South of Algiers

When a film location has to change from Egypt because a fresh revolution going on there to Algeria and Tunisia where revolutionary activities were just getting into high gear against the French you know this has to be one hard luck film.

American novelist Van Heflin looking for material for a new book teams up with archeologist Eric Portman on a desert dig near the ruins of Carthage. The hunt is for a legendary Golden Mask belonging to a Roman conqueror back in the day.

Along for the ride is Portman's daughter Wanda Hendrix, Portman's daughter who Heflin falls for. There are also a couple of crooks along to try and steal this archeological treasure.

This film was Van Heflin's first foray into European film making and it looks like his paycheck cleared. I saw this film over 50 years ago on television and remember being colossally bored with it. It's not come out on DVD or any other media so I can only write this review from distant memory.

Van Heflin risked revolution for this. He's a reliable and competent aqctor, but even he's entitled to a Thanksgiving feast.

The thing that struck me about this movie was how much it set itself apart from similar 'treasure hunt' movies of its day. None of the acting was so overdone that it became unbareable. And the authenticity of the setting and location were extremely refreshing, peeking through the dusty cotton print that has survived. Van was actually cool. He didn't do any big cliches that was criminal. The Egyptian cast was first rate. No Peter Lorre's and miscast Europeans playing the native tongue to the ground. Jack Lee. BAM.

This film was recently shown on Turner Classic Movies and the print was appallingly bad. While shot in Technicolor, the print is badly faded, a bit dark at times and a bit blurry. It sure ain't pretty.

Dr. Burnet (Eric Portman) is an archaeologist whose passion is finding the famed Mask of Moloch. However, after years of searching in Algeria, he's exhausted his funds--though he thinks he's tantalizingly close. In order to finance his next expedition, he's forced to take along an American writer who he has no interest in taking with him. He thinks Nicholas Chapman (Van Heflin) is a boob, though Chapman is naturally the right man for the expedition. You know this because the British producers of this film have imported an American to star in the picture--and they'd never have such a star be an idiot! While such an expedition might seem pretty mundane, unfortunately a couple fortune-hunters, Kress and Petris are never far behind--waiting to steal the treasure and sell it to the highest bidder. You realize that something is afoot when Chapman returns to his hotel room to find it ransacked. But Kress and Petris are more than willing to go much further to get the mask.

With all these story elements, you would most likely assume it would an action-adventure film like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", right? Wrong. I agree with the other reviewers that say that it plays more like a documentary in style and especially in its pacing. The film should have been exciting but too often it just seems like a travelogue with a bit of a plot tossed into the mix. It takes too long to develop and the characters are amazingly flat. So, the dryness in this film is not just due to the desert locale! Overall, watchable but this is hardly an endorsement for you to watch the picture!

Doctor Burnet (Eric Portman) is an archaeologist from the British Museum. He is searching for the Golden Mask of Moloch and reluctantly takes along adventure writer Nicholas Chapman (Van Heflin) who offers to work for free. They are joined by Burnet's daughter Anne and followed by unscrupulous treasure hunters.

The real life street footage in Algiers is interesting. The Arab women seems to be conservatively dressed and the men are wearing fez hats. The dude doing the belly dancing is weird but I'm guessing that a female performer would never do it in the streets although a girl does do a fun dance in the desert. Let's be frank. The story is a bland Indiana Jones in a suit and tie. The local colors are much more interesting and the locations are great. Sadly, this chocolate covered confection has a bland chalky white center as in the white characters are all very bland.

Racism is implicit in this movie: the cast and crew must have smelt the coming rebellion against French colonial rule. All the Arab characters were played by Europeans, albeit the main Arab role, "Thank-you", was played by an Indian-Englishmen, who'd gone to Oxford, was probably the most educated person on the set. He seemed to be heavily made up, with skin darkening, which reminds me that the English in India sometimes referred to Indians as "blacks" (one of the nicer terms). There was one name in the cast, "Abdie", whom I cannot remember, who was played by "Massoud". Well, how did the audience like it? How did the audience react to little Jasmine and her brother with their donkey? How did these two "desert Arabs" come to speak English? Racism is a sort of romance, where at the end the romantic ones slaughter those about whom the romance is written. That's the plan, anyway. In actual life, usually it is the racist-romantics who get slaughtered, or at least lose their empires. Can we say that the plot, concerning an ancient Roman, "Marcus Manelius", a looter of a city of the other ancient empire in the region, Carthage, successor to Phoenecia, warns us of the fate of all empires? Is that the actual message of the movie with Van Heflin's gentle humor?