L'Atlantide

One of, if not the first version of the novel L'ATLANTIDE, concerns the story of two French Legionnaires who stumble upon the remains of Atlantis under the Sahara desert. There they meet various people including the Queen, played here by Bridgette Helm (Maria in Metropolis).

There have been at least six versions of the story brought to the screen and this is the second version I've seen.(The first on I saw was Siren of Atlantis and its pretty awful). Clearly filmed on location on the desert this movie is interesting to watch for a while, however once the pair ends up underground the film seems to get lost. I don't know if its because the print I saw is some 10 minutes shorter than the official running time on IMDb, or if there is something missing from the novel, either way the movie just sort of stops and runs in circles while I tried desperately to figure out what I was seeing. While it never gets really bad, it does get discouraging since its clear that there is a story here that would draw film makers back again and again, unfortunately what ever that quality is is missing. Running some 78 minutes this version feels twice as long.

I can't really recommend this movie since it just sort of misses the target. However if you're interested in old fantasy movies or ones that have been filmed repeatedly I'd give it a shot, if nothing else Bridgette Helm is easy on the eyes. 5 out of 10.

Note that the DVD copy from Alpha Video is a bit rough--scratchy and a bit blurry. So, you really must want to see this film if you bother buying this one! I was quite surprised by "The Lost Atlantis", as I expected quite a bit from it since it was directed by the famous G.W. Pabst--the same guy who directed Louise Brooks' famous films ("Diary of a Lost Girl" and "Pandora's Box") as well as the brilliant German dramas "Kameradschaft" and "Westfront 1918". Instead, I found the film to be quite dull and lacking momentum. In other words, it has an unusual but interesting idea but is so poorly paced that I found myself losing interest as the film progressed. My assumption is that this will happen to you, too, if you decide to watch.

The premise of this film is that Atlantis was not lost in sea but covered in the Sahara Desert. And, unknown to outsiders, this bizarre land still exists--and is ruled by a goofy lady named Antinea (Brigitte Helm). For the most part, folks just sit around in this land doing nothing while Antinea spends her time jerking men around because you assume she has nothing better to do. If she says to kill, they do--and it's all VERY slow and mysterious--with LOTS of staring from Antinea. In fact, she rarely talks (possibly due to her strong German accent) but lounges about and makes men dance because she is, supposedly, so exotic and enticing. Yeah,...whatever.

All in all, this is a pretty bad film. The plot is WAY too slow, the acting way too poor and you wonder how Pabst could have made such a film. I was hoping for a strange escapist sort of film (like "She", 1935) but instead it was just boredom from start to finish.

FYI--Helm was famous as the lady who was the evil robot woman from "Metropolis". However, in "Metropolis" her performance was much more human and emotive!

I watched the French version of this film and the casting varies slightly to the German and UK versions. This film plays on the idea that Atlantis hasn't disappeared into the sea but lies buried under the sands of the Sahara. Why not? I have no doubt that those sands are burying secrets that could help us determine our origins and rewrite our history. For this film, the mystery of Atlantis is interwoven into the culture of the native Tauregs. From a garrison stationed in the Sahara, Captain Pierre Blanchar (Saint-Avit) recounts his story to Lieutenant Georges Tourreil (Ferrieres) of how he ended up in this mythical place where he met the evil Queen - Brigitte Helm (Antinea). Is his tale one of truth or is he bonkers?

The film has an interesting subject matter and a great location to keep you watching. It's full of mystery and you never quite know what is going on as characters that we meet don't say much. Well, apart from Vladimir Sokoloff who plays the mysterious European resident who is slightly camp and totally insane. However, the film sort of meanders along and the audience has no real sense of purpose as to what the aim of it all is. There are memorable scenes that are thrown in but they may all be red herrings. Is this just one man's lunatic ravings as he has been affected by the sun? Or has this stuff really happened?

I think the thing to do is smoke some "kuff" and find out. It's easily available in Atlantis - 40% hashish and 60% opium. Everyone - let's go explore the Sahara!

This is the 3rd, and most recent, in the three films I've seen by controversial director G.W. Pabst, after his extraordinary silent classics, 'Pandora's Box' and 'Diary of a Lost Girl', both starring legendary screen goddess Louise Brooks. It's the English-language version of 'L'Atlantide', itself a sound-remake of the '21 silent film by Jacques Feyder, and, by being mostly shot on location in the Sahara Desert, went against the grain at the time of shooting movies exclusively in studio.

In Brigitte Helm, mainly known for her starring role of Fritz Lang's sci-fi magnum opus, 'Metropolis', he had a stunning villainous female, who would have made a great femme fatale, had she continued on the following decade in film noir. The script is nondescript and a tad melodramatic, and the other actors are decidedly pedestrian, but Pabst's visual elan and directorial genius shines through and lifts an otherwise drab picture. Worth your time if you're a fan of adventure films of the era, however.

COMRADESHIP (1931) can be said to have marked the relative end of the most fruitful period in the career of renowned German film-maker G. W. Pabst that had seen him create a handful of classics of World Cinema; in fact, his next venture was a very ambitious undertaking – an adaptation (in distinct German, French and English-language versions) of Pierre Benoit's epic adventure novel L'ATLANTIDE – but one that, in hindsight, would prove only partially successful. Another distinguished film-maker, Frenchman Jacques Feyder, had already made a celebrated stab at the material as a 3-hour Silent epic in 1921 and, over the years, other established film-makers – John Brahm, Frank Borzage, Edgar G. Ulmer, Vittorio Cottafavi, George Pal, Ruggero Deodato, Bob Swaim and even "Walt Disney" – would find themselves attracted to the subject of the mythical lost empire. Admittedly, I have never read Benoit's original source and this 1932 English-language version is the first cinematic adaptation of it that I am watching but, is not Atlantis supposed to be an undersea kingdom? In fact, a recent study even went so far as to imply that the island of Malta (from where I hail) might well have formed part of Atlantis centuries ago! How come, therefore, that here (and, reportedly, likewise the other adaptations) it is situated in sandy desert dunes? A criticism leveled at the Feyder film had been that his choice of leading lady (the entrancing Queen of Atlantis) was all wrong but Pabst certainly got that bit down perfectly when he cast Brigitte Helm – best-known for playing the two Marias in Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (1927) as Antinea. The plot has a little of H. Rider Haggard's SHE about it as two legionnaires stumble onto Atlantis in the Sahara desert and lose themselves within its labyrinthine dungeons replete with Antinea's past male conquests that have either gone mad or been mummified! The two male leads seemed slightly overage to me but, in any case, whatever acting capabilities they might possess would essentially have been dwarfed by the awesome sets and imaginative camera-work. As a matter of fact, this is where the film's main fault lies: the protagonists' plight never moves us as it should, even when one kills the other over Antinea or when, after her terrible secret is revealed to him, the survivor decides to go back to Atlantis anyway. The fleeting appearances of an eccentric 'prisoner' of Antinea (who speaks with a distinctly upper-class British accent and sports a Daliesque moustache) adds to the fun quotient but, overall, the stilted rendition of the dialogue (even Helm utters her own scarce lines in English) is on a par with other films from the early Talkie era. For the record, although every listing I have checked of this film gives its running time as 87 minutes, the version I watched ran for just 78! Incidentally, a movie I should be catching up with presently – DESERT LEGION (1953) with Alan Ladd, Richard Conte and Arlene Dahl – is said to have been partially inspired by Benoit's L'ATLANTIDE itself!