La Atlántida

Pierre Benoit was then a famous writer :his outlandish novels seem out of time now but at the time his novels were transferred to the screen at such a speed it makes you feel giddy:Feyder ,PW Pabst ,George Ulmer and countless others made their "L 'atlantide ". And "Desert Legion"(1953) starring Arlene Dahl and Alan Ladd is a rip off in disguise. Today,few people still read Benoit in his native land. His name is slowly fading.

Pabst 's movie (1932)outshines all the other versions, by introducing a down-to -earth explanation

Such is not the same is this exotic tale ,where mystery is kept till the very end ; it might be a mirage ,caused by the overwhelming blistering sun .

Jean-Pierre Aumont ,the French romantic young lead of the French thirties co-star with real-life wife Maria Montez ,whose acting talent does not match her beauty ,to put it mildly ; Aumont himself ,sometimes considered a bland thespian in his native France,has here a tendency to overplay, his eyes supposedly haunted by this cruel magnificent queen ;with its lascivious dances ,its duels ,its pasteboard palace , the film is actually a forerunner of the Italian peplum which would thrive ten years later.

Entertaining on a rainy day ,if you do not ask too much.