D: Lansing C. Holden, Irving Pichel. S: Dudley Nichols, Ruth Rose. Novel: H. Rider Haggard. P: Merian C. Cooper. Cast: Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, Nigel Bruce, Helen Mack. UK dist (DVD): E1 Entertainment/Legend Films.

The immortal Queen Ayesha, “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed”, first appeared in H. Rider Haggard’s novel “She: A History of Adventure” (1887), and proved popular enough to be revived in three further novels over the next 36 years: “Ayesha: The Return of She” (1905, in which Ayesha is reincarnated in Tibet), “She and Allan” (1921, a prequel which teams Ayesha with “King Solomon’s Mines” hero Allan Quatermain) and finally “Wisdom’s Daughter” (1923, which details Ayesha’s back-story in ancient Egypt). Filmmakers were relatively slow to capitalise on this publishing phenomenon, however, with the first screen version – this one, from Kong producer Merian C. Cooper, in 1935 – released a full twelve years after the final book in the series. But the fountain of good fortune which fed the novels seems, by and large, not to have sustained the films (save for Hammer’s pedestrian ‘65 remake, whose success would appear to be attributable more to its star, Ursula Andress, than to any particular storytelling talent). Though the original novel remains in print to this day, no further film adaptations have been attempted since 1982 – not surprising, perhaps, given that version’s dubious pedigree (a knuckleheaded post-nuke update on the theme, owing more to Mad Max 2 than Rider Haggard).

But while She ‘35 fumbles a couple of plot points, it remains a boisterously entertaining thick-ear epic, with a retro-futuristic tinsel-Deco look that clearly caught the eye of Flash Gordon’s production designers the following year. Cooper’s scenarists diverge somewhat from the original text; this version relocates the action from the African interior to an Arctic “lost world” reminiscent in some respects of Skull Island (though the only prehistoric beast on display is the frozen corpse of a sabre-toothed tiger, preserved in a glacier). Reinforcing the Flash connection, this She emphasizes the science-fictional aspects of the tale, while downplaying the romantic mysticism of the novel and the later Hammer adaptation.

In this telling, rugged explorers Leo Vincey (Randolph Scott) and Horace Holly (Nigel Bruce) are after a radioactive element with the ability to prolong human life, and a clue to its whereabouts rests in a family legend concerning one of Scott’s distant ancestors (to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance, nudge nudge). Off they trot to the Arctic Circle, picking up along the way an untrustworthy guide and his doormat daughter Tanya (Helen Mack); a handy avalanche disposes of the former, whilst simultaneously revealing a hidden tunnel entrance leading to the lost city of Kôr, an ancient civilization derived seemingly from Pharaonic Egypt and those sacrificial funsters from the Aztec Empire, and ruled over by the ruthless and ageless Queen Hash-A-Mo-Tep, a.k.a. She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed (Helen Gahagan).

She has been waiting Lo! these many centuries for the return of her former lover (named Kallikrates in the books), who stirred up the regal loins before trying to skip town with another dame. Big mistake. She’s been hanging onto his incorruptible remains for the past four hundred years or so, but happily dissolves them into dust once Leo shows up, though her reincarnated toy-boy seems to have lost his memory over the intervening years. No matter: She regales him with promises of eternal bliss as her consort, and all he has to do is bathe in the secret flame to be rendered immortal… His empty head swimming Leo readily assents, turning his back on his his former pals – little realising that She has plans to sacrifice Tanya during Leo’s inaugural ceremony. Leo comes to his senses just in time to save her from the volcanic pit, and all heck breaks loose.

Packed with genuine thrills and excitement, She is heaps of corny fun for anyone with a fondness for the Weissmuller Tarzans, or the aforementioned Flash Gordon serials. It zips along at a cracking pace and offers more than a few eye-opening stunts, from the startlingly real (the flaming brazier which sends sheets of blazing petrol across a flight of steps, immolating an unfortunate acolyte) to the charmingly fake (our heroes’ desperate leap over a vast chasm onto a precariously tilted boulder, with cartoon savages plunging to their animated doom). Glass paintings lend an impressive sense of scale and grandeur, and the production design offers an endearingly barmy blend of Caligari and Cubism. Costumes are somewhat on the hokey side, though; She herself comes across as a blend of Maid Marian and the Wicked Queen from Disney’s Snow White (which, in all fairness, borrowed its apple-toting villainess from She), and the handmaidens seem to have wandered in from a Ziegfeld Folly. As for performances, they’re nothing much to write home about: Nigel Bruce does his usual schtick, with an odd habit of emphasizing precisely the wrong word in every sentence, while Randolph Scott is charismatic enough as the vacuous lead (united in pipe-smoking bliss with his equally air-headed love interest by the film’s end, a fitting match if ever there was one). At the risk of sounding ungallant, however, Helen Gahagan makes a rather matronly She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, eclipsed entirely as an object of supernatural desire by Ursula Andress (admittedly a hard act to beat). This would be the Broadway star’s only film; one wonders if this role was a help or hindrance to her later career in politics.

Note: For its 1949 re-release, this 101-minute film was chopped down to 94; the excised material was restored in 2007 (from a 16mm source) by US distributors Kino. The UK DVD should be avoided: it presents the shorter 94-minute cut, but only in a colourised version supervised by Ray Harryhausen (which originally appeared, alongside the original monochrome version, on the US DVD from Legend Films). The decision by UK distributor E1 Entertainment to omit the original is baffling. (Though viewers can, of course, turn off the colour on their sets, the computer-colouration process will still affect contrasts and textures, making the UK disc far from ideal.) Multi-region-enabled She fans are advised to import the Kino disc.