Rating: NR
Genre:
Historical Film
Release Date: 06/26/2007
SubTitles: English/French
Dubbed: English
Sound: DDS2.0
Run Time: 104 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
"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
;)
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