Die goldene Sphinx (1967) watch online HD

Long, tedious, and not really worth a look, The Glass Sphinx tells the story of a group of explorers out to find a great treasure buried with a "glass sphinx" in the desert. There's crosses and double crosses and a good many people die. Buts its not all that interesting, and may very well induce a slumber equal to that of the pharaohs.

There are only two things that are of interest in the movie. The first are some plot twists toward the end that seem mostly unexpected, then again I might have nodded off and missed something. The other good thing is the setting which is Egypt itself where the movie was filmed. So long as the film is out of the desert things are interesting simply because its locations that haven't been used over and over again.

I really can't suggest you see it, but if elephants break into your house, tie you up and make you watch it, you won't have too bad a time.

I picked up this baby because I was hoping for a spooky expedition story set in Egypt. Robert Taylor plays a millionaire going to Egypt to locate a buried tomb that holds the priceless Glass Sphinx. His assistant in an expert in such matters, played by Angel del Pozo. Also accompanying him are his niece and an exotic beauty he has just met, played by Anita Ekberg. Adding a little suspense is a mystery man (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) who is following the expedition.

This all sounds good to me. Unfortunately the creative team key on the romantic subplots of the film. Taylor is mad for Ekberg and the niece is falling for the mystery man. Alas the most memorable scene is not the unearthing of a vengeful mummy, but a clumsy romantic scene between Taylor and Ekberg. They are both having a morning shower, side by side, in outdoor shower stalls. Ekberg drops her soap and Taylor leans under the stall and hands it back to her. Then they have an intimate moment as the both hold on (far too long) to the soap and each others hand. This might seem romantic to two teenagers, but for two, ahem... mature stars, it plays out quite silly.

THE GLASS SPHINX is an Italian-produced, Egyptian-shot adventure that has been heavily influenced by the spy film capers that were so popular all over the globe in the late '60s. James Bond had a lot to answer for; not only did the Italians produce their own knock-off spy genre, complete with dozens of secret agents following in Bond's footsteps, but the whole fighting-and-globe-trotting ethos heavily influenced cinema for years to come. Sadly, this film takes a full hour to finally decide that yes, it wants to be an adventure film, and so the viewer must sit through the insanely tedious first hour of talking, travelogue shots, and half-hearted romance to get anywhere interesting.

The last forty minutes offers up the kind of entertainment we were expecting in the first place: I'm talking grave-robbing criminals, a deadly poison gas, shoot-outs with Arabs, fist-fights atop a moving swing bridge, and a woman forced to dance exotically by some evil desert-dwellers. It's not really as exciting as I've made it sound, but at least stuff is going on and if the whole film had been like this then it would have been far more enjoyable. Sadly, the only good point about the first hour is the genuine Egyptian settings, which add an air of realism usually absent from movies substituting cardboard sets for the real thing (I'm thinking all those mummy movies).

The film is also pretty dumb, with poor cut-away camera-work in the action scenes and one of the stupidest, most unbelievable shoot-outs I've ever witnessed. Said moment occurs when half a dozen heroes decide to tackle an army of mounted Arabs. How do they do this? Toss sticks of dynamite all over the desert and then shoot them when the Arabs ride over them... bearing in mind the good guys are ON LEVEL GROUND with the dynamite, I have no idea how they managed to hit the dynamite and kill the Arabs every time! In reality they would have been decimated by the time one stick blew up, but I guess it was easier to film a scene of explosives blowing up on the ground than having our heroes tossing them at the baddies.

Director Luigi Scattini doesn't seem to have achieved much recognition for the dozen or so films he made in the '60s and '70s; I've never heard of any of them, and I've got a passing knowledge of Italian genre cinema. On the grounds of this film, he's not one of the country's most accomplished directors. Star Robert Taylor, who plays the professor, is one of those ageing US film stars who had a good career in the first part of the century before fading away into nothingness; he actually died of lung cancer a couple of years after this film, and he's not looking too good here. Swedish starlet Anita Ekberg is the most famous of the cast and she's good value for money, still highly attractive even though her career was on a down slide, memorably ending up with KILLER NUN. The other cast members are stock Euro-film regulars, including the likes of Spaniard Angel del Pozo, who made dozens of flicks in the '70s, Gianna Serra who Kirk Morris saved in from death in SAMSON AND THE SEA BEASTS and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (THE BLOODSUCKER LEADS THE DANCE) playing the heartthrob hero, a definite Bond imitator.

Back when Robert Taylor was with MGM he did another Egypt story with Valley Of The Kings. That one will never be ranked as one of his best films, but it was a well made action/adventure story with Taylor an archaeologist who could have been Indiana Jones's grandfather. But in his last years Taylor did a lot of mediocre stuff for the big screen and his career hit rock bottom with The Glass Sphinx, also set in Egypt and also where he is an archaeologist.

This time Taylor has Gianna Serra as a niece to help him out and he's on a mission to find the tomb of a Pharaoh who is supposed to have lived for 200 years. King Naposis supposedly took the secret which was a magic elixir of life in his tomb, undiscovered like Tutankhamen's. It's encased in a Glass Sphinx that was buried with the Pharaoh.

But others working for Taylor like Anita Ekberg and Angel Del Pozo have a whole different agenda going. Therein lies the tale.

The DVD I saw of The Glass Sphinx shows it's in need of restoration as the color was pretty washed out. But I'm betting the Taylor children aren't thrilled with this film and ain't likely to get behind anything that would show their father in a bad light.

And I have to say Taylor pretty much walked through this one. He got a trip to Egypt and a pay day and that's about it. The rest of the cast pretty much did the same thing.

Some nice aerial shots of Egypt in the Nile valley and the Suez Canal which probably looked good in color when the film first came out is all I can really recommend with The Glass Sphinx.