•

BluRay/DVD Reviews

LEGEND OF THE LOST

By • Sep 9th, 2018 •

Share This:

LEGEND OF THE LOST (1957) (KINO LORBER) 109 mins. AR: 2.35 Technicolor

Directed by Henry Hathaway. Screenplay by Robert Presnell Jr. and Ben Hecht. Cinematography by Jack Cardiff. Art Direction & Set Direction by Alfred Ybarra. Make up by Web Overlander.

With: John Wayne, Sophia Loren, Rossano Brazzi

 

 

LEGEND OF THE LOST is a squandered opportunity, one of these films that goes into production with a heart-palpitating accumulation of talent in front of and behind the camera. John Wayne, a fine actor, who could anchor just about anything he committed to except for THE CONQUERER (I have a Mongolian friend named Wuren who I’m actually afraid to show it to) and THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA. Sophia Loren presents a potential alchemy with Wayne that is ripe with exciting possibilities.   Henry Hathaway directs – a solid, hard-ass filmmaker with good visual sensibilities if not an overabundance of style (TRUE GRIT, THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER, KISS OF DEATH, HOW THE WEST WAS WON). Rossano Brazzi completing the emotional triangle – a wild card but a creative casting choice. Art and Set direction by Alfred Ybarra, who created the look of the biggest indie film ever made at the time – Wayne’s THE ALAMO. Screenplay toyed with by the ubiquitous Ben Hecht. And best for last, finding the colors and shadows and nuances of Libya-for-Timbuktu –- Cinematographer Jack Cardiff. This flawed feature is debatably worth keeping just for the wondrous look, courtesy of Cardiff.

Ms. Loren’s make up, dark, sexual, yet dangerous, is utterly gorgeous. Reminiscent of the Cardiff look in RED SHOES, and of other Brit pix of that time span – examples being TALES OF HOFFMANN, DOWN TO EARTH, and STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN. And then, after the halfway point, something mighty strange happens: her make up grows lighter, until finally it’s pretty much gone. But they’ve been struggling through the desert for days without water and exposed to the glaring sun. Shouldn’t she be getting darker? I can’t figure it. But there are sundry explanations if one wants to surmise. Such as, perhaps when the problematic nature of the location shoot became apparent, Loren may have felt that the daily make-up shtick was no longer worth it, and refused to go through the ritual every morning. She did have a reputation as a tough and often difficult lady.

The one person I don’t think I can blame is Cardiff. He considered himself responsible for the look of every frame, and this film is a masterpiece of location and studio lighting. No matter how rushed the shoot might have been in the Libyan locales, with broiling days and freezing nights, he would have noticed the difference instantly. So it remains a mystery for now. But it’s indicative of the carelessness of the film in other matters as well.

The ham-handed performance by Kurt Kasznar as local Prefect Dukas gets the first act off to a dreadful start. If this guy was supposed to evoke memories of Claude Rains in CASABLANCA, we should generously allow his grotesque effort to slide into anonymity. Wayne is good but miscast as a ne’er do well expat. I neither believed nor liked his characterization, but still the vibes of a cinema legend do peek through now and then. The less said about Brazzi, the better. Very little chemistry exists between the three of them.

LEGEND OF THE LOST came out a year after Wayne’s best film – THE SEARCHERS – and he was on a roll. So he rolled right over this uneven failure and kept on going, the biggest box office star of his time, bounced from first place one year by Steve Reeves as HERCULES.

In a great recent biography of John Wayne by Scott Eyman, the author reports that word had it that Ms. Loren had an affair with Rosanno Brazzi. Well, I know who it was that she shacked up with during the shoot, and the terrible repercussions that followed. But I’m not sure it’s popular knowledge, so I’ll keep it under wraps for now.

For your amusement, go to 40:34 and you will see a man walk, silhouetted, into frame on the lower right. It might be an earlier shot of Brazzi approaching the Nomad encampment, which the editor found a better place to cut it in, hoping audiences wouldn’t notice. Whoever it is seems to be wearing a suit, and I lean toward it having been a careless accident which theater-goers indeed didn’t notice.

Share This Article: Digg it | del.icio.us | Google | StumbleUpon | Technorati

Comments are closed.