Legend of the Lost (1957)

The Film

The hard working Ben Hecht provides the storyline and on first impressions it is nothing too original - the desert adventure story has been a literary highlight since the great days of H. Rider Haggard and his kin - however Hecht tries hard to avoid the usual clichés and instead focuses on the characterisation of the trio, particularly that of Paul who undergoes an amazing transformation. This focus on the characters is so strong that Hecht never needs to add a single gratuitous action scene to keep the audience interested (so the usual scenes with Bedouin on camels being fought off are not present here). Of course this does mean that the film is pretty slowly paced and anyone looking for an action adventure film will be sorely disappointed, but for someone with patience it contains a number of unexpected twists and turns and builds up to a superb climax.

The film was largely shot in the Lybian deserts and Henry Hathaway (aided by cinematographer Jack Cardiff) makes the most of them with some beautiful scenery and long shots to make it clear that we are not just on a studio set - in fact there is not a single set throughout the exterior scenes, not even in the close-ups and the only optical effect in the whole film is a brief shot of some bats, done as an animation (which does look rather poor). Euro-cult regular Angelo Francesco Lavagnino provides a typical orchestral soundtrack for much of the runtime, with a few good scenes containing native chanting.

One of the most famous actors in American during the 1950s, John Wayne had come to fame as a cowboy but was trying to escape the typecasting and during the decade made just five Old West films, focusing instead on the Second World War (Flying Leathernecks (1951)) and general adventure films such as this one. Despite that, he still plays a very cowboyesque character and that gruff anti-heroic role he would play throughout most of his later films.

Sophia Loren was just breaking into Hollywood in 1957, thanks to Boy on a Dolphin (1957) and The Pride and the Passion (1957) - in keeping with those films, and a long way from her more usual glamorous appearance, Loren plays a grubby local girl with questionable morals and plays the part very convincingly. The final member of the trio is Rossano Brazzi, an Italian actor who had made a few appearances in international productions, including David Lean's Summertime (1955) - his is probably the toughest role to play and he does so very well.

Not the action packed adventure film that the setting suggests, Legend of the Lost is a strong character study that avoids becoming dull thanks to a well written script, some good acting and some very strong location shooting. Adventure film fans with a little patience should certainly enjoy this and it is of interest to fans of Loren and Wayne.

In brief:

The DVD

Summary

• An enjoyable film if you are not expecting any action, with some good writing and direction. Of interest.
  

• A good looking and sounding print but if you want the French audio or the subs, pick up the R1 disc.

Links

• IMDB entry

• For explanations of technical terms, see the DVD Dictionary.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 10th August 2008.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

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