Atlantide

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.