Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

Land of the Pharaohs is a 1955 American epic film in Cinemascope, directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring the two British actors Jack Hawkins and Joan Collins as Pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops) and his second wife Nellifer, in fictional account of the building of the Great Pyramid. Novelist William Faulkner was one of the three screenwriters.

The film literally had a cast of thousands (Warner Bros. press office claimed there were 9,787 extras in one scene) and was one of Hollywood's largest-scale, ancient world epics, in the spirit of The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and others. The film was shot on location in Egypt and in Rome's Titanus studios.

Synopsis

In ancient Egypt, Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins) is obsessed with preparing his tomb for the "second life". Dissatisfied with his own architects' offerings, he enlists Vashtar (James Robertson Justice), an ingenious man whose devices nearly saved his own people from being conquered and enslaved by Khufu. Khufu offers to free Vashtar's people if he will build Khufu a robber-proof tomb - although Vashtar will have to die when the pyramid-tomb is completed, to guard its secrets. During the years that the pyramid is being built, Pharaoh demands tribute and labor from all his territories, amassing gold and treasures to be interred with him.

Actors