Main Cast: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin, Alexis Minotis, James Robertson Justice
Release Year: 1955
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
"Nobody knew how a Pharaoh talked!" That's how producer/director Howard Hawks explained some of the sillier dialogue exchanges in the William Faulkner-Harry Kurnitz-Harold Jack Bloom script for Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs. Extravagantly produced with a cast of seeming millions (actually there were some 10,000 extras), the film speculates on the circumstances surrounding the construction of the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Jack Hawkins plays the Pharaoh, who orders enslaved architect James Robertson Justice to build a magnificent, thief-proof tomb for him. At first, the people of Egypt willingly pitch in to construct the huge pyramid. But as the years roll by and the work shows no signs of abating, the Pharaoh begins relying upon forced labor from lands he has conquered. He also plunders the coffers of his neighboring countries. Cyprus can't pony up the necessary gold, so the country sends luscious Joan Collins (complete with a jewel in her navel) as a "present" for the Pharaoh. Fascinated by the spitfire Collins, the Pharaoh makes her his second wife. What he doesn't know is that Collins is just as much a predator as she would be in the TV series Dynasty. Hoping to gain all of the Pharaoh's kingdom and the riches therein, she stage-manages her husband's death. After the funeral procession, the Pharaoh is sealed in his tomb by a series of sand-operated weights, levers and pulleys (this speculation as to how the Pyramids were closed is the most fascinating part of the film). Collins watches in barely controlled glee; she isn't yet privy to the Egyptian custom of entombing the Pharaoh's widow alive, along with her husband's body--but she soon will be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
This motion picture lodges in film history as one of the grandiose historical epics created between 1950 and 1960 to lure moviegoers away from a new form of entertainment -- television. Like other epics of that period, Land of the Pharaohs resorts to pomp and pageantry to lure audiences back to the silver screen. For example, the film opens with a spectacular cavalcade in which Pharaoh Khufu (also known to history by his Greek name Cheops) returns from war laden with gold and precious gems to sustain himself in the afterlife. Worried that grave robbers will steal his treasure, Khufu enlists thousands of laborers to construct a colossal tomb that will secure his body and his treasure for all time. Gigantic blocks of stone float on Nile barges to the construction site. Laborers promised a share in the afterlife tow the blocks across the desert with ropes. A rousing Dimitri Tiomkin score accompanies every tug and pull. Then the pyramid rises from the nothing of sand to into a mountain of rock scraping the firmament. Meanwhile, Princess Nellifer, the pharaoh's number two wife, plots to kill him, seize his treasure, and sit on the throne. Jack Hawkins as Pharaoh Khufu and James Robertson-Justice as pyramid builder Vashtar both perform capably. But it is Alexis Minotis as Khufu's loyal adviser Hamar who delivers the most memorable performance. Hamar is a small man with a big mind; he comprehends power, ambition, greed, and the necessity for diplomacy to navigate the crocodilian waters of Egyptian court life. Like a mirror, his eyes reflect all that is good and evil in Egyptian politics, but his ambiguous face yields only an occasional hint of the myriad opinions that never cross his tongue. Not all of the acting is praiseworthy. Dewey Martin is lackluster in his portrayal of Vashtar's son, and Joan Collins overacts as Nellifer. In addition, the script -- though partly written by William Faulkner -- is uninspired. Nevertheless, the film is good enough to command and hold the attention of the viewer as it presents ancient Egypt and 1950s Hollywood in all of their flawed glory. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
Luisa Boni - Kyra; Sydney Chaplin - Trench; James Hayter - Mikka, Vashtar's Servant; Kerima - Queen Nailla; Piero Giagnoni - Prince Zanin; Carlo D'Angelo - Overseer
Credit
Alexandre Trauner - Art Director, Mayo - Costume Designer, Paul Helmick - First Assistant Director, Howard Hawks - Director, Rudi Fehr - Editor, Vladimir Sagovsky - Editor, Dimitri Tiomkin - Composer (Music Score), Emile LaVigne - Makeup, Lee Garmes - Cinematographer, Russell Harlan - Cinematographer, Howard Hawks - Producer, Don Steward - Special Effects, Harold Jack Bloom - Screenwriter, William Faulkner - Screenwriter, Harry Kurnitz - Screenwriter
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.
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.
