La disfatta delle amazzoni

Just saw a beautiful print of this at MOMA, and was struck by several things. First, did it really cost only $400,000 to make? It's quite lavish, with thousands of extras, and while those are clearly flats representing the far reaches of the Amazon homeland, it looks like Fox spent a bundle on it. As with the stage source and subsequent Rodgers and Hart musical adaptation, "By Jupiter," it's largely an evening of sex-reversal jokes, but a lot of them are pretty good jokes. Elissa Landi, while perhaps less individual than Katharine Hepburn might have been, is a formidable leading lady, and Marjorie Rambeau is a hilarious Hippolyta. Ernest Truex overdoes the feminine-leading man stuff, but David Manners is a manly and appealing Theseus. It's fun to hear a lot of the dialogue that Rodgers and Hart adapted directly into song, or kept. Too bad it can't be seen more; TCM viewers would eat it up.