Watch The Egyptian For Free

How sad is this?

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Copyright 25 August 1954 by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy, 24 August 1954. U.S. release: September 1954. U.K. release: December 1954. Australian release: 24 February 1955. Sydney opening at the Regent. 12,514 feet. 140 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Egypt, 1300 B.C. An abandoned baby is adopted by a physician. As a young man he follows his foster-father's profession but falls into bad company.NOTES: Color cinematographer Leon Shamroy was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Milton Krasner ("Three Coins in the Fountain"). Edmund Purdom replaced Marlon Brando in the title part at virtually a moment's notice. "Although many stars were considered, when Brando walked out, Purdom was one of the few actors tested for the role. Although this test was made 10 days before the picture started it was not until 4 days later that Purdom learned he had the role. He was vacationing in Acapulco. By the time he arrived back in Hollywood he had only 2 days for preparation — and these days were taken up with wardrobe and make-up tests and fittings." — Unsigned fan article on Purdom, written 1954.COMMENT: Fox's 15th CinemaScope feature was reasonably successful at the box office and returned a modest profit despite both its inflated negative cost and almost universal panning from professional critics (including cast member Peter Ustinov). Actually the movie has not only improved with age but it is one of the few early CinemaScope movies that actually play more effectively on TV than they ever did in a theatre.When The Egyptian was first released, we all thought it a ponderous, heavy-handed, laborious, tediously-paced spectacle. Laughably inept dialogue seriously compromised a cast of straight-faced but wearisome players, of whom Peter Ustinov's tongue-in-cheek Kaptah provided the only welcome diversion. Ustinov managed to wring some mild fun out of the thinnest of threadbare material. At the other end of the scale, Bella Darvi was undoubtedly the chief offender. With an accent as thick as Continental cheese and mannerisms straight out of a gaslight melodrama, you wondered what Zanuck was thinking of when he cast her in such a major role. Closely contesting Miss Darvi for worst performance are Victor Mature, Edmund Purdom and Michael Wilding. With his blatant over- acting and hammy eye-rolling, Mature eventually wins out, but not before Purdom and Wilding with their fixed, poker faces, expressionless delivery and frozen under-emphasis, have given him a good run. Jean Simmons is likewise a dead loss in a goody two-shoes role in which she seems hopelessly miscast. Still she does put up a game try. That she proves so inept is more the fault of the dialogue and characterisation — to be precise the tediousness and triteness of the former and the complete lack of detail in the latter. Henry Daniell does equally little with his part as the high priest, but John Carradine (always reliable even in a bloated epic like this one) contributes a winning cameo as a grave-robber.Some of the scenes of spectacle are admittedly effective (the chariot running over the camera during the massacre; the house of the dead; Mature's triumphal entry into the throne room), though you can pick out more than a few shots that were obviously lensed by a second unit with normal, non-anamorphic equipment, the results being rather clumsily blown up to CinemaScope size in the lab.Technically, "The Egyptian" does not stand up terribly well. For the most part Curtiz has directed the picture like a conventional three- by-four. Most of the action is steadfastly centered in the middle of the screen. What's more there are no reverse angles. The cuts are from two-shots to close-ups, but the camera's point of view always remains the same. There is very little camera movement. Obviously Curtiz was heavily influenced by beliefs on the techniques of using CinemaScope formulated by Henry Koster whilst shooting "The Robe". The wide screen gave sufficient dramatic scope in itself, Koster wrote. A virtually stationary camera was most effective. Panning, tracking and dolly shots should be avoided. Care should also be exercised to minimize sudden jarring cuts in the film editing. It was best that the whole movie be lensed from one angle as if it were being presented on a stage with the camera permanently fixed in the auditorium. (Koster modified these views considerably by the time he got around to directing "The Virgin Queen").Leon Shamroy's photography suffers from the graininess and lack of sharpness in the early CinemaScope lenses, though these defects are less apparent on TV. The music, representing a unique collaboration between two great composers, is not half as interesting as most single works of either. Where the film does hold some fascinating interest is in its sets. The props and artifacts of ancient Egypt do hold a certain intriguing appeal all on their own. It's always hypnotic to see them brought to life — even in as indifferent a manner as here. Oddly enough, "The Egyptian" is rare among the early CinemaScope crop in that it comes across more effectively and actually looks better on TV. True, there are moments when CinemaScope's images cannot be squeezed successfully within the confines of the TV screen, but for the most part Curtiz has so centered all his action in the middle of the frame that the compositions look not only dramatically tighter but atmospherically more effective.

There is so much back story in this luscious looking movie that having not seen this in over 20 years, I had to research the basic plot of this political epic of the ancient worlds. It must have been an absolute sight for wide eyes in 1954 as the new CinemaScope format made itself known to movie audiences. It takes patience now to watch the story of doctor Edmund Purdom unfold, the saga of the secrets surrounding his birth, his friendship with Victor Mature, the unrequited love from Jean Simmons and his involvement with the deadly Bella Darvi, perhaps the most calculating of all ancient screen vixens. A revelation by the elderly Judith Evelyn changes his destiny, leading him closer to the pharaoh, his throne and destruction.Ancient sagas of this nature are fascinating as history as they are as costumed soap opera with family secrets, deadly plots and a quest for power guiding each of them. The bible shows many such sagas in its discussion of ancient history touching more nationalities than just the ancient Hebrews. The Greeks and Romans as well all had their sagas, but the Egyptians allegedly had the oldest of recorded histories. This is not biblical in any manner, but a greatly detailed account of life during the 18th Dynasty. Evelyn, reminding me of Judith Anderson, reveals much in her few scenes, like Anderson "the keeper of the secrets", and ultimately the character who explodes the plot forward.Gene Tierney, as her tough talking daughter, has a few good moments as well, but along with Jean Simmons is overshadowed by the alluring Darvi who even gives Joan Collins in "Land of the Pharaohs" a run for its gold. Purdom is more a reactor, thus seemingly wooden, while Michael Wilding never really gets to establish the character of the pharaoh. It's obvious to me that Tierney had what it took but was doomed by her gender. Peter Ustinov gets a showy part as one of Purdom's associates on the outside, but I'm still not really sure of his connection, the issue being far too many characters and too much to take in, certainly not as well defined as "The Ten Commandments".At a decent running time for an epic of this nature (just under two and a half hours), this is an opponent of riches much like a pharaoh's tomb, but frequently emotionally empty and far too much of a good thing. I still highly recommend it, but it must be seen, preferably on a large screen, when one is fully prepared to pay full attention. It's a difficult film to find in its wide- screen version, so avoid all pan and scans and wait patiently for it with the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, hopefully a large one. To not have that format would be to miss a whole lot.

An example of the Hollywood trend in this era of producing expensive lavishly-staged color dramas about the classic ancient world of Egypt, the Romans, and Hebrews/ early Christianity. Released just 2 years before Cecil DeMille's much better known, more expensive, ultralengthy epic "The Ten Commandments": essentially a biography of Moses as mostly described in the bible. Fox sold many of the costumes and props for the present film to Paramount, used in that film. The main character, the fictional Sinuhe, exhibits certain clear parallels with the Moses story. Both were cast adrift on the Nile in a small cradle-like raft, as infants to be raised by caring adoptive parents. Both eventually learned of their true heritage while adults, and both turned down an opportunity to be a major player in the Egyptian hierarchy, perhaps as pharaoh, to help the downtrodden and serve their god, who was at odds with the Egyptian religion. Also, both fled or were exiled from Egypt for many years over an incident, returned to Egypt for a spell, then again fled or were exiled from Egypt. There is a difference in the detail of their birth and upbringing. Moses was born to a Hebrew slave and adopted by one of pharaoh's wives. Sinuhe was born to one of pharaoh's wives, and adopted by a physician to the poor, thus providing Sinuhe with a model for his early adult years. The main point of this film is to dramatize the attempt of historic pharaoh Akhnaton to replace the pantheon of classical Egyptian gods with a singular supreme deity, which he identified with the sun. Although Akhnaton's attempt to remake the state religion of Egypt failed to long outlast his reign, it's presented here as a promising model for the ascendency of the Hebrew god Yahweh to a similar position with the Hebrews, approximately a century later, with the critical participation of Moses. As Akhnaton is dying, he hypothesizes that the god he has been worshiping is not just associated with the sun, but made the whole universe, and presently intervened in its operation. This is articulated to Sinuhe, who finds this a satisfying answer to his obsessive quest to discover a better answer to the central meaning of human life than what the Egyptian religious orthodoxy offered.The hedonistic opportunistic Horemheb and the eternally brooding Sinuhe seem like an odd couple of buddies for most of the film. Ultimately, each achieves their primary goal in life. Horemheb becomes commander of the Egyptian army, then succeeds Akhnaton as pharaoh. Sinuhe seems satisfied with Akhnaton's final vision of a supreme deity, and returns to his Christ-like role as a physician to the poor. However, he has lost the love of his life, Merit, in Horemheb's purge of the followers of Akhnaton's religion. Also, he's exiled from Egypt for his continued belief in Akhnaton's religion and for nearly giving Horemheb a lethal dose of poison, as part of the conspiracy by Sinuhe's half sister Baketamon, Sinuhe, and Horemheb to poison Akhnaton for his failure to give Horemheb permission to take his army to engage the invading Hittite army and for his divisive state religion makeover... Historically, Horemheb was a pharaoh, but didn't directly succeed Akhnaton, with a couple of pharaohs between them. He did, however, initiate an effort to erase all physical and social traces of Akhnaton's reign and religion, as dramatized. Sinuhe had a chance to succeed Akhnaton as pharaoh, with the backing of ambitious heartless Baketamon(Gene Tierney), who informed him of his birth within the royal family. But, he copped out at the last minute, in favor of Horemheb, probably realizing that he was not cut out to be pharaoh, being too much like the visionary pacifist Akhnaton, when Egypt needed a man of action, like Horemheb.Victor Mature: a favorite to play the lead in several of the contemporary biblical-related lavish films, was well suited to his role as the anti-revisionist Horemheb. Edmund Purdom likewise was well suited to his role as the brooding idealist Sinuhe, whose choice of relationships with women were largely disastrous. He too long largely ignored the poor, but beautiful and potentially loyal Merit(Jean Simmons), who later bears him a son while he is in self exile, and later dies in Horemheb's purge, leaving Sinuhe a lonely old man in exile. It's difficult to believe that Sinuhe would fall so hard for the grasping royal courtesan Nefer, who left him much embittered with women in general. Later, he briefly agreed with Baketamon's scheme to make him pharaoh, with she his wife.Most professional critics of the time loved to hate this film, writing it off as overly drawn out and with the main character too pessimistic about the worth of human life to bare interest for long. Many reviewers, including this one, acknowledge these and other faults, but find sufficient positive aspects to recommend a watch.

...as valuable as King Tut's tomb! (OK, maybe not THAT valuable, but worth hunting down if you can). I notice no one has commented on this movie for some years, and I hope a fresh post will spark some new comments. This is a film that I remembered only snippets of from childhood, and only saw recently when I tired of waiting for Fox to honour its own past, and hunted down the Korean DVD (in English, but with unremovable Korean subtitles). I won't go through another long plot description - suffice to say that seeing it for the first time in its proper widescreen format left me agape at the vistas and the scope of the film. The matte paintings still hold up, and the palace sets are truly breathtaking. But it is the smaller scale details that lend this film its depth and richness, offering a glimpse into the lifestyles of Egypt's poor as well as its elite. The bazaars, hovels, docks, embalming houses, and taverns are as fascinating as Pharaoh's throne room. While errors abound on the large scale (most notably the dynastic succession), the details are more meticulously researched than the vast majority of Hollywood's films. Visually, it's not without its flaws - the interiors are often too overly lit and colourful to blend seamlessly with the exteriors. Nevertheless, this is a movie that should be credited for being as audacious in the small as it is in the large. Tedious? In parts, absolutely. Overacted? Underacted? Yes, both - though 'understated' might be a more apt description. Too long? Absolutely not. I wished they had spent more time with Sinuhe's experiences in the House of Death, and among the Hittites, and less with his 'romance' with Nefer, though. Historically inaccurate? Yes, that too, but so was Shakespeare. Nobody chastises him for it. I appreciate historical accuracy as much as the next guy, but ultimately it has to be remembered that cinema is theater, not a history lesson.