is Hash-A-No-Tep which is not her name in the book (it's Ayeesha). Both movies are leisurely paced but SHE is 30 minutes longer than MUMMY and had the advantage of a bigger budget, (although less than half of what was originally promised for production). SHE contains some extraordinary set pieces such as the avalanche, the capture by the cave people, and the temple ceremony. The film, in turn, also influenced Walt Disney who patterned the look of the Wicked Queen in SNOW WHITE after SHE.

In 2007 Kino issued this Deluxe 2 disc edition with SHE as originally shown in movie theaters. In addition to the original black & white version, included is a colorized version supervised by Ray Harryhausen. Cooper had intended to shoot the movie in the then brand new Three Strip Technicolor process but had to discard that idea once RKO decided to cut the film's budget. Ray died in 2013 so he didn't have today's latest digital technology which could better approximate a true Technicolor appearance, but I believe he'd still have preferred his muted color approach which resembles 19th century illustrations. Both the B&W and colorized versions are on Disc 1 with commentary by Harryhausen while Disc 2 has several interviews and other special features. An absolute must see, if only for the incredible Art Deco sets...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.