In the 1960s and 70s, the Italian film industry was known for its so-called 'spaghetti westerns'...gritty western films that were filmed in Spain and often featured American stars while the rest of the cast was made up mostly of Italians. They were dubbed into English and flooded American theaters. However, many don't realize that during this same period, the Italian film industry also made a ton of other sorts of films....adventure, spy, romance pictures and more. "The Golden Sphinx" is one of these other genres of Italian movies.
The film stars Robert Taylor as an Egyptologist/archaeologist, Dr. Karl Nichols as well as the Swedish sex symbol, Anita Ekberg, as Paulette. The rest of the cast are mostly Italians. A major plus is that the film was actually filmed in Egypt..and Egyptians played a lot of the minor roles.
The story is about an archaeological dig in Egypt and folks for some unknown reason are out to stop the Professor and his party. By stopping them, I mean by any means necessary...and there's killing galore during the course of the movie. In addition, Paulette is in love with the Professor....though WHY doesn't make a lot of sense, as he's old enough to be her father. Heck, he even says this in the film!
So is it any good? No. The film is duller than you would expect and is about as far removed from an Indiana Jones flick as you could imagine. A better script certainly would have helped. Overall, a dreary picture and it's sad seeing a fine actor, Taylor, in such a cheap and unappealing film.
By the way, scorpion bites are almost NEVER deadly. And, if you do die, it's NOT within about 10 seconds. Don't take medical advice from bad 1960s films, folks! According to the Mayo Clinic's websites, adults stung do NOT need medical care unless they have a very serious medical condition already. So this scene where the worker is stung and immediately dies is, for want of a better word, crap.
