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Husband and wife team of Maria Montez and Jean Pierre Aumont star in this mix of adventure, horror and noir. Montez is stunning and along with her husband they make a beautiful couple. The plot is a bit convoluted and knowing that it was a troubled production, plot issues may stem from censorship or a surviving incomplete print.

The setting is a mountain range in the desert and the explanation for Atlantis ending up in the desert does make sense. The plot is very much like the novel She (I have plodded through the original novel...ponderous and victorian) and Montez is a natural for the part of the immortal queen. There are many interesting things in this movie one of which is Montez's giant seashell bed. Esquire magazine at the time did a color centerfold of Montez on her bed entitled Montez On The Halfshell.

This was an independent production, and a major studio or a producer such as Selznick or Howard Hughes might have done more with the property. By no means a perfect movie and not for everyone, it does have some very interesting aspects.

This is the third movie version of Pierre Benoit's novel about sexual and drug obsession I have seen, and perhaps my impressions are colored by my understandings of the themes the other versions tried to explore. I see the sexual obsession clearly, with the emasculated men -- including Henry Daniell in a surprisingly lively role -- but the other themes seem lost, Maria Montez' impact muted even by the voluptuous camerawork of Karl Struss.

Perhaps the movie's other themes were lost to the Production Code, which somehow allowed the sexuality to shine through (Miss Montez and co-star Pierre Aumont were married until the lady's death by drowning at age 39), but at least one of the movie's three directors seems to have read the book, and at least one has not. There is at least one large gap in the print I saw, which comes in four minutes under the official running time. And of course, Miss Montez, as fabulous as she looked,was not the world's greatest actres, leaving a lot for Aumont and Dennis O'Keefe to fill in.

Perhaps it would be best to look at this movie and declare it a decent addition to Miss Montez' Arabian fantasy movies, with a couple of attempts to buck the Hays Office for more mature content. Over all, I find it inconsistent, but deserving, perhaps, of some kudos for that attempted maturity.... or, if you wish to look at it in another way, its prurient smuttiness.

Maria Montez's biggest success was probably the film Cobra Woman". It was a terrific B-movie and really made her a star. Now, five years later, she's back with a very similar sort of film...but this time starring her real life husband, Jean-Pierre Aumont.

The story begins at a French Foreign Legion base somewhere in North Africa. After having gone missing for some time, Lt. Saint-Avit (Aumont) is discovered...barely alive and raving. Later, after he's had a chance to recover, he talks about having spend all that time in the lost city of Atlantis as well as that he killed his friend (Dennis O'Keefe) there. He then explains and there is a lengthy flashback sequence. What follows is a story about the queen of the Atlantians (Montez)...and what a manipulative and sadistic and beguiling woman she is.

The story is decent but lacks the crazy sets and originality of "Cobra Woman", though they were obviously trying to replicate the same type of tale. It's also funny because you only see about a half dozen of her subjects...again, probably due to the lower budge. It's enjoyable but slight....and perhaps might have been a bit better had they made the Queen not as insanely mean...and the Lieutenant not so in love with her...which didn't make a lot of sense.

By the way, early in the film someone mentions 'Arak'. If you don't know, it's an anise drink that tastes virtually identical to Greek ouzo.

The setting of this film suggests that it will be similar to the escapist fare which Montez starred in at Universal. She plays the man-hungry Queen Antinea of Atlantis, which is located inside a mountain in the Sahara Desert, into which two officers of the French Foreign Legion stumble. Within this setting, however, the story played out is not an action adventure, but psychological melodrama, involving a femme fatale, obsession, deception, jealousy, murder, guilt, repentance, and fatalism.

There are many noirish resonances: the monochrome photography of the claustrophobic torchlit chambers of the underground kingdom, the obsession of St. Avit (Jean-Pierre Aumont, Montez' real life husband) for the queen, the amoral cynicism of the court librarian Blades (Henry Daniell), and the alienation of all the characters. The nearest thing to normality is the Legion outpost. The film ends with a strong suggestion that nothing has been resolved and that the same sequence of events is about to be replayed.

This was Tallas' first film as director. He had previously been an editor, and indeed edited this film as well as directing, but the film's producer, Seymour Nebenzal, probably had more influence over the mood of the piece. Two years earlier he had produced "The Chase" (which also ended with the suggestion that it was all about to start again), and three years later produced "M" - clearly a man with a taste for the noir. The two uncredited directors also have noir credentials. Arthur Ripley had directed "The Chase" for Nebenzal, and John Brahm had directed "The Locket."

The film suffers from somewhat disjointed narrative flow in parts, although this may be due to damage to the surviving copies. Whatever its faults, it is better than many reviews suggest, and is surely the weirdest amalgam of exotic "eastern" and film noir that you will ever meet.

Before the 3-M's, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield, and Mamie Van Doren...

There was Maria Montez.

Sultry, Underused Sex-Siren of the 40's.

Here Her Beauty Stands Out Among the Gloomy, Depressing Sets and Story of a Deadly, Timeless, Ancient Remnant of a "Queen".

This Time it's Atlantis.

But in this Ultra-Low Budget Movie there is No Sprawl of the Island Extravagances.

Just a Few Torch-Lit Rooms, Unics, and Dancing Girls.

It's All Heavy Romantic-Fantasy Melodramatics with Montez Mesmerizing any Male that Dares Breathe the Same Air.

The Accents are as Heavy as the Norish Lighting and the Mood.

Maria Montez seems to be Having a Great Time with it All as the Men are Suicidal, Homicidal, and a Mess at Montez's Whim.

Some Iconic B-Actors Show Up, like Dennis O'Keefe and Henry Daniel as a Gay Voice that Can't Stop Commenting on the "Handsome Men".

But it is Montez and the Mood that Makes this Syrupy Delight.

Along with the Prevalence of Phallic Symbols with the Lurid Pulp Magazine Sensibilities.

For Fans of Eroticism and B-Movies, Definitely....

Worth a Watch.

French Foreign Legionnaires "André" (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and his friend "Jean" (Dennis O'Keefe) have been missing in the Northern Sahara desert for quite a while before the former man is discovered, disorientated, dehydrated and rambling on that he has killed his pal and that he has spent quite a bit of the time he was missing in the not so underwater kingdom of Atlantis. Turns out this kingdom is ruled by the ruthless queen "Antinea" (Maria Montez) and this exhausted soldier now regales us with tales of his perilous escapades. It's a perfectly watchable little desert adventure propped up by stalwart Henry Daniell and some charming contributions from her leopard "Nissa" - who frequently acts her rather thickly-accented mistress off the screen. The sets - indeed the whole production is on the basic side, but there is still just about enough action, and nastiness from Montez to sustain it. Don't aim too high, and it will kill 1¼ hours for you easily enough.

Stangely, I had never seen this film and, stranger still, I had high hopes for it as some kind of 'discovery'. Yes, I knew its long history, its several directors, and its difficult production... yet, the mythic story always has held interest. Well, I finally obtained an only 'fair' copy, and, sigh, the film is really almost as poor as had been reviewed at the time. The wonderful surprise, however, is that Montez looks at her most beautiful in this black-and-white film! Jean Pierre Aumont and Dennis O'Keefe TRY to show some logic amidst a script that makes absolutely no sense. A fantasy about Atlantis can be fun, but this plodding, ill-written wreck shows its deficiencies too eagerly-- the mysterious entrance to the 'lost continent' (which seems to be one building, hardly even a city block) is easily reached. Where is the atmosphere coming from in the midst of the Sahara? And the water? And the people who know how to dance hoochi-koochi? There is a poetic fantasy screaming to come out, but it would require a good writer, ONE director, and some color. I was truly disappointed to find that I now believe all of the negative(s) that have been this film's historical document.

This film is a combination of a subtle adventure and love, mystery and revenge and abandonment in the unforgiving Sahara desert.The mystery queen Antinea, of the lost Atlantis, has a penchant for embalming her lovers and using them as ornamental statues in her gallery, until finally, she met a lover who could resist her charms. It is a real pity that this movie is not available on VHS or DVD.

Pierre Benoit was then a famous writer :his outlandish novels seem out of time now but at the time his novels were transferred to the screen at such a speed it makes you feel giddy:Feyder ,PW Pabst ,George Ulmer and countless others made their "L 'atlantide ". And "Desert Legion"(1953) starring Arlene Dahl and Alan Ladd is a rip off in disguise. Today,few people still read Benoit in his native land. His name is slowly fading.

Pabst 's movie (1932)outshines all the other versions, by introducing a down-to -earth explanation

Such is not the same is this exotic tale ,where mystery is kept till the very end ; it might be a mirage ,caused by the overwhelming blistering sun .

Jean-Pierre Aumont ,the French romantic young lead of the French thirties co-star with real-life wife Maria Montez ,whose acting talent does not match her beauty ,to put it mildly ; Aumont himself ,sometimes considered a bland thespian in his native France,has here a tendency to overplay, his eyes supposedly haunted by this cruel magnificent queen ;with its lascivious dances ,its duels ,its pasteboard palace , the film is actually a forerunner of the Italian peplum which would thrive ten years later.

Entertaining on a rainy day ,if you do not ask too much.

This is Monteziana at its best; Maria M even acts here, and the monochrome cinematography is splendid. The story has been filmed several times. This curio was Montez' first film after leaving Universal Pictures, where she had made a series of wonderful colour adventures, including COBRA WOMAN, directed by Robert Siodmak and scripted by a very young Richard Brooks. The author Gore Vidal did attempt to ridicule Montez and her fans in his sequel to his own Myra Breckinridge, called MYRON, but this seemed part of the author's long-time resentment of the Hollywood system and the way in which, during the 1960s, Hollywood cinema suddenly was being taken seriously by many film enthusiasts. In any event, the Montez legacy lives on.