Duration: 1:49:00, aspect ratio: 2.35:1
See all Sword and sandal references.
- Debra Paget – Shila, the daughter
- Ettore Manni – Resi, physician; also in Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963), Hercules, Prisoner of Evil (1964, aka Ursus, the Terror of Knights, aka Hercules the Avenger, directed by Antonio Margheriti of the Gamma One movies)
- Erno Crisa – Kefren, the pharoh’s mother’s concellor, right hand of pharoh; also in Maciste contro lo sceicco (1962)
- Corrado Pani – the pharoah Nemorat
- Yvette Lebon – the pharoh’s mother Tegi
[ IMDB | Stream (Dailymotion I) 1:29:19 | Stream (Dailymotion II) 1:29:06 | Stream (Dailymotion III) 1:29:19 | Stream (YouTube) 1:29:02 | Wikipedia ]
All streams are 4:3.
I found a British quad poster for sale at Fox Vintage Art and Posters (image below) for $120 and one in the same size that sold in 2016 at Heritage Auctions for $45.
eBay has several items for sale: a single 11×14 lobby card for $32 (first below), another 11×14 for $28 (second below), and a one sheet in bad condition for $12.
PEPLUM TV has an article comparing the many mangled titles that the movie has across different countries’ releases and suggests that there’s an HD copy available. I can’t find it but it looks great. Here’s a comparison of the scene from the article and the same from my copy:
Though all of the streams and my DVD use the same print, some of the streams stretch the image to create the appearance of widescreen. The two shots below compare the DVD image and the stretched ratio from a Dailymotion stream:
The story:
Title sequence – Before they die, Antony and Cleopatra send their daughter to Assyria. After their death, the new pharaoh captures her and enslaves her and her people of Assyria. As she is brought in, the soldiers cruelly beat the other captives and separate them from her.
The pharaoh Nemorat appears to be going quite mad as he anguishes over his imagined ailments and that his people hate him. His mother Tegi schemes to have him marry Shila to merge the conquered Assyria with Egypt. Shila hopes the marriage will free her people but finds out that, no, they were killed. Not a romantic start to the engagement.
10:00
Resi, the pharoah’s physician, visits her to console her. He is deeply in love with her but knows that she must marry Nemorat and that she may soften his cruelty.
Time passes…
Grave robbers brought before Nemorat by Manna (?), a weasly-looking captain. They plead their innocence and beg for mercy but there is no mercy. After they are taken away, Resi wonders at their malnourishment and suggests that wealthy robbers would not be so emaciated. His theory is ignored by Nemorat and he is reprimanded for tending to the poor.
The architect Inuni (played by Robert Alda, Alan Alda’s father) discusses his design for Nemorat’s tomb and the clever mazes and traps he has included to thwart robbers. FORESHADOWING.
20:00
Resi reports that those Assyrians who were not enslaved and killed miss her. She is heartened, yet still yearns for Resi and laments her fate and unhappy marriage with the pharaoh.
Nemorat tries to seduce her (see him creeping on her in the HD image above), but she is frigid. He falls into a rage and passes out from mania. That was unexpected. He is taken to his room and lies in a coma. Kefren and his mistress Taia enter alone and poison him (they appear to have planned this all along). Resi is brought in and suspects poisoning. He give Nemorat an antidote and is momentarily revived long enough to accuse Shila. He expires.
30:00
Shila is imprisoned and Resi visits her to care for her wounds. He asks her to confess so he can give her a poison that will put her in a coma. He could later revive her, replace her corpse with another, and they could escape into happiness. She is horrified, but agrees.
Tegi sends jewels and amulets for Nemorat’s tomb and decides that she must marry Kefren to legitimize his rise as pharoh.
40:00
Meanwhie, Resi pays off the mummifier to get the female body that will be used to replace Shila. They have one night to pull it off. Shila poisons herself and the plan is in motion. When Resi returns to retrieve her body, the mummifier turns on him to gain a larger reward… fight!! Resi throws the mummifier into a tub of body-dissolving-acid (shown earlier. FORESHADOWING) but is wounded and collapses. His assistant, Tabor, carries him away before the guards arrive and flees in the boat. Shila is left in a coma.
50:00
The next day as the funeral procession marches the dead pharaoh to his tomb, Resi is recovering in a hut with grave robbers (I knew they would come back) and sees them. Maris, the lone female grave robber, is tending to him. He passes out in a frenzy after he pleas for someone to help him go save Shila.
1:00:00
Soldiers take the workers who helped build the pharaoh’s tomb to the base of a cliff wall and kill them. Bandits at the top of the cliff start throwing stones and at the bottom rush the soldiers. Inuni is captured and Resi asks him for help to navigate the mazes and traps left in the tomb and save Shila. Maris pushes the bandits to trust Inuni’s guidance and go through with the theft.
Meanwhile, Taia is angry that Kefren is marrying Tegi and not her as was planned. Kefren consoles her with promises of having access to power, but at the same time stares menacingly at a knife.
1:10:00
The bandits and Resi and Inuni go to the tomb. Inuni resists providing info as they make their way through the tomb and one of the bandits dies in one of his traps (false floor drops him to his death, natch). Shila awakens and realizes that she is trapped in the tomb and that the plan has gone awry. The bandits finally arrive at an antechamber next to the tomb and must break down one final wall to gain access. She is saved and then passes out. Looooots of passing out across genders in this film.
1:20
Resi does an unusually caddish thing and leaves with Shila, following the lamps that marked their way but putting them out as he passes. The bandits are forced to trust Inani if they want to escape.
Kefren has found out of the betrayal and rides with soldiers to the tomb.
Inuni helps the robbers open the tomb itself, but it is a trick and triggers the release of sand and rocks from above witch kills them all.
Back at the royal palace, assassins kill Taia at Kefrem’s command but then archers kill him at Tegi’s command because she discovered he killed her son. The final scene is justice and not romance.
