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.

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 I was truly disappointed to find that I now believe all of the negative(s) that have been this film's historical document.

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.

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 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.