M i c h a e l C u r t i z' s

t h e E g y p t i a n

from the novel by Mika Waltari

This 1954 blockbuster from Fox was the third film shot in CinemaScope, using newly-improved Bausch & Lomb lenses, and the first of the so-called Egyptian trilogy. It was the only film of the trilogy with a literary origin, Mika Waltari's 1948 international bestseller. The two other films of the trilogy were Howard Hawks's Land of the Pharaohs (1955 Warners), also filmed in CinemaScope, and Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956 Paramount), filmed in VistaVision. Both The Egyptian and Land of the Pharaohs were financial disasters, while The Ten Commandments was one of the most successful films ever made.

The Egyptian was intended to star Marlon Brando, and when he backed out, the lead role was filled by relative unknown Edmund Purdom. Purdom's performance is frequently criticized as wooden, but it is really difficult to fault him. During the eighteenth dynasty, the orphaned boy is set adrift on the Nile, who is found by the wife of Senmut, physician to the poor. The couple name their son Sinhue, "he who is alone," "the solitary," or "the wild ass," after a twelfth-dynasty legend which may relate to an actual person. Senmut has forgone a life of wealth and luxury his medical knowledge could command on the open market. In particular, Senmut is a master of ancient brain surgery, "the art of opening skulls," a skill he imparts to Sinhue. Sinhue's parents ensure he attends the school of life in the temple of Amon, where professional men are taught to read and write and consecrated as lower-grade priests of Amon. One of his classmates and best friend is Horemheb (Victor Mature), "the son of Horus," or "son of the falcon," who aspires to be a soldier. On graduation, Sinhue attempts to start a charitable practice like his father's and is adopted by the crafty and opportunistic, but ultimately devoted, servant Kapta (Peter Ustinov). On the death of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, "he who is beloved of Amon," Sinhue and Horemheb go drinking. Horemheb, the son of a cheesemaker, has been refused an appointment in the palace guards due to his humble birth. They are served by the tavern maid Merit (Jean Simmons) who has fallen in love with Sinhue. Horemheb takes Sinhue lion hunting in the desert, where they rescue a mysterious sun worshipper (Michael Wilding). The sun worshipper turns out to be the new Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who adopts the regnal name of Akenaton, "he who is blessed by the Aten." The high priest of Amon, Myrkere (Henry Daniell), wants Sinhue and Horemheb executed for the sacrilege of laying hands on the divine person of the new pharaoh, but Akenaton pardons them. He gives Horemheb the appointment in the palace guards he wanted and makes Sinhue royal physician. The two celebrate their good fortune by attending a party given by Nefer (Bella Darvi), "the most beautiful," a Babylonian woman of loose morals and great wealth, with numerous foreign servants. Nefer feigns interest in Sinhue, and promises him the "final perfection of love," if he will make certain sacrifices for her. He gives her the gold collar which is his badge of office as royal physician, his house, and medical instruments. Then she asks for his parents' house and tomb. He prepares documents transferring this property to Nefer, and has them witnessed by Merit. On presenting the deeds to Nefer, she realizes she has finally sucked him dry and rejects him. Sinhue's parents commit suicide, and Sinhue works in the house of the dead to pay for their embalming, under the supervision of the chief untouchable (Mike Mazurki). Sinhue buries his parents in the Valley of the Kings, where he is assisted by a helpful and especially cynical grave robber (John Carridine). He then returns to Thebes where he learns he is under a sentence of death because he was unavailable to care for Pharaoh's daughter, who died. Sinhue and Kapta leave for Syria, Babylonia, Persia, India, Mongolia, ending eventually in Hatti (Anatolia, Asia Minor, or modern Turkey), land of the Hittites. An interlude in Crete, depicted in the novel, is omitted from the film. Sinhue operates on the Hittite lord commander (Michael Ansara) for a brain tumor. Removing the tumor saves the commander's life, but does nothing to abate his lust for conquest. Sinhue and Kapta return to Thebes, where civil strife has been fomented by the old priesthood. Sinhue shows Horemheb, now Akenaton's chief general, the Hittites' iron sword, which cuts through Egyptian copper swords like butter. Princess Baketamon (Gene Tierney), the oldest daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, reveals to the orphan Sihnue that he is in fact her brother and the legitimate Pharaoh. She offers to marry him, and proposes that he murder the dying and heartsick Akenaton. Apart from Sinhue's unprovable actual parentage, the tradition in ancient Egypt was that whoever married the throne princess, oldest daughter of the last pharaoh, became pharaoh. Pharaohs often married their sisters, and sometimes ceremonially married their own daughters. Birth defects resulting from incest spelled the end of several of the 32 dynasties numbered according to Manetho. Sinhue initially intends to carry out Baketamon's plan, but has a change of heart after poisoning Akenaton. He declines to poison Horemheb, who becomes the next Pharaoh.

Historically, Akhenaton was succeeded first by his son Tutankhamon, and then by Ay, the father of Queen Nefertiri (Anitra Stevens), who each had short reigns, before being succeeded by military strongman Horemheb. DNA analysis has shown that Tutankhamon was the son of Akenaton and Akenaton's younger sister Meritaton. Horemheb may have been an illegitimate son of Ay, but other that this possibility, Horemheb's origin remains a mystery. Horemheb's long reign ended the eighteenth dynasty. Historically, Horemheb's queen died during a late pregnancy, and Ramses I was his chancellor and chosen successor. The Ramasid pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty presided over the Exodus—many props and costumes from The Egyptian were purchased by Paramount for reuse in The Ten Commandments. John Carradine appears in both films.

Edmund Purdom's (Sinhue the Egyptian) striking speaking voice ensured a memorable impact in all his films. He played one of the ship's officers in Titanic (1951), and starred in The Student Prince (1954), lipsynching Mario Lanza, and starred with Lana Turner in The Prodigal (1956).

Jean Simmons (Merit) played the child Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), growing up to become Valerie Hobson. She played Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) and had a supporting role in Black Narcissus (1947) from the novel by Rumer Godden. She went on to play in some of the most important films of the fifties and sixties—The Robe (1953) with Richard Burton, Desiree (1954) with Marlon Brando, The Big Country (1958) with Gregory Peck, Elmer Gantry (1960) with Burt Lancaster, and Spartacus (1960) with Kirk Douglas.

Victor Mature (Horemheb) had also starred with Jean Simmons in The Robe, and also appeared in its sequel, the faster-paced Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). He starred in more early widescreen films than any other actor of the fifties. He debuted as the caveman Tumak in Hal Roach's One Million B.C. (1940). He starred in important film noirs like I Wake Up Screaming (1941) and Kiss of Death (1947). In addition, he played Doc Holliday in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) with Henry Fonda and Linda Darnell, and he starred in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) with Hedy Lamarr.

Gene Tierney was Fox's principal leading lady of the forties. She starred in Laura, the classic film noir Leave her to Heaven, and The Razor's Edge. The Egyptian was her last film for many years, though she made a brief comeback in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent, from the novel by Alan Drury, who also wrote two novels about Akenaten, A God Against the Gods, and Return to Thebes.

Peter Ustinov, later knighted, played the Emperor Nero in Quo Vadis (1951) and also starred in Spartacus (1960) with Jean Simmons among many others. A prolific author and playwright, he was a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and Ustinov College of Durham University is named for him.

Bella Darvi (Nefer), though talented and beautiful, had one of the most tragic careers in Hollywood history. Fox studio head Daryl F. Zannuck discovered her in France, and her screen name Darvi was an anagram of Daryl and Virginia Zannuck. She lived with the Zannucks, though Virginia's appreciation for her waned when her husband started an affair with his protégé. She also starred in Samuel Fuller's cold-war atomic espionage drama Hell and High Water (1954), designed to demonstrate how CinemaScope could express claustrophobia. When she finally left Zannuck, he prevented her from working in the industry, and she committed suicide in Paris in 1971.

Michael Wilding (Akhenaton) was married to Elizabeth Taylor in the 1950s. He starred in numerous World War II dramas, including Convoy (1940) and Noel Coward's In Which We Serve (1942). His actual resemblance to Akhenaton is a great asset. In contrast to the conventionally-idealized portraits of other gods and pharaohs, Akhenaton's portraits emphasize his physical idiosyncracies. In ancient times, these physical deformities were taken as signs of the king's divinity.

John Caradine (the graverobber) remains especially cherished for his many overripe performances in low-budget vehicles. In many of them, he is the only thing which makes them watchable.

Henry Daniell (Mykere the High Priest of Ammon) was a well known character actor prized for his ability to project suave villains.

Michael Ansara (the Hittite Lord Commander) had already played Judas in The Robe. He married Barbara Eden.

Michael Curtiz directed Noah's Ark for Warner Brothers in 1925. He also directed Casablanca in 1942. The Egyptian is not widely regarded as among his better films.

Bernard Herrmann was the most avant garde of Hollywood composers. The Egyptian's score is his only collaboration. He composed twice for Orson Welles—Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, and virtually all of Alfred Hitchcock's films from 1955 to 1967, including Vertigo, Psycho, and Marnie, as well as producing sound effects for The Birds, which has no musical score. He composed scores for Jane Eyre, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. His scores for science-fiction films were particularly admired, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mysterious Island, First Men in the Moon, and Fahrenheit 451. He often made innovative use of electronic or other unconventional instruments.

Alfred Neumann was the head of Fox's music department. He wanted Herrmann to score The Egyptian, and when Herrmann hesitated because of his already full schedule, Neumann offered to write half of the music. Two strong creative personalities who never collaborated with anyone else worked here in perfect harmony. Some of the incidental themes are lifted from earlier Herrmann scores such as The Magnificent Ambersons, and one of Neumann's themes from The Robe is also recycled. This same theme is also appropriated by Franz Waxman in his score for Demetrius and the Gladiators, giving these first three religious epics in CinemaScope some aural and thematic consonance.

Leon Shamroy ASC, the dean of widescreen cinematographers, in 1954 was virtually the only director of photography who knew how to use CinemaScope lenses. He taught the rest of the industry how to use widescreen. The new lenses used for The Egyptian avoided compression of the extreme right and left of the screen, giving a more realistic picture for panoramic vistas. CinemaScope was not intimate, though the wider screen made extreme close-ups less necessary. Land of the Pharaohs, though made later, used the original type lenses, and the right-and-left-side compression is obvious in many scenes. Because of the optical distortion of objects placed close to the camera being stretched horizontally, especially toward the center of the screen, and because the CinemaScope screens were typically noticeably higher than the conventional screens they replaced, close-ups were avoided. This gives The Egyptian a somewhat remote feel, although there are a number of striking close-ups, including one of Bella Darvi, which is especially arresting because she is both upside-down and underwater.

Hymn to the Aten

How beautiful art thou

On the horizon of heaven
Oh, living Aten
He who was the first to live
When thou hast risen on the Eastern Horizon
Thou art fair, great, dazzling,
High above every land
Thy rays encompass the land
To the very end of all thou hast made

All the beasts are satisfied with their pasture
Trees and plants are verdant
Birds fly from their nests, wings spread
Flocks skip with their feet
All that fly and alight
Live when thou hast arisen

How manifold is that which thou hast made
Thou sole God
There is no other like thee
Thou didst create the earth
According to thy will
Being alone, everything on earth
Which walks and flies on high

Thy rays nourish the fields
When thou dost rise
They live and thrive for thee
Thou makest the seasons to nourish
All thou hast made
The winter to cool
The heat that they may taste thee

There is no other that knows thee
Save thy son, Akhenaten
For thou hast made him skilled
In thy plans and thy might
Thou dost raise him up for thy son
Who comes forth from thyself

Compare this with the passage in Psalm 104, which dates from about 400 years later, but refers to Adam's expulsion from Eden

Oh Lord, how manifold are Thy works
In wisdom hast Thou made them all
The earth is full of Thy riches
Who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment
Who stretchest out the Heavens like a curtain

Thou makest darkness and it is night
Wherin all the beasts of the forest do creep forth