Anyone Remember the Movie, The Egyptian?

[Barry]

Yes, it was a flop. But I found it good for a little comic value. Anyway, it was loosely based on this pharaoh:

Archaeologists find Akhenaten-era tomb Wed Feb 14, 11:38 AM ET


CAIRO (Reuters) - Dutch archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Akhenaten's seal bearer, decorated with paintings including scenes of monkeys picking and eating fruit, Egyptian antiquities officials said on Wednesday.

The tomb belonged to the official named Ptahemwi and was discovered during a Dutch team's excavation in the Sakkara area, the burial ground for the city of Memphis, the state news agency MENA said, quoting chief antiquities official Zahi Hawass.

Akhenaten, the 18th-dynasty pharaoh who ruled Egypt from 1379 to 1362 BC, abandoned most of the old gods and tried to imposed a monotheistic religion based on worship of the Aten, the disc of the sun.

He built a new capital called Akhetaten at Tell el-Amarna, 250 km (160 miles) south of Cairo, and the find shows that high officials continued to build their tombs in Memphis near Cairo.

"It is one of the most important finds in the Sakkara area because it goes back to the Akhenaten period," MENA quoted Hawass as saying.

Officials said the tomb had limestone walls with paintings of scenes from daily life and of Ptahemwi receiving offerings, MENA reported.

"Some of the funniest scenes ... are those of a number of monkeys picking and eating fruit," said Osama el-Sheemi, head of Sakkara antiquities, quoted by MENA.

The Dutch team has been working in Sakkara since the 1990s to find tombs dating from the New Kingdom. They had previously found the tomb of an Akhenaten-era priest.
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[Ralph]

Unfortunately it isn't available but hopefully will be one day.

[Corlyss_D]

Oh, God! Yes! I loved it when I saw it in the late 50s-early 60s. Broadcast TV had just discovered the prime time movie and combed the vaults for second and third rate trash to show. Edmond Purdom's Sinuhe still sticks in my mind as what an average Egyptian from the 18th Dynasty looks like, i.e., a 20th Century Englishman. The movie sent me in 2 directions - a fascination with Egyptology and archeology; and a passion for Mika Waltari's fiction.

[jbuck919]

I've seen the movie on TV several times and remember that it stars someone who never appeared in anything else (his name was Edmund Purdom according to Corlyss and I suppose IMDb).

[dulcinea]

I remember the ankh, which, together with the monotheism of this pharaoh, was regarded as a prophecy of Christianity.

[jbuck919]

I remember the ankh, which, together with the monotheism of this pharaoh, was regarded as a prophecy of Christianity.

I believe you mean monotheism. They played that up in the movie (actually not during the movie itself but if I remember correctly in an epilogue text) but it is and always has been a lot of baloney. Aton was literally the disk of the sun and was already worshipped by the Egyptians, just not exclusively. The Jewish one God was something radically different and truly revolutionary.

[Bogey]

FWIW, Bernard Herrmann's score was made available and released back in 2005 by Film Score Monthly and is now only available on the secondary market, as it just recently went out of print:

[Haydnseek]

I've seen the movie on TV several times and remember that it stars someone who never appeared in anything else (his name was Edmund Purdom according to Corlyss and I suppose IMDb).

Purdom had the lead in the "The Student Prince" filling in for Mario Lanza who began the project by recording the music heard in the movie but who proved to be in no condition to appear on screen. I think it is a good movie.