Customer Reviews

She [VHS]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If the 1935 SHE reminds you vaguely of the 1933 KING KONG do not be too surprised: both films were produced by Meriam C. Cooper, who endowed them with similar visual styles--and who tweaked the 1887 novel by H. Rider Haggard to create a similar story line as well. Starring Broadway actress (and later two term Democratic congresswoman from California) Helen Gahagan in her only film role as The Eternal One, SHE did not, however, meet with the same financial success. It lost a tremendous amount of money for RKO, was withdrawn, and for many years was thought to be completely lost.

Although the film alters the Haggard novel in a great many ways, it retains the basic elements. Lured by a family legend, Leo Vincey (Randolph Scott) braves the frozen European north with family friend Horace Holly (Nigel Bruce, best known for his appearances in the Sherlock Holmes series) and innocent Tanya Dugmore (Helen Mack, popular 1930s ingenue.) When an avalanche exposes a cavern, the three find that the Vincey family legend is not quite so fanciful after all.

Most particularly, they find themselves at the mercy of She Who Must Be Obeyed, a woman who recalls talk of Jesus Christ in the Jerusalem market place, a woman two thousand years old who preserves her life by bathing in a radioactive flame that vents from the volcanic floor of her hidden kingdom. She (known here as Queen Hash-A-Mo-Tep) has been waiting for the reincarnation of her long-dead love, and Leo is his spitting image.

The acting styles are stiff even by 1935 standards and although Miss Gahagan is attractive in a 1930s way she lacks the stunning beauty attributed to She by the Haggard novel--but the great draw of the film was never intended to be great acting: like KING KONG, it is an action-adventure film with knockout sets (a few of them actually lifted from KING KONG), memorable special effects, and remarkable cinematographic set pieces. Even as it borrowed from earlier films such as the 1932 Boris Karloff THE MUMMY, it would also influence later films in turn; it is hard, for example, to imagine the 1937 Ronald Coleman LOST HORIZON without it, and even the look of the evil queen in Disney's 1938 SNOW WHITE is said to have been inspired by Gahagan's look and performance.

The film has been released in several editions to the home market, and fans may be tempted by less expensive editions. A word to the wise: Don't. The film shows its age and there is no significant bonus material, but the Kino Video release (be it on VHS or DVD) offers what is probably the best print short of a digital restoration. Recommended for fans of 1930s fantasy cinema.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This is in response to the viewer who wanted more details about the 2-disc special edition of SHE. Without giving away too much of the plot, the story basically involves some brave adventurers who head off on an expedition to a faraway land with the hope of finding a lost civilization rumored to possess a mysterious power source that can give eternal youth. After a perilous journey, the explorers eventually locate the ancient people but run into trouble when they meet the cold-blooded female leader of the kingdom.

This new edition of SHE includes both a colorized version of the film and a restored print of the original B&W feature, along with a second disc full of bonus material. For me, however, the main reason for getting this newer release of the film is that it's an expanded version that runs about 8 minutes longer than the original.

As for the film itself, SHE is one of the all-time great adventure movies. One might quibble that there could have been a little more action instead of some lengthy sequences dealing with the sacrificial ceremonies and such, but it still has a thought-provoking mix of mystery and excitement that truly holds your attention. If you liked the original KING KONG or JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH with James Mason, you're bound to enjoy this movie and it's certainly worth adding to your collection.

If you already own the previous Kino edition of SHE, this new version does indeed offer some impressive enhancements, so if you really love the movie I'd say it's worth the price to replace your old copy. If you're just a casual fan, though, the older DVD is perfectly acceptable. Bottom line: SHE is always a winner.

The packaging for the DVD boldly announces this film as "From the Creator of 'King Kong'" and there are indeed such striking similarities between the two that She--produced by Merian C. Cooper during his tenure at RKO might well have been called Kong Goes North. (Cognoscenti of the earlier film will have no difficulty in spotting the monumental wall with its Babylonian-style gates that separated the inhabitants of Skull Island from the lair of the beast.) Once more a band of intrepid explorers intrude upon the sacred precincts of a "lost world" that has been cut off from contact with the outside for centuries--and with predictably disastrous results for all concerned, since the hero turns out to be a reincarnation of the man the immortal mistress of the chthonian realm of Kor had loved five hundred years before. In making King Kong, Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack had drawn upon their earlier documentaries like Grass and Chang, but She, based upon another febrile romance from the pen of H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines) is a wildly romantic creation that more resembles a Hollywood adaptation of Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde than any conventional adventure picture. In fact, what makes She still quite charming today is its highly anachronistic quality, especially evident in the extravagant sets designed by Van Nest Polglase, which hark back to the visual style of classic German films from the early 1920s like Fritz Lang's Destiny as well as Alla Nazimovia's silent version of Oscar Wilde's Salome. I would also surmise that She may have had a influence upon the look of some later movies including Frank Capra's Lost Horizon and Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz, and most interestingly of all upon Walt Disney's Snow White, whose evil queen bears a remarkable likeness to the one who rules over Kor. Helen Gahagan in her unique screen appearance is grandiosely malevolent as She Who Must Be Obeyed--as the movie styles the character. Randolph Scott is quite acceptable as the explorer Leo, and Nigel Bruce his usual solid self as Leo's companion Holly. But Helen Mack is ludicrous as Tanya, the mortal for whom Leo gives up the chance of eternal life, and Gustav Von Seyffertitz as the high priest of Kor is a prototypic example of old-time studio miscasting. As another reviewer pointed out, this DVD has been made from excellent print material and the picture quality is quite impressive, although I personally found the sound level had to be cranked up quite a bit.

Special Effects Legend Ray Harryhausen has brought us a beautiful new color version of SHE, a thrilling tale of adventure, immortality and lost love. Originally produced in 1935 by Merrian C. Cooper (yes who did King Kong!), SHE is a tale of a group of explorers in search of the legendary "flame of life," a mysterious force that bestows immortality. Their perilous journey takes them to the heart of a remote glacier where they are taken captive by the beautiful but impollibly cruel SHE!

This stunning new edition of SHE has been restored in high definition from the original 35mm film elements and includes a spectacular colorized version by Ray Harryhausen and Legend Films. Loads of bonus material includes never before seen "deleted scenes" and interviews with Ray Harryhausen.

I remember having seen the black & white version of this film some twenty years ago - - but I was completely "blown away" by the Ray Harryhausen and Legend Films colorized version. The chorography and music of the dance sequence is alone worth the price of admission. Raldoph Scott - although sometimes critized as being "wooden" - was perfect in this film - as was Helen Gahagan. Sadly - although Helen Gahagan was an exceptional actress - this was her only film. (She was a stage actress.) As an added bonus - the optional audio commentary provides a wealth of background and historical information that is a must for all film buffs.

"I am yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I am sorrow and longing and hope unfulfilled. I am She Who Must Be Obeyed!"

There's never been an entirely successful sound version of H. Rider Haggard's She, but on re-viewing, the 1935 version comes far closer than any of its rivals. After five silent versions of varying degrees of popularity, a lavish version reuniting many of the team behind King Kong must have seemed a box-office slamdunk (though not enough of one for RKO to approve the cost of filming in Three-Strip Technicolor), yet proved a flop on its original release. Subsequently cut for reissues, it was only because Buster Keaton had a print of the film in his own collection that it initially survived being lost altogether.

At first sight there are a lot of changes from Haggard's novel. Leo Vincey is no longer the reincarnation of She's lost love of centuries earlier Kalikrites but a descendent of a 15th century explorer She fell in love with. Thematically the novel's repressed homosexual undercurrent is (understandably for 1935) lost, as are its early reflections on people's assumptions that those blessed with beauty are also exceptionally gifted, intelligent and innately decent (in the novel Leo is distinctly dim and ultimately lacking in moral stature despite his looks, while the slightly deformed but good-hearted and extremely intelligent Holly is regularly taken for a sinister dullard). Even the nature of Leo's quest has been changed - no longer a search to find She and his own destiny but a search for the Flame of Life and the lost kingdom of Kor, now relocated from Africa to the mountain ranges of Muscovy. Yet even with the reinvention of much of the first third of the book (borrowing heavily from the Tibetan mountain setting of the first of Haggard's three follow-up novels, Ayesha: The Return of She), Ruth Rose's adaptation cuts to the heart of the book: this is about the desperate desire for what we cannot have and how that longing can erode what makes us human.

Just as Leo's uncle has destroyed himself with his experiments to artificially create the Flame of Life with radioactivity, She's all-consuming obsession with a love that never really was has burnt out her very heart and soul, her passion, like her empire, one of the imagination: it's the possibility of immortality that Leo's fascinated by, not her, and he'll play her toyboy and cut out his companions without a second thought to attain it. Gifted with one of the great screen entrances of all time, silhouetted behind a wall of smoke at the top of a flight of palatial steps, Helen Gahagan is a very different interpretation of the role from the usual babe you'd crawl over broken glass to get to, more a matron weighed down by time and loneliness and freed from the moral code of mere mortals. Her scream of pain on seeing Vincey for the first time in several lifetimes is a genuinely shocking moment.

Broadway star Gahagan would take the lion's share of the blame for the film's failure, never making another movie and going into politics where she later become smeared as `the Pink Lady' by Nixon during the McCarthy era, though not before popularising his nickname `Tricky Dicky.' In truth the film's failure might be more down to its lack of action (though it does throw in a terrific avalanche and a vivid escape sequence at the end) and its lack of obviously sympathetic characters. Randolph Scott is suitably bland as Leo while Nigel Bruce, still four years away from his bumbling Dr Watson, is a convincingly determined and grounded figure here to act as counterpoint to the hero's growing loss of self, but it's left to Helen Mack's romantic interest to carry the torch for basic human decency. The greatest impact is made by former silent film director Gustav Von Seyffertitz, a combination of the figure of Friederich Von Leidebur and the voice of Bela Lugosi, as a wonderfully imposing high priest Bilali: when he says "There are marvels to be seen here today," you believe him. (The eagle-eyed may also spot Native American Olympic medal winning athlete Jim Thorpe, later played onscreen by Burt Lancaster, also in there as the captain of the palace guards.)

Although more than ably directed by Irving Pichel and Lansing C. Holden with some superb and ambitious camera work courtesy of J. Roy Hunt, it's clearly producer Merian C. Cooper who's the driving force here. The model for King Kong's showman Carl Denham, he goes all-out to best his previous pictures here and nearly manages it despite the odd bit of studio penny-pinching. He certainly got his money's worth from Van Nest Polglase's truly magnificent design which shows real vision in details great and small, from the massive ceremonial halls to the mausoleum steps worn away over the years by She, although criminally the film's sole Oscar nomination went instead to Benjamin Zemach in the "They had an Oscar for THAT?" category of Best Dance Direction for the film's most relentless sequence of prolonged camp prior to a human sacrifice.

For a long-forgotten flop, it certainly left its mark on many who saw it. Just as the novel was clearly an influence on James Hilton's later Lost Horizon, the film is very obviously a big influence on Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with She Who Must Be Obeyed rendering judgment in a costume the wicked queen would borrow for her little chats with her mirror. Ray Harryhausen took much from the film for his last Sinbad adventure, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, as well, not least the frozen sabre-toothed tiger that comes memorably to life, a sequence that at one time been mooted for Cooper's film before budget cuts meant dropping Willis O. Brien's planned stop-motion animation setpiece and leaving the beast encased in ice.

Harryhausen, along with Cooper biographer Mark Cotta Caz, provides the audio commentary on Kino's new 2-disc Region 1 NTSC DVD, but sadly much of the commentary is about the colorization process (the film is included in both black and white and colorized versions), which is considerably less than state-of-the-art. While Cooper had intended the film to be shot in color, it's doubtful he'd be impressed with the results. The ice sequences and avalanche look impressive, but flesh tones are still unconvincing and much of the colorized version has the look of an old magic coloring book. On the plus side, for the first time the film has been fully restored with the deleted scenes sourced by James D'Arc at the Brigham Young University (where Cooper and composer Max Steiner's collections are held) put back into the original black and white version as well as the colorized one. There's also a good interview with composer John Morgan about Max Steiner's acclaimed score.

Ah, they don't make them like this any more. Still my favorite version of a truly classic love story - think of it as a distaff version of the 1933 "The Mummy". H. Rider Haggard's "She" is one of those classics that has been filmed EIGHT times. This version, from 1935, is probably the most faithful to the spirit of Haggard's novel, despite some very, VERY odd changes to the plot.

Everyone will associate Nigel Bruce with his unforgiveably buffonish portrayal of Dr. Watson in the Basil Rathbone Holmes series. Here, four years before the first of those were filmed, he plays the part of Holly, a bit of miscasting if ever there was one. Fortunately, he quickly fades into the background once things get moving. Helen Gahagan, a well-known stage actress, plays the immortal Ayesha, "She Who Must Be Obeyed". The agonized, piercing shriek she makes when seeing her injured lost love for the first time in 500 years is worth the entire film - its horrifying notes of despair and loss raise my hair just remembering it. Randolph Scott and Helen Mack are more products of their time - a bit stiff and stolid, working their ways through the film rather than really grabbing you. Surprisingly good special effects and make-up, especially with the avalanche scene and the "Flame of Life" ending.

This release features both the original black-and-white version, and one that's been "colorized". Colorization technology has come a long way since it's introduction over 20 years ago, and those of you who remember those early efforts, where the monotone shades seemed to follow their subjects a few milliseconds behind the action, should at least audition this DVD to see how far things have progressed. MOST effective is the shading given to the extensive matte paintings (thank goodness!), in many scenes giving a terrific sense of scale and distance missing from the B&W version. The massive sets also come across very convincingly and to me are the closest to what I'd pictured in reading the novel. Anyone who considers themselves a "purist" really should consider that this isn't "Citizen Kane": Cooper is on record wishing he could have filmed it in color if he'd had the budget, and also that this is a far cry from the cheesy early technology.

The letdown: the human sacrifice scene. I haven't seen so much camp since "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". Besides the dancing cavemen (what, do they rehearse, or do they do this so often that they're really good at synchronized syncopations?), we get a marching band! (Watch for the drummer in the middle with the psychotic grin on his face. Makes me wonder what the heck was going on in his head!)

Good extras, including the Harryhausen interview on the colorization. Recommended to all.

Strange, camp, and ornate. Most of the King Kong crew returns with some well-done special effects, great music, absurd dance numbers, and human sacrifice. Fascinating and very entertaining.

Being a huge fan of the spectacular results this outfit gets, I was shocked and alarmed to discover that several scenes in this classic film were arbitrarily DELETED from the original director's print! They are included in the "extras", but still, this practice (they've done it before) is deplorable and disturbing. What can they be thinking?

A cursory glance at this film will yield a view of a rather creaky relic of early Hollywood mumbo jumbo. It is easy to dismiss this production as such until some very important aspects of the nature of this property are set forth.
First off, the story is taken from a turn of the century book written by H. Rider Haggard, a popular novelist whose works include a series of books that were enormously popular in their day and featured a hero named Alan Quartermaine, the character upon whom Indiana Jones was based in contemporary film works.
Haggard's works appealed mostly to boys, and "She" was unusual in that it's central character was a woman. Bringing this particular story to the screen insinuated a certain high brow panache, because of Haggard's established reputation as a "serious" writer/novelist.
Secondly, the woman selected to play the infamous She, Helen Gahagan (Douglas) was a serious actress and activist who soon after this movie, deserted Hollywood and it's gaudy trappings to pursue a successful career in politics on the West Coast throughout the 40's and 50's. In that respect, She herself was a precursor to the many celebrities that have gone on to similar pursuits in our day and age.
Lastly, because the kingdom over which She rules is mythical, the creative license the filmakers enjoyed in creating her realm of Kor, resulted in fabulous Art Deco fantasies of design, and believe you me, this movie is "designed" to the max.
Randolph Scott plays his part with the gee gosh gusto that would make him a cowboy star later in his career, but at this time, his physical beauty is striking, even if his acting isn't. (He WAS the model for the original Arrow Shirt man in the early 30's.)
There are really nifty special effects such as a giant avalanche and of course the morphing effects She experiences in the film's climax. The biggest scene is the strange rites conducted in the main Hall of Kor that HAS to rival anything ever thought up by Busby Berkeley with it's bizarre combination of Egyptian, Mayan and Copacabana nightclub sensibilities, choreography and all!
Add a dash of "The Mummy" and the always successful Boy meets Girl formula, and She emerges as a real icon of it's day and one that any spectacle lover will keep close to their heart. Pop the corn, turn off the lights and sit back and enjoy the movie.