{"id":3372,"date":"2011-08-09T15:28:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2279"},"modified":"2011-08-09T15:28:42","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:28:42","slug":"the-return-of-the-egyptian-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3372","title":{"rendered":"The Return of The Egyptian (1954)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A cautionary note: Edmund Purdom never experiences this moment in THE EGYPTIAN with miniature Egyptian queens, Babylonian whores, and lower caste barmaids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Perhaps due to its long periods of unavailability, The Egyptian<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1954) has developed cult following among connoisseurs of ancient \/ Biblical epics, fans of composers Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman, and cineastes with a taste for big budget productions starring iconic silver screen stars Victor Mature, Jean Simmons, and Gene Tierney.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the film Marlon Brando walked away from because he had issues with the script, its director, and supporting actress Bella Darvi; Bella Darvi herself, a shapely concoction written off by period critics as an incompetent if not wooden, cross-eyed actress, and sometime lover of Fox CEO \/ Egyptian<\/strong>\u2019s producer Darryl F. Zanuck; and co-star Edmund Purdom, who never clicked with audiences, and disappeared in a series of European genre outings for a few decades.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s DVD and Blu-ray not only brings this curiosity back from oblivion, but allows fan and the curious to make up their own minds whether The Egyptian<\/strong> was ahead of its time, or deserved to flop at the box office, and be superseded by the studio\u2019s bigger CinemaScope successes \u2013 The Robe<\/strong> (1953), and Demetrius and the Gladiators<\/strong> (1954).<\/p>\n

Not unlike the film\u2019s theatrical history, its terms on home video were brief and not reflective of its $4 million budget. Neither VHS, laserdisc nor Region 2 DVDs presented faithful transfers of Leon Shamroy\u2019s innovative cinematography, nor the original surround sound mix the way Zanuck had intended. The image tended to look a bit yellowy, and the very notion of panning & scanning a 2.55:1 ration for full frame VHS is just plain daft.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve uploaded a lengthy review of Twilight Time\u2019s BR, its extras, and the film\u2019s virtues and flaws, plus coverage of the Spanish R2 DVD of Desir\u00e9e<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1954) – the film Brando made in place of (or as punishment for bailing out of) The Egyptian<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Meet Edmund… and Bella!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Both reviews are loaded with helpful links, and in an upcoming related series, I\u2019ll examine the works of the film\u2019s two \u2018Whatever happened to?\u2019 icons \u2013 Bella Darvi, whose career withered away during the sixties; and Edmund Purdom, who seemed content staring in a m\u00e9lange of horror, spaghetti westerns, thrillers, and period dramas over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n

That is all.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lengthy review of Twilight Time’s grogeous Blu-ray edition of The Egyptian (1954), one of Fox’s best ancient epics and the movie with which Marlon Brando didn’t want to have anything to do, plus a review of Desir\u00e9e (1954), the fine, fine movie he made instead…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-So","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3374,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions\/3374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}