November 19, 2024

From the cast list, I couldn't help but wonder why it had taken me forty years to see this film - then I watched it. The diverse funding arrangements, basically as many European countries that don't speak English as a first language as possible - has conspired to create a production with stars who are over-dubbed (badly) by voices that you might expect to hear on a cat-food commercial. The photography is quite decent and evokes well some of the a… read the rest.

From the cast list, I couldn't help but wonder why it had taken me forty years to see this film - then I watched it. The diverse funding arrangements, basically as many European countries that don't speak English as a first language as possible - has conspired to create a production with stars who are over-dubbed (badly) by voices that you might expect to hear on a cat-food commercial. The photography is quite decent and evokes well some of the adventure surrounding "Holmes'" search for the missing necklace of legendary Pharaoh Cleopatra, before it falls into the hands of the pursuing "Prof. Moriarty" (Hans Söhnker). It is, however, a really poor piece of cinema that could benefit from a digital restoration with some decent vocal talent to reinvigorate it all...

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