Land of the Pharaohs is a 1955 American epic historical drama film in CinemaScope and WarnerColor from Warner Brothers, produced and directed by Howard Hawks. The cast was headed by Jack Hawkins as Pharaoh Khufu and Joan Collins as one of his wives, Nellifer. The film is a fictional account of the building of the Great Pyramid. Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner was one of the film's three credited screenwriters.
Land of the Pharaohs had a cast of thousands – Warners' press office claimed there were 9,787 extras in one scene – and was one of Hollywood's largest-scale, ancient world epics, made in the same spirit as The Robe, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur.
Plot
Throughout his reign, Pharaoh Khufu amasses a great treasure. He wants to be entombed with it when he dies, free from the threat of grave robbers. Dissatisfied with the unoriginal plans of his architects for his tomb, he offers Vashtar, a brilliant slave, a bargain: freedom for his enslaved people if he can design a robber-proof pyramid; however, Vashtar will be killed once it is completed, so the secrets of the design will die with him. Vashtar agrees. After much thought, he comes up with an ingenious design that seals the labyrinth to the burial chamber after burial via an ingenious system of jars filled with sand which, when broken, will release huge blocks of stone to slide into place and close the labyrinth.
As the years of construction pass, Khufu's subjects who once joyously viewed the building of the pyramid as holy work become disillusioned by decades of misery and drudgery. Yet Khufu presses on, levying high taxes on tributary states to continue financing his tomb. The province of Cyprus, however, offers the beautiful Princess Nellifer to him in lieu of taxes, and Nellifer eventually becomes his second wife. She plots and schemes to become his heir; her attempted assassination of Khufu's young son instead claims the life of the boy's mother, Queen Nailla, when she shields her son from a deadly cobra with her own body.
Meantime, Vashtar's aging eyes begin to fail, and he is forced to rely his son Senta for help with the supervision of the construction, teaching him its secrets. One day on the construction site, Senta saves Khufu from a runaway stone block; promised any reward in Khufu's power to bestow, he chooses Nellifer's slave Kyra. When Nellifer protests, Khufu harshly rebukes her in front of the court. Humiliated, Nellifer conspires to have the pharaoh meet an early fate and ultimately manipulates him into a sword fight with Treneh, the captain of his guard, whom Nellifer has seduced. Though Khufu wins, he is seriously wounded and collapses from blood loss. Nellifer refuses his pleas for help and watches him die.
Khufu's loyal high priest and lifelong friend, Hamar, releases Vashtar's people as promised and generously allows Vashtar to join them, as the design does not have to be kept secret. Khufu's treasure is moved into the tomb so that the deceased can enjoy them in the next life. Hamar then tells Nellifer that she, as queen, must preside over the ceremony in the central burial chamber. Once she gives the order to seal the sarcophagus, the jars of sand are broken, and massive stone blocks seal the way out. "There's no way out!" Hamar tells her. "This is what you lied and schemed and murdered to achieve. This is your kingdom!" Nellifer vainly screams for mercy as she, Hamar and the priests who accompanied them are interred in the tomb.
The film ends with Vashtar, Senta and their people, on their way to their homeland, briefly pausing to look back at the pyramid as they hear the seals boom shut.
Cast
Jack Hawkins as Pharaoh Khufu
Joan Collins as Princess Nellifer
Dewey Martin as Senta
Alexis Minotis as Hamar (dubbed by Robert Rietty) James Robertson Justice as Vashtar Luisella Boni as Kyra (as Luisa Boni) Sydney Chaplin as Treneh James Hayter as Mikka Kerima as Queen Nailla Piero Giagnoni as Prince Xenon Carlo D'Angelo as Nabuna (uncredited)
Production
Hawks had between 3,000 and 10,000 extras working each day during the fifty-plus day shooting schedule. The government supplied those extras, half of whom were soldiers in the Egyptian Army.