Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

ma-cortes Timbuktu is the background of this mostly entertaining tale about three characters , an adventurer scout named Joe January (John Wayne) , an archaeologist (Rossano Brazzi) and a gorgeous girl (Sophia Loren ) in search for a lost city in the desert called Ophir and a fabulous treasure hidden.John Wayne leaves his Stetson and horse for a camel in this exotic adventure set in Sahara desert plenty of Tuaregs , sandstorms , mirages and amazing dangers . This exciting picture is packed with adventures, action , thrills , a loving triangle and is quite amusing . Interesting screenplay by Ben Hetch , Billy Wilder's usual writer. Breathtaking cinematography with luminous and bright colors by Jack Cardiff . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by the Italian Angelo Francesco Lavagnino . The motion picture is professionally directed by Henry Hathaway. He had a reputation as being difficult on stars, but some actors such as Cary Cooper , Marilyn Monroe -Niagara- and especially John Wayne , The Duke , benefited under his direction . Big John played for Hathaway various films as ¨The sons of Katie Elder (65), ¨Circus World (64) ¨ certainly not one of his memorable movies , ¨How the west was won (62) ¨, ¨ North to Alaska (60)¨ , but his greatest hit smash was ¨True grit (69)¨ in which Wayne won his only Academy Award . Although Hathaway was a highly successful and reliable director film-making within the Hollywood studio system , his work has received little consideration from reviewers . Rating : Acceptable and passable , well worth watching . The film will appeal to adventure buffs and John Wayne and Sophia Loren fans .

Robert J. Maxwell Duke is wastrel Joe January, ensconced in the jail of a desert outpost. Sophia Loren is Dita, a "dance hall girl." Enter the gentlemanly Rossano Brazzi, who springs Duke and hires him as a guide to a destination in the far desert, and who converts Loren from her thieving ways into a good Christian. Brazzi is in suit and tie, pith helmet, and fancy leggings. He tells the roughly clad Duke that he's never been to the desert but has "read about it." He speaks with a foreign accent -- he's supposed to be French, the accent is Italian, but to Hollywood he was just a "continental," rather like the menu of a restaurant specializing in continental food. He speaks of finding a treasure with which he will build "a refuge for the needy." Here is the first exchange between him and Loren, who has just stolen something from him."Why did you steal it?" "Because I wanted it." "If you wanted it, why didn't you just ask for it?" (He gives the item back to her.) It's only a few minutes into the picture and already we know that Brazzi is a sissy, that he will not get the babe, and that he will run up against the Duke's solid bulk sooner or later.Duke sums him up very well, in his peerless Dukese phraseology. "I've met these do-gooders before. Mostly they want to do good for themselves."Actually, the film's plot is a torpid mixture of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," in which one of the trio goes paranoid, "Rain," in which the Reverend Davidson converts a whore and then floods out and attacks her, and "The African Queen," in which a mismatched couple travel alone through dangerous territory and come to love each other just as they think they're about to yield to the fathomless, cool, enwinding arms of death.The photography by Jack Cardiff is splendid. This is no "Lawrence of Arabia" but it makes good use of the Libyan desert and its vast, majestic expanses.In many ways it's the best thing about the movie. Certainly the role of the anti-feminist, hard drinking, plain spoken, practical, but not unperceptive man of the earth gave the Duke no trouble. He could have wired in his part by Western Union. He even wears that cavalry hat with the brim turned up in front, left over from previous movies. Sophia Loren is cute when she's mad. She's cute when she's NOT mad. But she's only in it because movies like this must have a beautiful woman for the men to come to blows over. And this IS one of those echt-Hollywood movies where the low-life Gypsy hookers have hair by Mister Kenneth, make up by Max Factor, and choreography by Agnes DeMille. A couple of the Arab gypsy girls are blond and blue-eyed but does it matter? Well, it matters not at all, any more than Loren's Italian accent matters.Loren to Brazzi: "Yew could leave the drims yewr fodder drimt." The film's most impressive feature: Some great photography of a Roman city in ruins in the middle of nowhere. The kind of place you want to settle down in and call home. It's here we learn that the Duke can read Latin. That's about the only thing that's liable to surprise you.

Spikeopath Scallywag desert veteran Joe January is bailed out of prison to act as a guide for Paul Bonnard. Bonnard is in Timbuktu to search for treasure in the Sahara, something his now missing father set off to do some time before. Along for the journey is Dita, a low moral woman who caught Bonnard's good will during a set-too in the town earlier. So January sets off with his suspicions on full alert, women and treasure!, has to be a recipe for trouble...surely?I can't dress it up, Legend Of The Lost is just about watchable for a few comic moments and it's decent enough production values. John Wayne {Jones}, Sophia Loren {Dita} and Rossano Brazzi {Bonnard} star in what on paper looked to be a real good thing. Three actors who can arguably lay claim to having a volume of fans to rival those of the Hollywood heavy weights past and present. Yet it doesn't quite come together, it lacks an adventure spark that the story clearly hints should be there. It's not helped by Brazzi and his inability to act, he is someone who continues to baffle me in how he managed to get mainstream cash work in the first place. Loren as usual, pouts and teases the men on screen and the boys in the audience, but do we care? Actually no. During her moments of peril, one can't help hoping that Duke Wayne will shoot her to ease all the suffering of the viewers.Ah, bless The Duke, for he be the one bright acting spot in the picture. In fine physical shape and clearly knowing that tongue in cheek is the best way to play this one, Duke enjoys himself and hopefully his fans can get a modicum of enjoyment from this badly casted piece. The location work in Libya is real nice {Jack Cardiff once again delivering fine photography}, with the desert sequences enhanced by the always pleasant Technicolor. But don't be kidded that this is a character study worth venturing into, for if it didn't have the star names attached to it, they would have burned the negative long before release. 3.5/10

jswollen If you enjoyed the scenery in this film, particularly the Roman Ruins of Leptis Magna, plan a trip to Libya to see this amazing piece of history. The picture in the database of Sophia Loren embracing a stone female face was shot in one of the theaters at Leptis. (It is one of the Gorgon Heads, of which there are over 100 still in tact.) The baths are still in very good shape, and the seaport and coliseum alone are worth the trip.In addition to the ruins at Leptis, there are also many other sites to visit in Libya that would make just as tremendous a backdrop to a film. In 2005, Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep were rumored to have visited the city of Ghadames, a Berber village built underground. This city housed up to 10,000 people, and is built around a large natural spring in he Sahara. Location scouts be appraised! Sabratha, villa Cyrene, Cyrenica and many many other sites are the sorts of backdrops that could truly add character to any film. (January 2007)