This popped up on Turner Classic Movies and I thought "This is weird. I'm a movie buff and was 18 years old in 1981 and I ran the book store that specialized in Science Fiction and Fantasy at the time...and I don't recall this movie! It must have been awful. Must see TV!"
I was right! A decent start turns into just an awful film. It's a "run from scene to scene without much ever really happening" adventure. It wants to Romancing the Stone. Even Sahara was was better than this. In fact while watching I kept half expecting Matthew Mcconaughey to suddenly show up as an Egyptian. He would have fit right in.
Lesley Anne Down is as stiff as a board. In the Mummy movies Rachel Weiss shows physical skills such as the initial "up on the ladder wreck the library scene." None of that from Lesley. Even when she gets thrown into the tomb rolling down a flight of steps she looks like an ironing board being thrown down stairs.
Nothing really ever happens. The script has more loose threads than a frayed coat. Nothing happens with any inscriptions or parchments that are paraded around. How to keep a pyramid from ever being robbed goes to the grave with the guy who has his pyramids raided anyway.
So...you are a somewhat renowned Egyptologist. An antiquities dealer shows you the find of the century illegally hidden in his house. Then he leaves her with it and through a conveniently place peephole in the second story floor she watched him get murdered by 3 guys. What do you do?
She runs out but leaves her big ass purse with everything behind. So she has to run back in. Her purse has been emptied but I guess her passport wasn't stolen. She gathers her goods only to have a scimitar fight break out between 2 men who have arrived.
Do you go to the police? Of course not! You start meeting various guys you can eventually fall in love with!
The end takes place underneath a tourist trap pyramid set-up. Underneath the pyramid is a set of immaculate chambers with huge Egyptian antiquities all brilliantly lit by electricity! And in a special niche beyond everything already in the room is the 6 foot tall statue.
Who gets the electric bill? What mailing address is the meter reading sent to? And how did the get everything in the chamber down the narrow hallway? How did the know to build the room with a niche for the statue? How did they get the status that must literally weigh a ton around a couple hundred other pieces crammed into the room so that there is barely a walkway all the way to the back niche? Egypt is so mysterious!
At the end Frankie baby knocks out a piling to bring down the ceiling to seal himself into the antiquities room...buried underneath a pyramid...where the tourists are arriving. So basically he causes a cave in that no one a couple feet above notices. Lesley doesn't notice. She knows where the find of the century is buried but her new lover just died sealing himself in rather than trying to make a go of it with her. I think he got the better end of the deal!
I was right! A decent start turns into just an awful film. It's a "run from scene to scene without much ever really happening" adventure. It wants to Romancing the Stone. Even Sahara was was better than this. In fact while watching I kept half expecting Matthew Mcconaughey to suddenly show up as an Egyptian. He would have fit right in.
Lesley Anne Down is as stiff as a board. In the Mummy movies Rachel Weiss shows physical skills such as the initial "up on the ladder wreck the library scene." None of that from Lesley. Even when she gets thrown into the tomb rolling down a flight of steps she looks like an ironing board being thrown down stairs.
Nothing really ever happens. The script has more loose threads than a frayed coat. Nothing happens with any inscriptions or parchments that are paraded around. How to keep a pyramid from ever being robbed goes to the grave with the guy who has his pyramids raided anyway.
So...you are a somewhat renowned Egyptologist. An antiquities dealer shows you the find of the century illegally hidden in his house. Then he leaves her with it and through a conveniently place peephole in the second story floor she watched him get murdered by 3 guys. What do you do?
She runs out but leaves her big ass purse with everything behind. So she has to run back in. Her purse has been emptied but I guess her passport wasn't stolen. She gathers her goods only to have a scimitar fight break out between 2 men who have arrived.
Do you go to the police? Of course not! You start meeting various guys you can eventually fall in love with!
The end takes place underneath a tourist trap pyramid set-up. Underneath the pyramid is a set of immaculate chambers with huge Egyptian antiquities all brilliantly lit by electricity! And in a special niche beyond everything already in the room is the 6 foot tall statue.
Who gets the electric bill? What mailing address is the meter reading sent to? And how did the get everything in the chamber down the narrow hallway? How did the know to build the room with a niche for the statue? How did they get the status that must literally weigh a ton around a couple hundred other pieces crammed into the room so that there is barely a walkway all the way to the back niche? Egypt is so mysterious!
At the end Frankie baby knocks out a piling to bring down the ceiling to seal himself into the antiquities room...buried underneath a pyramid...where the tourists are arriving. So basically he causes a cave in that no one a couple feet above notices. Lesley doesn't notice. She knows where the find of the century is buried but her new lover just died sealing himself in rather than trying to make a go of it with her. I think he got the better end of the deal!