Pharaoh (1966)

I’m always surprised that given the huge breadth of stories from Egypt’s pantheon and it’s history, that so few films have ever - Jack Hawkins and Victor Mature, notwithstanding - been made for mainstream cinema. This one from Pole Jerzy Kawalerowicz tells the story of the fictitious Prince “Ramses” (Jerzy Zelnik) as he strives for his ailing Pharaoh father’s approval in the face of hostility from the High Priest “Herhor” (Piotr Pawlowski) and those who would ensure the king ruled in name only. With precious few soldiers, the young prince is fully aware that their borders are unsecured and with plotting and scheming going on all around him, he knows that in order to reign as he would want, he is going to have to bring down the all-powerful priesthood. It doesn’t help his situation that his lover just happens to be “Sarah” (Krystyna Mikolajewska) and as her name suggests, she has as much Egyptian blood flowing through her veins as Yul Brynner. When she gives birth to a son, and then he accedes to the red and white crowns, the battle lines become violently drawn. He wants the temples to release their vast golden treasure of the labyrinth, they are declining and what the new king doesn’t realise is that he has a doppelgänger in “Lykon” who is in love with the spurned and now treacherous priestess “Kama” (Barbara Brylska) so “Herhor” has a cunning plan to ensure his grip on power remains intact. The plot itself is a bit of a muddle borrowing from just about everyone from Dumas to Cecil B. deMille, but the filming on location allows the photography to do much of the heavy lifting amidst the great temples and pyramids, and both Zelnik and Pawlowski deliver considered, if perhaps not so exuberant, performances as this history plays out. Readers of Christian Jacq might recognise the stories that pitted the might of the priests who served the gods with that of the pharaoh was was supposed to be one, and in the end this displays those power plays, as well as the odd orgy, quite conspiratorially well. The production is designed to look realistic, there are no gadgets and exotic machines of war, just men in sandals with spears, woven shields and chariots for the generals and the whole film has a genuine look to it that I appreciated.