Lt St.Avit (Heinz Klingenberg - German Version/Pierre Blanchard -
French version/John Stuart - American version) and Captain Morchange (Gustav
Diessl - German Version/Jean Angelo - French version/Gibb McLaughlin -
American version) are sent to the Sahara to check out the state of a cross
Sahara road ... which only serves as a pretense to spy out the Tuaregs.
And soon enough, St.Avit and Morchange run into a Tuareg ambush, are
outnumbered and defeated and only through luck escape with their lives ...
and wake up in a weird underground world of catacombs - Atlantis as it
turns out.
Atlantis is ruled by beautiful and irresistible Queen Antinea (Brigitte
Helm), a former cabaret dancer who in Atlantis stayed forever young.
St.Avit soon falls for her, but like so many others before him she refuses
him, and he falls to smoking kif, which will eventually ruin his
life and even kill him ... like so many others before him.
Antinea herself has fallen for Morchange, but he is the one man who
refuses her, so she orders St.Avit, Morchange's best friend, to kill him -
which he does, completely under her spell. Only when he finds his friends
body mummified does St.Avit come to his senses, and with the help of a
servant girl (Tela Tchai), who has fallen in love with him, he makes a
getaway.
Back at his army camp, St.Avit tells the whole story to his friend Lt
Ferrières (Georges Tourreil), who then writes a report to the army
command, requesting to dismiss him on grounds of hallucinations and
possible madness. But by then a Tuareg soldier has entered the camp and is
arrested, but St.Avit recognizes him from Atlantis and sets him free ...
only to follow him and find his way back to Atlantis - and to Antinea.
But Lt St.Avit dies in a sandstorm, and it was his desire that killed
him ...
Visually, the film is nothing short of great, with both the desert
scenery and the catacomb sets serving as impressive backdrops for a
diligently directed film. Unfortunately on a story-level, the film is less
accomplished, basically the plot is a cheesy, pulpy, exotic, overblown
lovestory that lacks proper pace to really work. That doesn't mean the
film is unwatchable, it is a visual delight, it just could have been so
much more ...
|