The only thing that prevents The Egyptian from becoming a real classic is the performance of Edmond Purdom. He's way too stiff and formal as Sinhue the physician who loses all. Darryl Zanuck who was usually smart about these things had both Tyrone Power and Cornel Wilde available and either would have brought a certain grace to the part that Purdom lacked. Of course Zanuck's original intention was cast Marlon Brando in the role and Brando backed off in a hurry.
Otherwise the movie is well cast even with Bella Darvi who was Darryl Zanuck's squeeze at the time. Since her part just called for her to be seductive, Darvi was well qualified for that.
The story is narrated by Purdom as an old man setting his life story down on papyrus. He was a physician back in the day, learning the arts of healing from his father who seemed to practice some ancient type of neurosurgery. A young soldier Victor Mature befriends Purdom one night when he's had a bit much at the ancient saloon and both of them befriend the brand new Pharoah, Michael Wilding, when Purdom treats him for an epileptic seizure and Mature shoots a lion about to pounce.
Wilding is a dreamy mystic a kind of Henry Wallace from back in the ancient days. He's playing Akhenaton who tried during his reign as Pharoah to introduce a monotheistic religion to Egypt with a symbol very suspiciously looking like a cross. Of course the religious power structure as is has a vested interest in not seeing a new religion succeed.
Wilding also wants to lay down the swords and beat them into plowshares to coin a phrase when Egypt has a whole lot of enemies ready to do a number on them. This message during the Cold War definitely had an audience appeal, not to mention to those who remembered how Hitler's rise in Germany was unchecked by ill prepared democracies.
The real Akhenaton did not go the way this one does, nor was he succeeded by who the film says he was. In fact his successor was a nephew, the legendary child king, Tutankhamen whose tomb discovery made that rather minor king a household name.
Jean Simmons is radiant as the tavern girl with a big yen for Edmond Purdom and Gene Tierney is vicious as Wilding's scheming sister. In the palace coup d'etat that takes Akhenaton down you will see some of the issues raised in the reasons why Caligula was assassinated in I Claudius.
20th Century Fox and Michael Curtiz made a valiant effort to outdo Paramount and Cecil B. DeMille here. If they only had cast the lead better.
Otherwise the movie is well cast even with Bella Darvi who was Darryl Zanuck's squeeze at the time. Since her part just called for her to be seductive, Darvi was well qualified for that.
The story is narrated by Purdom as an old man setting his life story down on papyrus. He was a physician back in the day, learning the arts of healing from his father who seemed to practice some ancient type of neurosurgery. A young soldier Victor Mature befriends Purdom one night when he's had a bit much at the ancient saloon and both of them befriend the brand new Pharoah, Michael Wilding, when Purdom treats him for an epileptic seizure and Mature shoots a lion about to pounce.
Wilding is a dreamy mystic a kind of Henry Wallace from back in the ancient days. He's playing Akhenaton who tried during his reign as Pharoah to introduce a monotheistic religion to Egypt with a symbol very suspiciously looking like a cross. Of course the religious power structure as is has a vested interest in not seeing a new religion succeed.
Wilding also wants to lay down the swords and beat them into plowshares to coin a phrase when Egypt has a whole lot of enemies ready to do a number on them. This message during the Cold War definitely had an audience appeal, not to mention to those who remembered how Hitler's rise in Germany was unchecked by ill prepared democracies.
The real Akhenaton did not go the way this one does, nor was he succeeded by who the film says he was. In fact his successor was a nephew, the legendary child king, Tutankhamen whose tomb discovery made that rather minor king a household name.
Jean Simmons is radiant as the tavern girl with a big yen for Edmond Purdom and Gene Tierney is vicious as Wilding's scheming sister. In the palace coup d'etat that takes Akhenaton down you will see some of the issues raised in the reasons why Caligula was assassinated in I Claudius.
20th Century Fox and Michael Curtiz made a valiant effort to outdo Paramount and Cecil B. DeMille here. If they only had cast the lead better.