Pierre Benoit was then a famous writer :his extravaganzas 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:think that it's the second version (there is one silent movie) and there's an Ulmer's version .And "Desert Legion"(1953) starring Arlene Dahl and Alan Ladd owes a good deal of its screenplay to Benoit's book too.
The first sequence is a lecture on Atlantis "since we found the ruins of Troy,why wouldn't we do the same as far as Atlantis is concerned?"Two legionnaires are listening to the radio :"I've been there,I've been to Atlantis" says officer Saint-Avit .And he begins to tell his tale to his incredulous mate.
Flashback: Once he discovered a mysterious city with subterranean where a queen,Antinea ,reigns.This queen seems to be fond of men because she is a woman to die for...or to kill for...Brigitte Helm (famous for her part of Maria in Metropolis) was an obvious choice but she has barely four lines to say and her appearance does not exceed fifteen minutes.Like in the famous Hotel California ,you can check any time you want in Atlantis but you can never leave .
Pabst's talent shows now and then: a weird sequence in les Folies Bergères in Paris complete with Can Can in that context becomes downright surrealist; the flight across the desert -I studied this part of the book when I was in sixth grade,nowadays nobody studies Benoit- includes a good scene when the two fugitives find the well which is dry.
But the last sequences set the record straight: Saint-Avit is out of his mind,so all that happened might possibly be a mirage ;anything is illusion anyway for the "Queen "might well be a former French Can Can dancer.
The first sequence is a lecture on Atlantis "since we found the ruins of Troy,why wouldn't we do the same as far as Atlantis is concerned?"Two legionnaires are listening to the radio :"I've been there,I've been to Atlantis" says officer Saint-Avit .And he begins to tell his tale to his incredulous mate.
Flashback: Once he discovered a mysterious city with subterranean where a queen,Antinea ,reigns.This queen seems to be fond of men because she is a woman to die for...or to kill for...Brigitte Helm (famous for her part of Maria in Metropolis) was an obvious choice but she has barely four lines to say and her appearance does not exceed fifteen minutes.Like in the famous Hotel California ,you can check any time you want in Atlantis but you can never leave .
Pabst's talent shows now and then: a weird sequence in les Folies Bergères in Paris complete with Can Can in that context becomes downright surrealist; the flight across the desert -I studied this part of the book when I was in sixth grade,nowadays nobody studies Benoit- includes a good scene when the two fugitives find the well which is dry.
But the last sequences set the record straight: Saint-Avit is out of his mind,so all that happened might possibly be a mirage ;anything is illusion anyway for the "Queen "might well be a former French Can Can dancer.