A bit of an odd man out on Howard Hawks' resume, lacking humour, lightness and bantering dialogue, not to mention that great bonding between friends he could capture. You can't blame him for having a crack at an Ancient World epic in 50s - Warners probably dangled a lot of money at him, and he likely figured any idiot could make one and clean up - but it seems the period made him freeze a little creatively.
Jack Hawkins is ideally cast as the driven pharaoh who wants to build a massive thief-proof tomb for himself - not the most interesting goal because it's dumb (he wants to stash treasure in there). It's not particularly relatable - not like lust or revenge or any of the standard plots, it's just stupid. Joan Collins is meant to be a femme fetale because she wants his money but her actions make more sense than Hawkins'. So too does captain of the guard Sydney Chaplin, who wants to sleep with Collins.
James Robertson Justice is good as the captured slave building the temple and some of the spectacle is truly epic - it's all up there on screen, and you really feel like you're watching a pyramid being built. It seems like a lot of pointless hard work and effort, so it's hard to get too involved.
Collins tries but was out of her element at this stage in her career - she's not helped by acting in blackface. Dewey Martin is hilariously miscast as Justice's son; he has a romance with a slave girl that's basically forgotten.
There is a memorable finale with Collins being buried alive along with Hawkins' idiot best friend and idiot servants. Visually ravishing, stiff, dramatic misfire.
How could he have made this work? Maybe about a bunch of construction engineers building a pyramid - architects, etc. That could've worked. Hawks struggles without humour.
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