Die Herrin von Atlantis / L'Atlantide

Mistress of Atlantis
The Lost Atlantis

Germany/France/USA 1932
produced by
Seymour Nebenzal for Nero Film
directed by G.W. Pabst
starring Brigitte Helm, Heinz Klingenberg (German Version)/Pierre Blanchard (French version)/John Stuart (American version), Gustav Diessl (German Version)/Jean Angelo (French version)/Gibb McLaughlin (American version), Georges Tourreil, Florelle, Vladimir Sokoloff, Mathias Wieman, Tela Tchai
screenplay by Ladislav Vajda, based on the novel by Pierre Benoît, music by Wolfgang Zeller

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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 ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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