L'Atlantide (aka The Queen of Atlantis, 1921)

Jacques Feyder’s 1921 lost world film L’Atlantide is a great serial, except for one thing: it isn’t.

A serial, that is. All the ingredients are present: captures, escapes, sandy travails in the desert, minions, lust, jealousy, lost cities, and a running time of nearly 2.5 hours. A few more seemingly endless shots of Saharan nothingness would extend the film by another hour, then all you’d have to do is divide it all up into 13 or 15 chapters, and, et voilà, you’re ready to give Pearl White a run for her money.

Obviously, I think that L’Atlantide falls way short of living up to its reputation. Its content simply does not justify its running time. Based on a one-time celebrated novel by Pierre Benoit (which I have not read but appears to be heavily indebted to Rider Haggard’s She) the film opens as a scouting party of Foreign Legionnaires finds Lt. Saint-Avit (Georges Melchior) near death in the desert. When he recovers, Saint-Avit tells his rescuers why he murdered Capitaine Morhange (Jean Angelo), the man with whom he went adventuring in search of Atlantis. 

Note that we will eventually discover why Atlantis is in the middle of the Sahara, not that it makes much sense. Also note that his tale is only the first in a series of flashbacks, some of which include flashbacks of their own, and expositions of subplots that most screenwriters (von Stroheim and Peter Jackson excepted) would have omitted.

They locate Atlantis, a supposedly fabulous place that looks like a second rate and seedy Moroccan restaurant. The Queen of Atlantis is the immortal Antinea, under whose beauty every mortal male falls helplessly in love at first sight.

Antinea is played by Stacia Napierkowska, who had been acting in films since 1908. Here she is only 35 and looks every minute of it, not the best casting for an ageless beauty. Feyder is said to have regretted giving her the part when he saw how much weight she’d gained before filming began.

Anyway, Antinea selects Morhange to be her next husband. When she tires of him he will be subjected to a “galvano plastic bath” which will somehow turn him to gold so he can be displayed in her gallery of exes, rather like Poelzig’s wives in “The Black Cat” (1934). It’s a guarantee that Moravian-born director Edgar G. Ulmer was familiar with Antinea’s gallery.

But Morhange’s disinterest in her drives her mad, and she determines to kill him in the most horrendously ironic way.

Saint-Avit, in the throes of lust for Antinea, does the deed and is then helped to escape by Tanit-Zerga (Marie-Louise Iribe), a captured woman who has been reduced to servitude. 

The picture was filmed in Algeria and on actual Saharan locations over a period of eight months. It was a huge commercial success, playing in one theater in Paris for over a year despite an original running time of 196 minutes. Other cast members in prominent roles include Abd-el-Kader Ben Ali, Paul Franceschi, Andre Roanne, and Rene Lorsay. Cinematography was by Georges Specht, Victor Morin, and Amédée Morrin, and the screenplay was by the director. 

Rossini was said about Wagner’s operas that they contained sublime moments separated by excruciating half hours. And there you have it.