My apologies: there are certain films I watch through rose-tinted spectacles whether I want to or not – this is one of the rosiest. I saw it at the pictures in the mid '60's at 6 six years old and was bowled over by it; the same with Thunderbirds, King Kong and the Daleks.
In Palestine 1918 a dashing young Briton played by John Richardson becomes convinced he is a reincarnation of Kallikrates, the lover of an ancient queen (Ursula Andress) who has apparently been waiting two thousand years for his return; he and his two friends Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins decide to journey across the desert to find her in the lost city of Kuma so he might find happiness and they may find antiquities. It's a straightforward adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's classic fantasy novel from 1886 with a few alterations – mainly dubious Victorian conventions and stereotypes replaced by corresponding 1960's versions. It's enjoyable stuff if not taken too seriously - the plot is fine, the sets are excellent, the music atmospheric, the acting generally very good, only – apart from his good looks what on Earth would the immortal Ayesha ever see in such a wooden dolt? And apart from her good looks at least she would surely have amassed a wealth of good stories in two thousand years! Or did she simply look at the cave walls all that time? Favourite bits: the desert trek to some stirring music; the punishments of the natives meted out by the queen shocked me when little – but some might say the later She Who Must Be Obeyed Maggie Thatcher would've liked to have done something similar with the miners and some ministers; the fiery baptism and its results – although thankfully the "old and faithful" dog-like servant Job lived to tell the tale in here.
A few years after She there was a Shequel, which was almost as bad but not quite as bad as HRH's own two sequels Ayesha and She And Allan. Haggard spent his career mining the deep African vein that She had given to him – in fact, he literally drove the mine into the ground with decades of increasingly ridiculous lost tribe tales. And then Edgar Rice Burroughs picked it up and ran with it for decades after that. Randolph Scott's 1935 film version was less faithful to the novel but almost as enjoyable as this, and I already prefer this Hammer version to any future possible glossy cgi cartoon remake.
In Palestine 1918 a dashing young Briton played by John Richardson becomes convinced he is a reincarnation of Kallikrates, the lover of an ancient queen (Ursula Andress) who has apparently been waiting two thousand years for his return; he and his two friends Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins decide to journey across the desert to find her in the lost city of Kuma so he might find happiness and they may find antiquities. It's a straightforward adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's classic fantasy novel from 1886 with a few alterations – mainly dubious Victorian conventions and stereotypes replaced by corresponding 1960's versions. It's enjoyable stuff if not taken too seriously - the plot is fine, the sets are excellent, the music atmospheric, the acting generally very good, only – apart from his good looks what on Earth would the immortal Ayesha ever see in such a wooden dolt? And apart from her good looks at least she would surely have amassed a wealth of good stories in two thousand years! Or did she simply look at the cave walls all that time? Favourite bits: the desert trek to some stirring music; the punishments of the natives meted out by the queen shocked me when little – but some might say the later She Who Must Be Obeyed Maggie Thatcher would've liked to have done something similar with the miners and some ministers; the fiery baptism and its results – although thankfully the "old and faithful" dog-like servant Job lived to tell the tale in here.
A few years after She there was a Shequel, which was almost as bad but not quite as bad as HRH's own two sequels Ayesha and She And Allan. Haggard spent his career mining the deep African vein that She had given to him – in fact, he literally drove the mine into the ground with decades of increasingly ridiculous lost tribe tales. And then Edgar Rice Burroughs picked it up and ran with it for decades after that. Randolph Scott's 1935 film version was less faithful to the novel but almost as enjoyable as this, and I already prefer this Hammer version to any future possible glossy cgi cartoon remake.