Watching Tom Cruise's reboot of the Mummy last night - basically Mummy Impossible! - I was reminded of something I'd read years ago about another American desert movie, if not the very first, made over a century ago in 1923:
Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments.
It was a silent, enormous and expensive undertaking in the unforgiving sands of California.
Paramount artisans crafted the Sphinx like masons three thousand years ago!
I recall reading that Cecil's entire Pharaoh set was so massively huge that he could not afford to take it out of the Guadalupe desert where they were filming, so the whole things was buried in the vastness of the dunes!
It's still out there brooding under the shifting barchans, occasionally revealing a scree of perished plaster.
Archaeologists are involved, as they would be on an ancient dig!
Watch this fascinating short clip about their attempts to recover De Mille's Lost City.
Have you ever been there readers?
That was a time, back when movies were movies! An epic above epics. And when you mentioned Tom Cruise + Mummy, I had to look it up - I had no idea they would make something so stupid! The difference between now and then is night and day... SFZ
ReplyDeleteI fell asleep during Mummy Impossible SF! On the plus side it was 'free' on Prime.
DeleteHaving really liked the Brendan Fraser Mummy films, I gave this a miss. Unfortunately anything with Tom Cruise in it, becomes a Tom Cruise movie.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I loved Edge of Tommorrow!
I liked the Brendan Fraser films too Looey. Tongue in cheek and enjoyable.
DeleteEdge of Tomorrow is awesome. I've been in the desert of So Cal, including some movie work. All that sand s**ks. I saw a car sink, had to be hauled out with a tow truck.
ReplyDeleteIs Edge of Tomorrow the one where he's a wounded soldier in a sort of AI pod fighting virtually?
DeleteWhat a massive movie, no wonder Cecil B. De Mille went over budget. I noticed the name Charles Ogle in the credits, as The Doctor - he was the Monster in Edison's 1910 version of Frankenstein.
ReplyDeleteFascinating Paul. I know the movie but never seen it. The first horror film?
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