La Femme du pharaon

It is very difficult to adequately judge "The Loves of a Pharaoh" today. Most of this is because the film has been pieced together--much like a jigsaw puzzle that is still missing a few pieces. While the restored film is better than the insane re-creation of "London After Midnight" (where NONE of the original film exists and it is basically just a slide show with intertitle cards to fill in the gaps), it still isn't exactly complete. About a half dozen times during "The Loves of Pharaoh", scenes are missing and intertitle cards and stills are employed. Because of this, I am choosing not to give a numerical score for the film.

The story is set in ancient Egypt and I'd sure love to know exactly where it was filmed. According to IMDb, it was filmed in Berlin--but what about the desert scenes with huge dunes--they sure don't look like Berlin!

It begins with the king of Ethiopia pledging his daughter to the Pharaoh in order to cement an alliance. However, soon after, the Ethiopian princess' slave, Theonis, is spirited away by the rather dumb Ramphis. When Ramphis and Theonis are caught hiding in the Pharaoh's treasury, they are sentenced to death. But, inexplicably, the Pharaoh is so smitten with Theonis that he agrees to instead send Ramphis to work as a slave and marries Theonis. Considering he doesn't know this woman at all AND marrying her would bring on a war with Ethiopia, Pharaoh's behaviors seem irrational and silly. Just what happens next? See this epic silent and find out for yourself.

While the acting and style of the film is rather dated (even compared to other silents), the film is still rather impressive. It features a huge cast, terrific sets and lots of nice costumes. So, while the story is very weak and overly melodramatic, the overall look of the film is nice. Director Ernst Lubitsch clearly created an spectacle here--albeit one with a plot that needed a re-write as much of it just made little sense. Worth seeing once and a chance to see Oscar-winning Emil Jannings in an early film role as the Pharaoh.

Massive and brilliant restoration of this once-lost film is cause to celebrate. This 1922 epic directed by Ernst Lubitsch boasts massive Egyptian sets, great costumes, a brilliant music score and several great performances.

Twisting plot entwines the lives of Pharoah Amenes (Emil Jannings), a Greek slave girl Theonis (Dagny Servaes), a hero Ramphis (Harry Liedtke), and a vicious Ethiopian king (Paul Wegener).

After Ramphis steals Theonis from the Ethiopian princess (Lyda Salmonova)and returns to Egypt, the Pharaoh spies her and instantly falls in love. But he's already promised to return the slave girl to the Ethiopian king. Pharaoh takes the woman, but she loves Ramphis. After the lovers are caught in the treasury, Pharaoh condemns Ramphis to slave work in the quarries. But Pharaoh does not return Theonis, so the Ethiopians start a war.

Before he goes off to war, Pharaoh walls up Theonis in the treasury and blinds the architect (Albert Bassermann) so no one will find the entrance. Amenes is presumed killed in battle and Theonis, technically Queen of Egypt gets to pick a new Pharaoh and she picks Ramphis. But Amenes is not dead and soon returns to Egypt to find a new Pharaoh installed.

Serpentine plot keeps the viewer guessing as the main characters are all bound up in various promises and oaths and star-crossed loves, and no one gets what he wants.

Emil Jannings and Dagny Servaes are terrific. While the rest of the cast overacts, it seems fitting for such a sprawling story set against massive Egyptian sets.

The restoration of this film ranks among the great restoration projects, and the final result, despite some missing sections, is absolutely amazing. Well worth looking for.

As he is erecting a new treasury building in ancient Egypt, iron-fisted Pharaoh Emil Jannings (as Amenes) receives an offer of a pact with wild-haired rival Paul Wegener (as Samlak). The Ethiopian king brings along his desirable light-skinned daughter to offer as a wife for Mr. Jannings. Instead, Jannings is smitten with demure Greek slave girl Dagny Servaes (as Theonis), who has escaped from Mr. Wegener and his jealous daughter Lyda Salmonova (as Makeda). Later, Jannings catches Ms. Servaes smooching with stout Harry Liedtke (as Ramphis), the treasury building worker who snatched her off the shores of the river Nile...

Jannings is so madly in love with Servaes, he spares Mr. Liedtke a death sentence in order to win Servaes' hand. You can safely predict Liedtke seeks out his lost lover. Meanwhile, Wegener is miffed at Jannings for rejecting his daughter and understandably irate when he discovers their missing Greek slave girl has taken her place in the palace. You can safely predict this means war...

This silent epic led Ernst Lubitsch's entry into Hollywood, where his films, particularly those with Pola Negri, were wildly popular. The director had a stunningly successful career. Partly preserved silent films by renowned directors are often declared lost masterpieces. Like many, this film does not live up to those lofty description, but it is still an excellent spectacle. It's also incredibly restored. There are reportedly only about ten minutes missing, with stills and title cards filling in the blanks. The bulk of the film appears to have been digitally restored to pristine condition, by Thomas Bakels and his crew. Art/set direction is outstanding.

******* Das Weib des Pharao (2/21/22) Ernst Lubitsch ~ Emil Jannings, Dagny Servaes, Harry Liedtke, Paul Wegener

Ernst Lubitsch's final German film was a conscious effort to appeal to American producers. He had made several large-scale historical, romantic tragedies, but he ended with his best of them with The Loves of Pharaoh. I still wouldn't quite call it good, though. Perhaps its part of the incomplete nature of the film, missing about a fifth of the original film due to the very early cutting of the film in different territories that left a complete print impossible to assemble, but my problems don't seem to align with the missing footage (filled out with explanatory intertitles and a few production stills like the restored version of Erich von Stroheim's Greed). Still, it's a large scale production that mostly manages to accomplish its character-based goals. However, it's beset by Lubitsch's inability to find ways to provide depth to characters in the silent film medium once again, holding it back.

The Egyptian pharaoh Amenes (Emil Jannings) receives the king of Ethiopia Samlak (Paul Wegener) who brings along his daughter Makeda (Lyda Salmonova) to marry Amenes. On their way to the Egyptian capitol, Makeda's Greek slave girl Theonis (Dagny Servaes) comes across Ramphis (Harry Liedtke), the son of pharaoh's architect Sothis (Albert Bassermann) who steals her away and takes her home with him. This angers Makeda and, by extension, Samlak so that when they meet Amenes they bring it up, extracting a vague promise from Amenes to pursue the thief, though he obviously has no intention of following through. He's more concerned with the large gift of treasure that Samlak offers Amenes in an effort to forge an alliance between the two nations, only paying attention to Makeda because of the jewels around her neck.

One of the early issues with the film is how Theonis ends up in the grasp of Amenes. The pharaoh is building a great treasury (it's the name for his final resting place) in the form of a sphinx, and he has forbidden anyone from getting near it, including himself. So, Ramphis decides that, in the middle of the night, to impress Theonis, he's going to take her to the treasury on a lark where they get captured by pharaoh's troops. This is where the thinness of character begins to bite the film. I think it was a single intertitle that said that Sothis was the architect of the treasury at this point (it becomes more explicit and important later), so the film implies a lot of what goes into Ramphis' decision, so much that it feels like it comes out of nowhere and is completely reckless in a way that doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. This section is where it seems most of the missing footage would be, but it's more about the introduction of Theonis to the Sothis household than Ramphis' doomed excursion.

The commotion brings Theonis to Amenes' attention, and he's instantly smitten with her. This is the other side of the early part of the film that feels thin. It's an instant attraction, more in alignment with lust than love, and the entire rest of the film relies on it. I mean, I get it, but I don't think the film puts in the work to make the emotion from Amenes feel real. In order to appeal to her, Amenes offers Ramphis a pardon that manifests as a lifetime of hard labor in the quarry. So, we have a slave girl attached to a powerful man she doesn't love, a rival nation angered at the disrespect they experience when they find out that Amenes won't give up Theonis, and a young man being crushed by the powerful man. The actual moving of pieces to get them into this place is a bit weaker than it could have been, but it largely works in some rudimentary ways.

It's about the halfway point where the film starts cranking along in a more efficient fashion, taking the early pieces that feel underdeveloped and making the most of them. Lubitsch set out to make an epic to prove to producers that he could work on Hollywood scales, and it's where the movie shines. There's a large battle as Ethiopia invades that's handled really well. It's not just for show either, providing a plot twist that the film follows through on, changing dynamics late in the game in rather drastic ways. It seems like, for a moment, that we're getting some sort of storybook ending where all is well and it's a weird feeling, but there's tragedy to be had hinging on the surprise return of a thought-dead character. These historical movies from Lubitsch really do embrace the tragedy (my favorite final moment being the title character's head in a basket in Madame DuBarry), and he's only ever hampered by his weakness with characters in the silent film space.

I don't think he quite overcomes the inherent weaknesses of character, but Lubitsch ends his German period with his strongest historical film. I still think he's demonstrated a more natural strength in silly, witty comedies than this heavier stuff, but he's also proven to be a competent filmmaker in a variety of genres, if he hasn't really demonstrated a strong command of the silent film form that someone like Fritz Lang had done in the same environment. I look forward to him finishing out the silent period working in Hollywood and making the transition to sound. If anyone needed the transition to sound most, it probably was Ernst Lubitsch.

"Das Weib Des Pharao" (1922) has been one of the most anticipated silent film restorations released in this modernen year. September saw the long awaited premiere of the film which was superbly restored thanks to the efforts of different European institutions. This little known Herr Ernst Lubitsch movie of his German period is now available to the joy of silent film fans around the world.

"Das Weib Des Pharao" was the last film directed by Herr Lubitsch before he departed to Amerika where his career was very different in terms of artistic style and goals. Certainly "Das Weib Des Pharao" is characteristic of his work during his Teutonic epoch.

First of all, the film is "kolossal": magnificent décors, lavish and gorgeous costumes, crowd scenes astonishing in the number of extras employed. This huge production and Herr Lubitsch's mastery transports the audience back to ancient Egypt.

But "Das Weib Des Pharao", spectacular art direction and staging notwithstanding, is also a tormented love story, intimate and nuanced and combining seamlessly with the more spectacular dimension of the plot, the war between the king of Ethiopia Herr Samlak ( Herr Paul Wegener ) and the pharaoh Herr Amenes ( Herr Emil Jannings ). The conflict begins when the king of Ethiopia invades Egypt because his daughter, Frau Makeda ( Frau Lyda Salmonova ) has been rejected by Herr Amenes due to his infatuation with Frau Theonis (Frau Dagny Servaies), namely slave of Frau Makeda. To complicate matters, Theonis is in love with Herr Ramphis (Herr Harry Liedtke). Theonis, against her will, becomes the Queen of Egypt. Tragedy follows for all.

This Herr Von was absolutely fascinated during the scenes between the pharaoh Amenes and the beautiful slave Theonis; Jannings' restrained performance shows all the pain and longing of unrequited love as he vainly tries to win her favour. Some of the scenes are in lovely chiaroscuro; the cinematography by Herr Alfred Hansen und Herr Theodor Sparkhul is brilliant.

"Das Weib Des Pharao" is for this German count a very special Lubistch oeuvre, combining the characteristics of a "kolossal" picture with intimate melodrama. None of the Lubitsch wit is on hand and there is certainly no humor in the film to lighten the story. It remains serious all the way through and is without concessions, making it a very unique Lubitsch film whose rediscovery is a great gift to lovers of the Silent Era.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count has an appointment with his beautiful Teutonic slave instead of one of his fat German heiresses.