Die HERRIN VON ATLANTIS

(vt L'Atlantide; vt Lost Atlantis; vt The Mistress of Atlantis)

   Film (1932). Nero Film. Dir G.W. Pabst (1885-1967), starring Brigitte Helm and (German version) Gustav Diessl, (French version) Jean Angelo, (English version) John Stuart. Screenplay Ladislaus Vajda, Hermann Oberlander, based on L'Atlantide (1919) by Pierre BENOIT. 87 mins. B/w.

   This German film is based on Benoit's lurid popular novel about Antinea, the Queen of ATLANTIS (in this case a city beneath the North African desert), who luresa succession of men to their doom and displays their mummified bodies in a bizarre trophy room. The similarities between this and H. Rider HAGGARD's She (1887) are obvious.L'Atlantide has been filmed several other times:the first was a tedious 1921 French version dir Jacques Feyder; in 1948 a kitsch US version, Siren of Atlantis (vt Atlantis; vt Queen of Atlantis), was dir Arthur Ripley, Greg R. Tallas, Douglas Sirk and John Brahm, starring Maria Montez; and in 1961 a French/Italian coproduction, Antinea, L'Amante della Citta Sepolta (vt Atlantis, the Lost Kingdom) - not to beconfused with ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT prod George PAL in 1960 - was dir Edgar G. Ulmer and Giuseppe Masini. The Pabst film is superior to these others, not only for its visual flair but also for Brigitte Helm's striking performance as the queen (she is also remembered for her dual role as heroine and evil robot in METROPOLIS (1926)). It is, however, slow-moving, and no one could take this pulp romance seriously.Three versions, in German, French and English, were made simultaneously with Helm starring in all, although otherwise the casts were different.

   JB/PN