Haya Harareet is Antinea in JOURNEY BENEATH THE DESERT
To be blunt, this film is terrible. Yes, the quality of the only available English copy is not good but I doubt a better print would alleviate its main problem : all the characters are annoying. It's one of those stories set in contemporary times, a bunch of prospectors / adventurers, who discover the long lost city of Atlantis beneath the desert. And then they bitch for 90 minutes. The story was filmed many times before, and like the previous attempts, this one wasn't good. HERCULES & THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (below) was also about Antinea and Atlantis but that movie is fun and colourful. Shot in super expensive Technirama (70mm). Haya Harareet, who just appeared in the stupendous BEN-HUR, only made 3 other films after this one.
I agree this is a really terrible movie.
ReplyDeleteThe only other Atlantis beneath the desert movie that I have seen is HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN, which is indeed good fun in a very campy way.
In general the Atlantis theme just does not seem to work well in films. George Pal's ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT (1961) was a big disappointment.
Reportedly the various TV series on Atlantis are not very good either.
This movie was a huge disappointment and had a very skimpy budget. SHE is one of the better type movies about lost kingdoms and cities. HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN was a very entertaining movie with nice sets and a good budget. ATLANTIS THE LOST CONTINENT could of been a lot better. The use of stock footage from QV did not help matters at all. Those "goofy" uniforms worn by the soldiers made me think of several Arabian style movies of the 40's and 50's. My favorite scenes are with the submersible, and they should of had more scenes with using it especially at the end.
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