Das Indische Grabmal
1959 Adventure / Romance   
 
Credits
  • Director: Fritz Lang
  • Script: Fritz Lang, Werner Jörg Lüddecke, Thea von Harbou (novel)
  • Photo: Richard Angst
  • Music: Gerhard Becker, Michel Michelet
  • Cast: Debra Paget (Seetha), Paul Hubschmid (Harald Berger), Walter Reyer (Chandra), Claus Holm (Dr. Walter Rhode), Valéry Inkijinoff (Yama), Sabine Bethmann (Irene Rhode), René Deltgen (Prince Ramigani), Guido Celano (Gen. Dagh), Jochen Brockmann (Padhu), Richard Lauffen (Browana), Jochen Blume (Asagara)
  • Country: West Germany / France / Italy
  • Language: German
  • Runtime: 102 min
  • Aka: The Indian Tomb; Le Tombeau hindou
 
 
 
Summary
Fleeing from Chandra, the Maharajah of Eschnapur, architect Harald Berger and his lover Seetha lose their way in the desert.  Death seems assured, but they are discovered by a party of passing travellers.  Recaptured by Chandra’s men, Berger is imprisoned and Seetha coerced into marrying Chandra.  Meanwhile, Chandra’s real enemy, his ambitious brother, is about to seize the throne...

Review
Das Indische Grabmal is the dreary sequel to Der Tiger von Eschnapur, Fritz Lang’s misguided and flawed excursion into the exotic adventure genre.  Although the films were popular in Germany when they were released, they now come across as absurd and tedious, memorable only for their risibly bad action scenes that are played with virtually no conviction and an almost total lack of realism.  Whilst the pedestrian storyline is undoubtedly the film’s weakest point, you can’t help cringing at some atrocious acting and kitsch sets that look too obviously like painted polystyrene.  Only in a few sequences (notably the impressive but all too brief location scenes) do we get a glimpse of the great cineaste that Friz Lang was in earlier years.  After this spectacle of the absurd, Lang managed to partly redeem himself in his final film, the cult classic Die 1000 Augen des Dr Mabuse.

© James Travers 2007


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