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| Land of the Pharaohs | |
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| Directed by | Howard Hawks |
| Produced by | Howard Hawks |
| Written by | Harold Jack Bloom William Faulkner Harry Kurnitz |
| Starring | Jack Hawkins Joan Collins |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Cinematography | Lee Garmes Russell Harlan |
| Editing by | Vladimir Sagovsky |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 24, 1955 |
| Running time | 144 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,900,000 (estimated) |
Land of the Pharaohs is a 1955 Cinemascope epic film made by the Continental Company, Ltd and presented by Warner Bros. It was directed and produced by Howard Hawks from a screenplay by Harold Jack Bloom, Harry Kurnitz and the novelist William Faulkner. The film score was by Dimitri Tiomkin.
The film starred Jack Hawkins and Joan Collins, with Dewey Martin, James Robertson Justice, Kerima and Alexis Minotis. It is a fictional account of the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, remembered in Greek as "Cheops". Collins, just 22 during production, played a beautiful greedy woman, a role she would repeat many times over a very long film and television career.
It literally had a cast of thousands (Warner Bros. claimed there were 9,787 extras in one scene[1]) and was one of Hollywood's largest-scale, ancient world epics, in the spirit of The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur and others. The film was shot on location in Egypt and in Rome's Titanus studios.
Existing prints such as the U.S. Warners DVD run 104 minutes but there are unsubstantiated reports of a 144 minute version.
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Plot
In ancient Egypt the Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins) is obsessed with acquiring gold and plans to take it all with him into the "second life". To this end he enlists the aid of Vashtar (James Robertson Justice), an architect whose people he has enslaved in Egypt. The agreement is to build a robber-proof tomb in exchange for the slaves' release, although Vashtar will have to die when the pyramid-tomb is finished to preserve the secret of its construction against tomb robbers. During the years that the pyramid is being built, the pharaoh demands tribute from all the territories. Nellifer (Joan Collins) is the princess and ambassador of the tributary province of Cyprus. Nellifer says that her province is poor and cannot afford to pay the tribute of grain—so she offers herself to the pharaoh instead. Nellifer becomes the pharaoh's second wife.
In the meantime Nellifer tries on a necklace. It is part of Pharaoh's vast treasure that he plans to have entombed with him, so he refuses to give it to her.
She plots to assassinate the Queen and take her place, and then to kill Khufu and take the treasure for herself. She succeeds in these murders. During the pharoah's funeral the High Priest has Nellifer accompany him into the sepulchre because she "must give the order" to seal the sarcophagus. When her order is obeyed, it releases a large stone in a lower chamber, letting it slide down a ramp to trigger Vashtar's mechanism to seal the tomb. Slowly the sands of the vaults run out, letting massive counterweight stones drop and close every exit before her. Nellifer realizes that she is trapped inside with the gold, while the priest, telling her "there's no way out," adds that this is the kingdom for which she schemed and murdered.
Vashtar, whose brilliant engineering device has permanently outwitted any possible tomb-raiders, was released by the High Priest to accompany his son and his now-freed people back to their homeland. As they cross the desert the pyramid is left behind, gleaming in the sun.
Miscellaneous
When the Pharaoh was inspecting, and rejecting, the Egyptian architects' models for his tomb, the third model he looks at is a model of the actual interior of the pyramid built for Khufu.
See also
References
- ^ A. H. Weiler (July 27, 1955). "'Land of the Pharaohs' Is Standard Saga". New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=1&res=9805E2DB103AE53BBC4F51DFB166838E649EDE&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
External links
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