She
                               
Director: Irving Pichel
Year: 1935
Rating: 7.5
"Who are you", asks Nigel Bruce as Horace Holly to the female immersed in smoke and mystery.

"I'm yesterday and today and tomorrow. I am sorrow, longing and hope unfulfilled. I am she who must be obeyed."

Ok - I just wanted a name. But I wouldn't mind using that the next time I am asked. Be a good way to get rid of people that annoy you.


Helen Gahagan is no Ursula Andress as She, but this is the best of the film versions of this - the others I have seen being the 1925 silent version and the more celebrated 1965 film.  This was produced by Miriam C. Cooper of King Kong fame and he was hoping to make another classic film based on the H.R. Haggard novel and in my mind he did - but it would have been better if RKO had lived up to its promises. They kept cutting his budget and he had to forego color, extras, the scene in which they were attacked by mammoths was cut out, Greta Garbo was not available as She (how cool would that have been - "I have been alone for 500 years") and décor and props had to be borrowed from the sets of other films. Still, this is a remarkable production - almost a lost film except thankfully Buster Keaton had a copy in his garage. Gahagan by the way only appeared in this one film - she was a theatrical star - but later gained some fame for losing in a Senate race to none other than Tricky Dick and setting him on his way to the White House.



The sets are wonderful, the large halls, the giant statues, the immense doors, the décor and costumes that are influenced by everything from Art Deco to Egyptian to Roman, terrific matte work, a great recreation of an avalanche of ice, a powerful score from Max Steiner and an ending that had me doing dance steps of happiness. Cooper and the scriptwriters wisely cut out parts of the book and decide to set it in Muscovy, the most northern part of Russia rather than Africa. An interesting change that I think works in its favor - it changes the whole White Woman Queen trope - though we still have one character saying, "Let it never be said that I would let a white man down".  Considering that everyone is white, it doesn't make much sense. Just a saying in those days.




Leo Vincey (Randolph Scott) is summoned from America to see his uncle who is dying. The uncle along with his good friend Holly (Nigel Bruce in a heroic adventure role for a change!) spins quite a yarn. Vincey's ancestor from the 1500's is the spitting image of Leo and this ancestor discovered a flame that made you immortal if you stepped into it. In the far far reaches of the north. And off he and Holly go. In the book Holly is Leo's adopted father, but not here. In the frozen tundra, they find a guide and his daughter Tanya (Helen Mack) and they continue their trek across mountains and sheets of ice. Leo, Holly and Tanya come across a group of cave men who do a little dance around the fire. "Oh, they are pleased to see us" says Tanya as the cave men look for seasoning. They seem friendly enough says Holly as they lead him to the fire. Oh, look they are putting a red-hot iron helmet on me. At which point Leo begins shooting them.



They are saved by another group of men dressed to the nines in the latest fashions from circa 300 BC. They are introduced to She - who when she sees Leo lets out an orgasmic scream. He is the reincarnation of her lover from 500 years previously. So, Leo, here are your choices - get old and wrinkly or live forever with me. I will take B, thank you. Best is yet to come when the ceremony for a human sacrifice takes place. It looks like it is part Bollywood, part Busby Berkeley with a shot of Twyla Tharp in there. It's incredible. I would want a human sacrifice every day. The film admittedly sags in the middle, but it keeps surprising with jolts of imagination.