Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

William Faulkner (written by) &
Harry Kurnitz (written by) ...

Release Date:

24 June 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

HER BLOOD STAINED EVERY STONE OF THE PYRAMID

Plot:

A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to insure the impregnability of tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.

Plot Keywords:

Pharaoh | Egypt | Tomb | Architect | Ancient Egypt

Cast

Jack Hawkins	...	Pharaoh Khufu
Joan Collins	...	Princess Nellifer
Dewey Martin	...	Senta
Alex Minotis	...	Hamar (as Alexis Minotis)
James Robertson Justice	...	Vashtar
Luisella Boni	...	Kyra (as Luisa Boni)
Sydney Chaplin	...	Treneh
James Hayter	...	Mikka, Vashtar's servant
Kerima	...	Nailla
Piero Giagnoni	...	Xenon (Pharaoh's Son)

Also Known As:

Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

Canada:144 min | UK:105 min | USA:106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (RCA Sound Recording) (magnetic prints)

Certification:

UK:U (cut) | Australia:G | West Germany:12 | USA:Approved (certificate #16995) | Finland:K-16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Egypt

Company:

Continental Company

Trivia:

The movie was Howard Hawks's first commercial failure. It caused Hawks to take a break from directing and travel through Europe for a number of years. He made his next movie, Rio Bravo (1959), four years later - the longest break between two movies in his career.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Throughout the movie, the palace does not appear to be far from the Pyramids. However, in the latter part of the movie, Pharoah Khufu says he is going to ride to Luxor, the location of his palace, from the site of his raid. Luxor is about 400 miles from the Pyramids. At the time of the building of the Pyramids, the capital was at Memphis (near modern-day Cairo). Luxor didn't rise to prominence until several hundred years after the building of the Pyramids.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Hamar: I, Hamar, Lord High Priest of Egypt, am preparing a chronicle of the reign of Khufu, ruler of Egypt. Word has come that again he has been victorious in the war against our enemies and now Egypt has taken its place as the greatest of all nations in the world! Today, Pharaoh and his armies return.

Movie Connections:

Featured in En construcción (2001)

Extremely underrated.

Because it belongs to a genre that has grown unhip ,Howard Hawks's magnificent epic ,his only movie in cinemascope ,gets incredibly low ratings."Rio Bravo" 's screenplay is not much better than "pharaohs" ,but it's fashionable to put a western on your best movies list.A sword and sandal cannot be serious (with the exceptions of "Ben Hur" and "Ten commandments" )and that's why "the Egyptian" and "land of the pharaohs " are despised and dismissed as cheesy.

Hawks's movie has one of the best ,most impressive and terrifying ending I know.These last pictures are a riveting tour de force with an editing to rival the best of Lang or Welles.The story spreads over fifteen years ,which is long for a relatively short work.Hawks was obviously more interested in his villains (Hawkins and Collins) than the heroes(the architect slave (Justice),his son and his people:both are fascinating.The pharaoh's dream of eternity is selfishness itself disguised as religion.To be buried with his riches to be able to enjoy them in his second life paradoxically seems a pagan attitude;the architect ,in direct contrast to him,is a slave who 's got nothing and he did not believe in life after life:it might make think of a Jew but neither him nor his people seem to have a religion,which is a very original move for a peplum (in Curtiz's "the Egyptian" ,the precedent year,the same went for the hero Sinouhe:these are the only examples in an epic).Hawks might have been influenced by Lang's wife's screenplay "das Indische Grabmal" ,which Lang finally took to the screen in the late fifties but which was filmed by others before him.Do not let the Faulkner reference fool you.He reportedly wrote half a page of script which can be summed up as follows:"Pharaoh pays a visit to the pyramid while the workers are sweating blood to get it done and he asks "how 's the work coming on?".

Nellifer is Joan Collins at her bitchiest: a greedy woman,who had already problems with dynasties.Unlike pharaoh,she wants to have her cake and eat it.Her acting is pure camp ,which fits the character like a glove.Her fate will make your hair stand on end.

Hawks makes a wonderful use of the cinemascope , when he displays a cast of thousands and when he directs his characters in the confined atmosphere of the pyramid.He succeeds in creating a sublime contrast between the dark subterranean of the grave and the luminous blue sky of the desert,particularly in the last sequences ,I say it again,among the very best of the fifties cinema.