''She'' is a 1925

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

adventure film The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

made by Reciprocity Films, co-directed by

Leander de Cordova Leander de Cordova (5 December 1877 – 19 September 1969) was a Jamaican-born American actor and film director. He was the brother of Rudolph de Cordova. He was the son of Altamont de Cordova and Katherine Lewis. He was also the grandneph ...

and G. B. Samuelson, and starring

Betty Blythe Betty Blythe (born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter; September 1, 1893 – April 7, 1972) was an American actress best known for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films such as '' The Queen of Sheba'' (1921). She appeared in 63 silent films and 56 s ...

Carlyle Blackwell Carlyle Blackwell (January 20, 1884 – June 17, 1955) was an American silent film actor, film director, director and film producer, producer. Early years Blackwell was born in Troy, Pennsylvania. He studied at Cornell University before J. Stewa ...

, and

Mary Odette Marie Odette Goimbault (10 August 1901 – 26 March 1987), known professionally as Mary Odette, was a French-born silent-screen actress. Odette starred in a number of films made by Astra Films. After the slump of 1924 dramatically reduced the ...

. It was filmed in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

by a British film company as a co-production, and based on

H. Rider Haggard Sir Henry Rider Haggard (; 22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform t ...

's 1887 novel of the same name. According to the opening credits, the intertitles were specially written for the film by Haggard himself; he died in 1925, the year the film was made, and never got to see the finished film. The film still exists in its complete form today. The book has been a popular subject for filmmakers in the silent and sound eras, with at least five short silent film adaptations produced in 1908,

1911 Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are added to the Commonwealth of Australia. * January 3 ** 1911 Kebin earthquake: An earthquake of 7.7 m ...

, 1916,

1917 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's ...

, and 1919 respectively. The 1925 version was the first ''feature-length'' adaptation, although it was trimmed from its original 95-minute running time down to 69 minutes for US release (it was only released in the US by the Lee-Bradford Corporation in 1926).Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). ''Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era''. Midnight Marquee Press. p. 292. . (A sound version was made in 1935 by RKO Pictures, and again in 1965 by Hammer Films of England.) The 1925 film is the most faithful of the three feature-length adaptations to date and follows the action, characters and locations of the original novel closely. Heinrich Richter handled the sumptuous set designs and impressive landscape shots. Hollywood actress Blythe traveled to Europe to appear in the film, as the producers hoped to cash in on her "vamp" appeal, placing her in a see-through negligee for the part. She later was quoted as saying "A director is the only man beside your husband who can tell you how much of your clothes to take off". Critic Christopher Workman opined "Lead actor Carlyle Blackwell (who played a dual role in the film) was much too old for the part of the youthful Leo Vincey, and the pasty-faced makeup and ludicrous blond wig he is forced to sport only make his age more obvious....He walks through the part without showing the least bit of interest in any of it." (He later appeared in

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

's '' The Lodger'' (1927) and ''

The Hound of the Baskervilles ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four Detective fiction, crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serial (literature), serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from ...

'' (1929).) Alexander Butler, who plays Mahomet in the film, was actually a director who had made some earlier silent horror films, including ''

The Sorrows of Satan ''The Sorrows of Satan'' is an 1895 Faustian novel by Marie Corelli. It is widely regarded as one of the world's first best-sellers – partly due to an upheaval in the system British libraries used to purchase their books, and partly due to it ...

'' (1917) and '' The Beetle'' (1919).

Plot

At Cambridge University, the ape-like Horace Holly, nicknamed "Baboon", is visited by the dying Vincey who asks Holly to raise his only child Leo, and that he give Leo a chest on the latter's twenty fifth birthday. Holly agrees. It leads Leo, Horace and Job on an expedition to Ethiopia to find the lost "Pillars of Fire", said to grant immortality to whoever bathes in their light, and to be guarded by an immortal queen named Ayesha, called by her mistreated subjects "She Who Must Be Obeyed". They travel down into a lost city hidden in the underground volcanic caves of Ethiopia, where Leo learns he is the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian king named Kallikrates. He discovers that thousands of years ago, Queen Ayesha murdered him when she discovered he was in love with a woman named Amenartes. Ayesha convinces Leo to bath in the Pillars of Fire so that he can become an immortal like her and share her throne. However, when they enter the mystical flames, Ayesha rapidly ages and dies, not realizing that to enter the flames twice is a fatal mistake.

Cast

as Ayesha *

as Leo Vincey / Kallikrates *

as Ustane * Tom Reynolds as Job *

Heinrich George Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz (9 October 1893 – 25 September 1946), better known as Heinrich George (), was a German stage and film actor. Early life George was born in Pomerania to August Friedrich Schulz, a former Deck Officer in t ...

as Horace Holly * Jerrold Robertshaw as Billali *

Alexander Butler Alexander Butler was a British film director who made over sixty features and short films during the 1910s and 1920s including many for G. B. Samuelson's production company. Butler directed several British films in Hollywood in 1920, where Samu ...

as Mahomet

References

External links

*
''She''
at AllMovie *

{{DEFAULTSORT:She (1925 film) 1925 films 1920s fantasy adventure films Films of the Weimar Republic German silent feature films German fantasy adventure films British fantasy adventure films British silent feature films Films directed by G. B. Samuelson Films based on She German black-and-white films British black-and-white films 1920s British films Silent fantasy adventure films 1920s German films 1920s English-language films English-language German films Films scored by Louis Levy English-language fantasy adventure films