Nefer (Bella Darvi) playes with Sinuhe (Edmund Purdom) in THE EGYPTIAN
A curio of a film which makes me wonder what audience FOX had in mind when they green-lighted this? It's not bad but for me it's not a film that's on my list of repeat viewing flicks. The film is not religious by any means. In fact, I think the film was made by an atheist. The one thing that I really like about it is how it's so different than what they did back then. It's basically a big budgeted existential Hollywood epic. The story of Bella Darvi is a tragic one of sorts. I wrote about her story at the TRAGIC STARS permanent page. British actor Edmund Purdom would have a long career in PEPLUM films. He even moved to Rome on a permanent basis.
THE EGPYPTIAN is just too slow moving. LAND OF THE PHARAOHS (1955) is much better.
ReplyDeleteThe only successful Peplums set in Egypt generally involve Cleopatra (especially DeMille's 1934 masterpiece) or other Romans in Egypt (Steve Reeves in THE SLAVE).
The only really successful movie set in pre-Ptolemaic Egypt is DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.