An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Ernst Lubitsch and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Last week, I saw ‘Anna Boleyn’ also directed by Lubitsch and I was really neat how lavish this movie was for a movie produced in the 20’s. Well, this time, he brought us back to Ancient Egypt and the production value was once again really impressive. Unfortunately, even though the movie was quite strong visually speaking, I still struggled to care about the rest of it though. Above all, the story was rather disjointed, especially during the first 30 mins. It seems that they were also missing some reels so many scenes were replaced with some stills and intertitle cards which certainly didn’t help. Furthermore, back then, they apparently really loved such convoluted melodramas (the fact that it did take place in Egypt didn’t really matter) but, to be honest, it has never been really my cup of tea. When the movie started, I was pleased to see that the great Emil Jannings would be playing the Pharao. However, even though there was nothing really wrong with his performance, to be honest, he didn’t really dazzle me this time around but I can guess you can’t expect an actor to deliver the performance of a lifetime each time around. Concerning Harry Liedtke, it was even worse though as the guy was, in my opinion, just not charismatic enough to play the lead. At least, on the other hand, Dagny Servaes was really lovely. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

6/10