ursula andress

THE VENGEANCE OF SHE. (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE VENGEANCE OF SHE. (1968) A HAMMER FILMS-SEVEN ARTS PRODUCTION BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY H. RIDER HAGGARD. DIRECTED BY CLIFF OWEN. STARRING OLINKA BEROVA, EDWARD JUDD, JOHN RICHARDSON, DEREK GODFREY AND ANDRE MORELL.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This fantasy adventure film is a sequel to the 1965 Hammer film, SHE, starring Bond Girl Ursula Andress in the titular role. The original SHE ends with Ayesha, the immortal queen-goddess of the ancient lost city of Kuma, accidentally and horribly dying in the immortal flame after waiting several thousand years to be re-united with the love of her life, the blond stud known as Kallikrates. Now, ain’t that a kick in the head…?

Now, Kallikrates is the One Who Waits, and in this instance it’s Ayesha he’s waiting for. In a parallel universe somewhere, in modern day Europe, the most beautiful girl alive, an unknown quantity called Carol, wanders through the countryside looking for something, but she doesn’t know what it is or how to find it.

She’s the image of Ayesha, though, the ancient goddess-queen, and strange voices and faces in her dreams are constantly trying to pull Carol back to Kuma, where Kallikrates waits impatiently for her.

It’s enough to drive a girl insane, so it is, but don’t worry. She has her very own personal shrinky-dink, in the form of beefcake Edward Judd’s character, Philip. He’s completely besotted with Carol, and he’s prepared to follow her anywhere, even all the way back to ancient Kuma, if necessary.

Here, however, only pain and sadness awaits Philip if Carol gets with Kallikrates, believing her to be his love, Ayesha, even though she’s just a lookalike found for Kallikrates by his crooked minister, Men-hari, for some reason. Men-hari is after immortality himself, so it’s probably something to do with that. If I don’t know, it’s because the plot is confusing and a tad nonsensical, lol.

Watching Carol on her travels is a lot like following Barbie on a round-the-world journey. First we have Barbie Fleeing in Terror From A Potential Rapist in the European countryside, next here’s Barbie on a yacht in the Mediterranean, and then here’s Captive Barbie In The Desert, being pulled along behind a camel without so much as a change of expression.

Next, there’s Bath-time Fun Barbie, then we have immortal goddess-queen Barbie in her Ursula Andress-as-She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed get-up. Now, here’s Kissing Barbie, now we have Barbie Runs Away From Collapsing Civilisation, and that’s about it. Olinka Berova is better-looking than Ursula Andress, in my humble opinion, and I can’t believe she didn’t become a household name like Andress or Raquel Welch.

There’s a lot of stuff in the movie involving plotting ministers and enchanted spells and ceremonies, but it was all so boring I didn’t really follow it all. Familiar Hammer faces co-star, like cuddly Andre Morell (THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES) and lovely Irish actor Noel Willman (THE REPTILE, KISS OF THE VAMPIRE).

But Barbie steals the show here, for what it’s worth, and she’ll probably be the main thing I remember about this rather dodgy film, which, by the way, for a movie called THE VENGEANCE OF SHE surprisingly doesn’t involve anyone of that name exacting revenge upon anyone for any reason. They should probably have called the film BARBIE DOES KUMA and been done with it…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

SHE. (1965) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

SHE. (1965) A HAMMER FILM PRODUCTION DIRECTED BY ROBERT DAY AND BASED ON THE 1887 NOVEL BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

STARRING BOND GIRL URSULA ANDRESS, PETER CUSHING, JOHN RICHARDSON, BERNARD CRIBBINS, ANDRE MORELL, ROSENDA MONTEROS AND CHRISTOPHER LEE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Hammer was going crazy at one point for the fem-dom ‘dominant female’ films, films like this one and THE VENGEANCE OF SHE, PREHISTORIC WOMEN, THE VIKING QUEEN and even BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB.

I’ve never been mad about these ones, with the exception of the superb BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB, which I’m only including here because Valerie Leon comes across as quite dominant in her dual portrayal of Margaret Fuchs and the Egyptian Queen Tera, and which isn’t really part of the series.

I much prefer the Hammer films in which the male is dominant, for example, the Dracula films starring Christopher Lee. I was quite uncomfortable watching Christopher Lee in SHE grovelling around at Ursula Andress’s feet, referring to her as She Who Must Be Obeyed and scarcely daring to lift his eyes to her for fear of offending her and incurring her all-encompassing wrath.

Anyway, the film. Guy meets a girl in a bar on foreign shores, then the very next day he’s on a mad quest across the desert with his ex-army chums to rediscover an ancient lost city and get with another, even hotter girl. That’s about the gist of it, but let’s examine the particulars, shall we?

The guy is the blonde, handsome Leo Vincey, played by a pre-ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. John Richardson, before he grew so much facial hair he was virtually unrecognisable as himself.

The foreign shores are Palestine’s, immediately after the first world war, and the first hot girl, the one from the bar, is a dusky beauty called Ustane, who is used as a decoy initially, but who falls hard and heavy for ‘her Leo’ from the off.

The chums are Peter Cushing as Professor Holly and Bernard Cribbins as Job, orderly/batman to his two commissioned gentlemen, Holly and Vincey, who are free to pursue this wild goose chase now that the war is over.

The ancient lost city is Kuma, in a previously unexplored region of North-East Africa. It is ruled by the stunningly beautiful immortal queen and high priestess Ayesha, aka She Who Waits or She Who Must Be Obeyed. What exactly is she waiting for? Well, therein hangs a tale…

Several thousand years ago, this jealous beauty murdered her lover, Kallikrates, for betraying her with another woman. All these years, she’s waited for Kallikrates to return to her, and now, with the arrival in her kingdom of Leo, Kallikrates’ exact double, she thinks her years of waiting have come to an end.

But the beautiful Ayesha is a cruel and vengeful queen, who by her own admission, rules through fear and terror. Her treatment of the black slaves in her kingdom (very non-politically correct; you couldn’t do it nowadays) is appalling.

There’s an absolutely horrific scene in which fifteen innocent young black males are forced to a terrible death just so that Ayesha can be seen to be a tough ruler whom none dare disobey. She’s a proper little madam, is what she is.

Christopher Lee as her gimpy high priest Billali would be doing her more of a service by putting her over his knee for a blistering spanking, rather than by grovelling at her feet in the dust wearing ridiculously unflattering headgear while saying yes ma’am no ma’am on repeat till the cows come home.

Anyway, will Ayesha succeed in getting Leo to walk through the flame of immortality with her, to rule serenely by her side forever, or will her jealous and diva-like behaviour only result in pushing Kallikrates away from her for another several millenia? Knowing Ayesha’s capricious nature, nothing is guaranteed…

I love Andre Morell (Hammer’s THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES) as Ustane’s lovely Pops, Haumeid, who rules the army of Ayesha’s slaves, the Amahagger, and also Bernard Cribbins as Job, the gentlemens’ gentleman.

He’d be the kind of devoted orderly/valet (like Reginald Jeeves) who would die of shame if either of his gentlemen went out of an evening incorrectly dressed. That would reflect on him, it would, him and his poor valeting, and he’d rather die than be known as a poor valet.

You know who could really use some good valeting? Poor Billali (who at the end makes an ill-starred grab for the power previously denied him) and his dreadful beehive head-dress. We all know how Jeeves dealt with any ill-advised novelty items of costume or headgear favoured by his master, Bertie Wooster. Job, be a darling and see what you can do, will you…?

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.