Customer Reviews

Legend of the Lost (1957)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Legend of the Lost" is a morality tale of sorts which follows the journey of three disparate souls searching for lost treasure in the vast Sahara Desert. The trio is comprised of Joe January, played by John Wayne, who is a hard living, hard drinking guide; Paul Bonnard, a would-be missionary played by Rossano Brazzi; and Dita, portrayed by Sophia Loren, who is a prostitute and petty thief transformed by Paul's piety.

The sought-after treasure was originally discovered by Paul's father. But when it is revealed that his father is not the saint Paul thought him to be, Paul is corrupted. Greed and lust overtake him eventually leading to tragedy.

Paul's instantaneous and wicked conversion seems somewhat preposterous as he had purportedly lived a virtuous life up until the discovery of the treasure and the remains of his father. The entire plot strains credibility.

But it is the motley and gifted cast that fascinates. Wayne's Joe January is a crude, hard-bitten soul. But underneath that rough exterior, you know that he is a decent man especially since he is portrayed by Duke Wayne. Wayne has a reassuringly quiet strength and an unselfconscious vulnerability that always make his characterizations believable. Wayne's characters are strong men, but not super men (ala Schwarzenegger or Stallone). His characters are realistic. They can be brought down, hurt, and compromised.

Rossano Brazzi gives an almost giddy, operatic interpretation of a good man gone bad. It's amusing to watch his character degenerate. And Sophia Loren has an untamed beauty and wild impetuousness which is electrifying.

So perhaps one can forgive the hokey plot of "Legend of the Lost", the occasional poor sound quality, and the rather cheesy musical score. It is the charismatic, talented cast and the magnificently sun-drenched, barren landscape of the Sahara Desert that make this movie rather thrilling and worth your time.

I had just seen Houseboat and really wanted to catch another Sophia flick. There is a criminal lack of her movies on DVD. With all the harsh criticisms of this movie, I bought it hesitantly only because I couldn't find many Sophia movies. There's a strange flavor to this movie, almost as if something about it was experimental. And the score is just plain weird. The story doesn't have a strong punch line by the end, but it does come to a logical conclusion that some may not find satisfying, but I did.

The best part of the movie were the good lines they gave John Wayne and the great comic timing with which he delivered them. In this movie he seems to have perfected the kind of character Harrison Ford played in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series. While Sophia Loren is breathtakingly beautiful, with her talent and ability to project personality, she would still be fun to watch even if she was as plain as a blank sheet of paper. (Thank goodness she is gorgeous, though.)

Maybe what disappoints some people is that this movie appears to set itself up to be a wild action adventure, but instead this is more of a character development story before the time this kind of thing was popular in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It's a good movie to display some of the Duke's abilities to display the kind of character he often plays from a different perspective. And of course, Sophia is Sophia, bless her heart, and the packaging it comes in.

I first saw this movie when I was 10 and was completely captivated. Of course, I've seen this movie on tv multiple times over the years and I never fail to fall under the movie's spell.

John Wayne as Joe January, drunken guide. Sophia Loren as Dita, a prostitute...do they ever look this good? Brazzi as a starry eyed treasure hunter and do-gooder. What a package. Henry Hathaway did a terrific job directing and Jack Cardiff does a terrific job with the photography.

Unlike other reviewers I think the soundtrack is perfectly aligned with the movie. The movie uses the desert as a fourth character. In the movie the desert is set up to be a strange and eerie place, especially the lost city they eventually end up in. Lost city, lost treasure, and finally a betrayl. The music supports this very well.

I give this movie pretty high marks. The story line is very credible. Brazzi's character shows up wanting to go into the desert to search for his father. Waynes character is hired. Before they can leave, Brazzi charms Sohia Loren's character and she manages to show up in the desert at Wayne's and Brazzi's first camp, escorted by desert nomads. Together the three travel the desert. They eventually end up out of water and stumble into a lost city, the real goal of Brazzi. Given some of the trite and predictable movies touted as good cinema today, even this movie makes them look pale.

Watch the movie for yourself. Unless you're one of those people that has to have a movie loaded with special effects, you should enjoy the experience.

This has always been one of those movies that I go out of my way to watch whenever possible. There is a well told story here involving human fraility, hypocrisy, love, and greed. I enjoy the "ethnic" scenery and Saharan tribal music very much. I'm not necessarily a Wayne fan, but his "type" was perfect juxtaposed with that of the character played by Brazzi.

This is a very interesting movie, however, it is not a very good movie in that the script, if they used one, moves very slowly going almost nowhere. One of the best elements of the film is the ancient Roman city of Timgad of 100 A.D.in modern day Algeria where the film was shot. The city is one of the best examples of the Roman grid pattern of cities and was originally brought into being as a frontier bastion against the mobile Berber tribes. The city yet today retains all of it historical charm that this film exibited.

I'm old enough that I saw this movie in a regular theatre when it was released back in '57, on that fact mainly I bought a copy of the DVD, would it still be as I remembered. Yes and no. The movie is entertaining, it isn't every movie that allows one a front row seat to the Sahara desert, and one that is in living color, too. Although in shooting the movie several sound stages were also used. I noticed too the unevenness of the movie, especially in the beginning scenes, when once in the desert the acting becomes smoother. Maybe they were more tired due to the prolonged heat and didn't have the energy to overact, as some of the earlier scenes come across as somewhat contrived and shrill.

The movie for me is better than a "3" and not quite a "4" rating, but given John Wayne's normal choices for making a movie, I give him credit for stepping out to do something atypical such as this. Sophia Loren is adequate in her role, with Rosanna Brazzi doing his normal fair job. The theme of looking for a "lost" city has been done many times and one would have wished they had built a little better script for this one to carry the story along.

Movie is well worth watching and is good entertainment. One cannot ask much more than that.

Semper Fi.

Seems that this Wayne/Loren film has been lost for many years from lists of their best work. Although it is not in the best 10% for either, I really enjoyed everything about the film and found it entertaining from beginning to end. I also disagree with another comment here on Amazon about John Wayne being miscast. I think it is a perfect vehicle for his often under-rated skills.

One of Sophia Loren's greatest and most sexy performances. An absorbing, exotic film, and all around great treasure hunting adventure. And the Duke, well ... he's the DUKE !!! All movie connoisseurs savor this desert classic time-after-time.

An adventure classic with exotic flavor and great suspense. Numerous lesser movies, such as "Raider's of the Lost .." were spawned from this masterpiece. It seems that contemporary Hollywood producers can only make movies from cartoons (Flintstones, etc.), and now stoop to rely on cheap computer graphics instead of gray matter.

"Legend of the Lost" exudes both talent and creativity in great abundance. The Duke IS King! This film IS a legend! Sophia Loren IS at her absolute best!

The DVD uses the same master as the VHS release. The video is fine but the audio has been subjected to a sharp high frequency filter followed by heavy-handed dynamic noise suppression. Noise suppressors accelerate the natural decline in volume of a spoken word; trailing sibilants as well as softly spoken words are especially vulnerable and may be entirely eliminated. The result is clipped, abrupt speech which is not only uncomfortable to hear but often difficult to understand. Other effects of noise suppressors include pumping of background sounds, loss of background ambience and disappearance of low-level detail. In some cases, aggressive noise suppression can make a film unwatchable (try sitting through the print of "Jamaica Inn" which Turner has shown in recent years).

In this release of "Legend of the Lost," serious degradation of the audio from noise suppression makes the film very tedious to view. I watch it with subtitles to make it easier to understand what's being said.

As Criterion has demonstrated, it is possible to get good audio from older films, even those as far back as the thirties. Right now, too many studios seem to assign the audio portion of a DVD release to stone-eared individuals who think cranking up the high frequency filters and the noise suppressors is the way to make an older film sound like "Star Wars." The predictable outcome, as in the case of this release of "Legend of the Lost," is a seriously mangled, sometimes unlistenable soundtrack.

The dvd arrived on time and in good condition. The quality of the dvd was good as promised. I'd recommend purchasing this dvd from this vendor.