Plunder of the Sun in Africa

Back in June, 2008, I mentioned the Glenn Ford movie Plunder of the Sun. A similar movie shows up on TCM tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM ET as part of TCM's salute to Star of the Month Robert Taylor: Valley of the Kings.

Taylor stars as archaeologist Mark Brandon. He's called to circa-1900 Egypt by Ann Mercedes (Eleanor Parker), whose father was a renowned Egyptologist who had some theories about the biblical Joseph and the Egyptain Pharaohs who persecuted him and the other Jews. This sets off a race to find the tomb of that Pharaoh, involving Brandon, Mercedes' husband (Carlos Thompson) and many of the locals. Along the way, Brandon begins to find himself falling in love with Mrs. Mercedes, which may not be a bad thing since Mr. Mercedes isn't the best of characters....

Valley of the Kings is very predictable stuff. In terms of plotting, it's not all that great -- not that it's terrible; it's just that it's the same thing we've seen a dozen times before. There's the requisite sandstorm, the belly dancer, and the fight amongst all the monuments, in addition to the aforementioned love triangle. What makes it worth watching, however, is the same thing that the recently-mentioned Boy on a Dolphin has going for it; that of course being the scenery. A fair portion of Valley of the Kings was filmed on location in various parts of Egypt, and it was filmed in Technicolor. (This is one area where Valley of the Kings has a huge advantage over the black-and-white Plunder of the Sun.) If you want to see a movie that's either great or thought-provoking, this isn't it, but if you just want to be entertained, Valley of the Kings will do that for you quite adequately.

Unfortunately, it's tough to find good images of the visual quality of this movie. That's partly because the Valley of the Kings is a real place in Egypt, meaning that a lot of image searches are going to lead to the place as it is today, and not as it looks in the movie. Further, the movie hasn't been released to DVD, so there aren't any screencaps floating around.