The Indian Tomb

In the end of Der Tiger von Eschnapur the two lovers were in the middle of a sandstorm.Harald Berger (Paul Hubschmid), the German architect and his Indian lover, dancer Seetha (Debra Paget) were chased through the desert by shikaris (cavalry) of Eschnapur's maharajah Chandra (Walter Reyer).They get into a Shiva temple, where a spider weaves a web so the trackers won't look for them in there.But Seetha is caught inside.He has to try and survive alone, and to safe the one he loves.But it's not going to be easy.His sister Irene (Sabine Bethmann) and her husband, architect Walter Rhode (Claus Holm) are suspicious,after Chandra has asked him to build a tomb for Seetha, who is still alive.She won't believe that her brother has died on a tiger hunt.Meanwhile, prince Ramigani (René Deltgen) wants to seize Chandra's throne.Das Indische Grabmal (1959) was the second last film Fritz Lang directed.His Indian epic is based on work he did forty years earlier on a silent version of Das Indische Grabmal.He wrote the screenplay with his wife of the time, Thea von Harbou, who also starred Die Nibelungen movies.It based on Harbou's novel of the same name.Both of these adventure films offer many thrills.The subterranean scenes are very thrilling.And to see Harald chained, trying to fight his way into freedom.It's a very sexy scene where Seetha dances to charm the cobra in that most revealing costume.The conclusion of this story is well told.

I just watched this on DVD--I wasn't aware of two important factors when I did. One, that this was a remake of a 1938 film, and two that it was actually the last part of a typical Lang epic-length film! I wonder how both films were ever condensed into a mere ninety minutes for domestic release? What an extraordinary feat in itself!

I can see the influence on Speilburg and Luca quite clearly. This does have numerous external similarities to TEMPLE OF DOOM, as well as several motifs common to other Lang films.

There are some amusing blunders. The Priest talks about Allah, then a few scenes later, cautions that THE GODS will be displeased. Islam is monothestic!

There was a line uttered by the Priest: "There will be darkness over Eschanpur." That would have been a most intriguing title, nothing so bland as THE Indian TOMB, and would have also linked TIGERS OF ESCHANAPUR to this film. Both were released in that one 90 minute Americanized version, JOURNEY TO THE LOST CITY. As far as I could tell from this half, the city was far from "lost"! The Maharajah is proclaimed as RAJ of this state and that, master of the realms of Yadda-Yadda, and so on. I got out my map of India and was easily able to locate the areas he mentioned.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and recommend it highly, especially to those who love a good rollicking adventure. I intend to secure the rights and bring this to the screen, before all the tigers are extinct.

Please see also my review of The Tiger of Eschnapur.

The Indian Tomb was the second part of a pair of pictures directed by Fritz Lang, his first German productions since the 1930s, adapted from a screenplay he had himself worked on nearly thirty years earlier. The two of them should really be considered one whole work as much as were his two-part epics from the silent era, Dr Mabuse: Der Spieler (1922) and Die Nibelungen (1924). These earlier opuses were among the most prestigious works made, not only in Germany but anywhere in the world at the time. However this Indian diptych of the late-50s, a product of the drastically different post-war German film industry, looks like some cheap and cheerful Euro B-flick, at least at first glance.

The Indian Tomb and its forerunner The Tiger of Eschnapur certainly bear many hallmarks of a trashy proto-exploitation feature. The Indian characters are played rather unconvincingly by Europeans in "brownface", the special effects are often laughable (stuffed tigers in part one, which are outdone by plastic cobras in part two), a bit of partial female nudity, and a fast-paced plot of action and romance with more than of a few plot holes, imagination-stretchers, and complete suspensions of logic – the most stupendous of which has to be the unexplained concept that lepers are actually zombies. To make matters worse, the two pictures were cut down into one movie by American International Pictures, Roger Corman's distributor, and for years this was all English-speaking audiences could see of them. Today however we are lucky enough to have fully-restored versions of both parts available to us, including a subtitled German version, which is far preferable to the atrocious English dub, assuming you can get over the illogic of Indians speaking to each other in German. Now at last we are able to rediscover and re-evaluate Fritz Lang's final masterpiece.

On closer inspection, these two pictures are not quite so low in their values and appeal as one might think. For a start, the fact that Europeans play Indians is not really so different to westerners playing Arabs in Lawrence of Arabia. And there would be female nudity in Blow-up, and that is considered arty! The cast, while not exactly award-worthy, are uniformly decent, with the standout being Walter Reyer's eerily underplayed portrayal of the unbalanced Maharajah. There's a fabulous musical score by Gerhard Becker, and although admittedly the invented "Uncle Pat" song sounds more like a Gregorian chant than a Irish folk ballad, when Becker interpolates it into the main score on sweeping strings it makes a wonderful, aching love theme. The plot too is more than just your typical fight-a-minute no-brainer. While far from realistic its rip-roaring adventure has many strands to it, such as the political infighting of the fictional eastern province and the Maharajah's descent into jealousy-fuelled madness. It is of course aspects like this that would have been ripe for the chop when the pictures were re-edited in the US.

And now let us turn to the contribution of Herr Lang himself. Although he spent most of his twenty years in Hollywood making cheap and sometimes nasty B-flicks, he never lost the flair and professionalism of his early German career, at which time he was rightly regarded as one of the most important talents at UFA studios. He was always at his best presenting adventure stories tinged with a slightly dark, paranoid streak which, while unfortunately being the subject of auterist psychobabble, mainly serves to heighten the sense of danger and excitement. As in The Tiger of Eschnapur the vast, angular sets are given prominence, with shots composed so that the walls seem to press in on all sides. There's often a passage or open door at the back of the room, suggesting that the heroes could be crept up upon from behind at any moment. Early on there's a shot where Walter and Irene are in their quarters, and a net curtain covers one corner of the frame. By cinematic convention this looks like a point-of-view shot, which gives this unnerving feeling that the couple are being watched. The carefully orchestrated action finale, in which all the various elements – the rebellion, Harald's escape, the flooding of the catacombs – reach a crescendo is reminiscent of the climactic scenes of Metropolis and Die Nibelungen. It is really such a good thing that Lang, the man who brought our dreams and our nightmares to the screen with such vibrancy, did not end his career in lower-end Hollywood productions. His Indian epic is a glorious and worthy tribute to his silent-era heyday.

I was wary of purchasing Fantoma's 2-Disc Set of "Fritz Lang's Indian Epic" after being somewhat let down by the 1921 Silent original (co-scripted by Lang himself) and also its less-than-stellar reputation. For this reason, when the second part of the saga turned up on Italian TV a couple of years ago, I decided to check it out just the same so as to get an inkling of what to expect! I recall thinking it pretty kitschy and unworthy of Lang's enormous talent, but Fantoma's sale (through their website) of their entire DVD catalog a few months back made it an irresistible acquisition! Well, having now watched the entire saga (with dialogue and in color, as opposed to the rather static Silent version directed by Joe May - although hearing the Indian-garbed characters talking in German took some getting used to), I was pleasantly surprised by how genuinely engaging and sheerly enjoyable it all was! Though it was sold as an epic production (to the point of concluding ESCHNAPUR with the promise that Part II would feature greater thrills and even more spectacle) at a time when such films were all the rage, the saga was actually a pretty modest undertaking by eclectic (and prolific) German producer Artur Brauner. Despite the two films' exotic, handsome look (not least in the provocative dances of Debra Paget), the budgetary constraints were painfully obvious in the special effects department, especially the hilarious appearance of a 'ropey' cobra which is intended to 'test' (the scantily-clad) Miss Paget's faithfulness to the Maharajah!! All in all, even if these films hardly constitute Lang's greatest work (though he harbored an evident affection throughout his life for this particular tale, which was originally conceived by his former wife Thea von Harbou), they have great - and enduring - appeal for aficionados of old-fashioned, serial-like adventure stories tinged with romance and mysticism.

Even so, while I don't subscribe to that school of thought myself, there are some film critics (Tom Gunning, Jean Douchet and Pierre Rissient among them) who think very highly of Lang's Indian diptych - the first considering it one of Lang's towering achievements and the last two numbering it among the ten greatest films of all time!!

Second part of Fritz Lang's bizarre epic about Indian mysticism shot for television and cut into two features by the studio (the other part being The Tiger of Eschnapur); it's a brilliantly executed pulpy and humorous masterpiece, with breathtaking color cinematography and elaborate set design which rivals the underworld city in Metropolis. Lang really celebrates the artifice of film, and his uncanny sense for mise-en scene proves his mastery of the craft. It's certainly a strange work and perhaps a bit hackneyed, but one should keep an open mind and sink in to the vivid images and spectacular naive tale of power and magic.