The Golden Mask

Writer Nicholas Chapman (Van Heflin) teams up with archaeologist Dr. Burnet and his pretty daughter (Eric Portman, Wanda Hendrix) to search for golden mask of Moloch. Two thieves (Jacques Brunius and Charles Goldner) try to sabotage the expedition to get the mask for themselves. Tomb-raiding adventure film is very dry and very dull. Forced romance between Van Heflin and a girl young enough to be his daughter doesn't help. Partially shot on location in Algiers but there's still plenty of poor rear projection effects. Ultimately, it's an avoidable film that is lacking adventure or suspense -- two prerequisites for movies of this type.

A British adventure; A story about a British archaeologist and an American philanthropist searching for an ancient, fabled golden mask in a Roman tomb in Algeria. They have to contend with dangerous looters out to steal the artefact. This schoolboy style tale lacks originality, but it gains for being colourful, with marvellous scenery and locations, and the cinematography of desert scenes are stunning. It was mostly filmed on location in Algiers and Tunis which are the main attractions for viewers. Scholarly Eric Portman and jaunty Van Heflin provide good contrast and conflict. Wanda Hendrix provides adequate support and all the supporting and local players are impressive for all their contributions. All in all, it is crisply directed but low key for its subgenre.

This film was recently shown on Turner Classic Movies and the print was appallingly bad. While shot in Technicolor, the print is badly faded, a bit dark at times and a bit blurry. It sure ain't pretty.

Dr. Burnet (Eric Portman) is an archaeologist whose passion is finding the famed Mask of Moloch. However, after years of searching in Algeria, he's exhausted his funds--though he thinks he's tantalizingly close. In order to finance his next expedition, he's forced to take along an American writer who he has no interest in taking with him. He thinks Nicholas Chapman (Van Heflin) is a boob, though Chapman is naturally the right man for the expedition. You know this because the British producers of this film have imported an American to star in the picture--and they'd never have such a star be an idiot! While such an expedition might seem pretty mundane, unfortunately a couple fortune-hunters, Kress and Petris are never far behind--waiting to steal the treasure and sell it to the highest bidder. You realize that something is afoot when Chapman returns to his hotel room to find it ransacked. But Kress and Petris are more than willing to go much further to get the mask.

With all these story elements, you would most likely assume it would an action-adventure film like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", right? Wrong. I agree with the other reviewers that say that it plays more like a documentary in style and especially in its pacing. The film should have been exciting but too often it just seems like a travelogue with a bit of a plot tossed into the mix. It takes too long to develop and the characters are amazingly flat. So, the dryness in this film is not just due to the desert locale! Overall, watchable but this is hardly an endorsement for you to watch the picture!

Racism is implicit in this movie: the cast and crew must have smelt the coming rebellion against French colonial rule. All the Arab characters were played by Europeans, albeit the main Arab role, "Thank-you", was played by an Indian-Englishmen, who'd gone to Oxford, was probably the most educated person on the set. He seemed to be heavily made up, with skin darkening, which reminds me that the English in India sometimes referred to Indians as "blacks" (one of the nicer terms). There was one name in the cast, "Abdie", whom I cannot remember, who was played by "Massoud". Well, how did the audience like it? How did the audience react to little Jasmine and her brother with their donkey? How did these two "desert Arabs" come to speak English? Racism is a sort of romance, where at the end the romantic ones slaughter those about whom the romance is written. That's the plan, anyway. In actual life, usually it is the racist-romantics who get slaughtered, or at least lose their empires. Can we say that the plot, concerning an ancient Roman, "Marcus Manelius", a looter of a city of the other ancient empire in the region, Carthage, successor to Phoenecia, warns us of the fate of all empires? Is that the actual message of the movie with Van Heflin's gentle humor?

This movie has not been seen anywhere for several years (that I am aware of. The story deals with an archaeologist's passion to find a fabulous golden mask thought to be buried in a Roman tomb. The hunt begins in Rome and ends in the sands of Africa.The pursuers of the mask range in character from good to evil. The movie rather reminded me of the movie,Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Both are in black and white, dealing with greed and the consequences of greed.The flavor of this movie was interesting to me. The rather bleak desert locations were more than made-up for by the depiction of the local tribes and their customs. Unfortunately for this movie, the background music was seriously overdone, almost detracting from it. I find this to be the case often with early European movies. However, if you enjoy treasure hunts and ancient history somewhat fictionalized, this is a treasure hunt movie worth seeing. I'd like to see it again.