kols Yet Wayne, Loren, Brazzi all together and at the top of their form and status as stars!And not just Wayne, Loren and Brazzi but a script by Hecht and Presnell and cinematography by Cardiff. Should have been a blockbuster.Instead a studio-like programmer focused on a Saharan adventure and getting everything wrong. For example, making Timbuktu a part of French Morocco, complete with belly-dancers and corrupt Prefect. And a hackneyed plot, recycled from everything from She to King Salomon's Mines. Apart from Wayne, Loren, Hecht and Cardiff, this movie has absolutely nothing going for it.Except for Wayne, Loren, Hecht and Cardiff.As ridiculous as it is, Legend of the Lost is very much a vehicle highlighting all of the principles at their best. Wayne as Joe January (are you serious?) pulls off Hecht's tongue-in-check dialogue effortlessly as well as his character's jovial lechery, with Loren doing the same as a sexy-as-hell bad girl, flashing a lot of leg and coming just short of repeating her Boy on a Dolphin wardrobe malfunction. All the while projecting a serious intelligence as well as sex. Even Brazzi makes his character dramatically believable. Add to all of that the energetic extras and you've got the makings of a great Graphic Comic.Which, I think, is the standard Legend of the Lost should be judged by. Especially when you add Cardiff's cinematography, which even many of the negative reviews praise. The visuals, editing and production values are outstanding.Before its time or, more likely, a happy accident, Legend of the Lost seems to have suffered more from audience expectation than its success at doing exactly what it set out to do. I don't think it was ever meant to be anything except a fun romp through a territory already well trod and familiar, as such, to its audience. What we would call today a 'Little' movie.And that's where, I believe, all of the negative reviews come from. When you've got Superstars as principles, especially in the 50's, you're going to expect The Ten Commandments or Gone with the Wind, not Harold and Maude. Reacting according.So, in my opinion, Legend of the Lost is a small gem worthy of serious reconsideration. Suspend your disbelief, dump the Big Stars expectations and just watch the visuals (the score's pretty good too) and you might be rewarded.A final note: the movie begins with the Prefect marching down a street followed by his entourage, each element of which is separated, given 2-3 seconds to drive home the point, as the Prefect inspects his territory (which includes its own little intriguing snippets) and finally meets up with the Important Foreigner (Brazzi). As a tone setter, I thought it was brilliant.Correction and blame the lame Web algorithms: I tried French Timbuktu and French Mali, coming up goose eggs on both. Turns out the French mistook Mali for the Sudan (not a big surprise) soooo .... The French were in charge of Mali, Timbuktu and a lot of other West African territories in 1957. Even so, Timbuktu still never looked like Morocco, French or no French.

dearsteve-60412 I'm surprised that others have referred to the script, by Ben Hecht, as being good. Ben was having an off day when he wrote this one. The adventurers run into a hostile group of Bedouins, who have a medical problem with one of their number. Rossano heads into their camp with his medical kit, and we're expecting to see him pull a chicken bone out of the guy's throat and save his life. But no! All of a sudden it's morning and the three adventurers go on their way. But the one I love is when they're in the ancient lost city of Timgad, and Rossano steals the water, the donkey, and the supplies and sneaks off into the night, while the Duke is sleeping off his nightly booze-out. So in the morning, Sophia and the Duke follow him on foot, with no water. And you would never in a million years guess what happens next! They catch up with him! By this time, without Joe January's desert know-how, Rossano is staggering around aimlessly. Then, a friendly caravan happens along and saves them. And then, movie's over!It's a gorgeous movie, especially with Sophia to look at, and the photography is terrific. But you know right away when the main character has a phony name like "Joe January," they were running out of ideas. The cast does the best they can. Worth watching once for John Wayne completists, and I'm one.

pjmille I loved this movie and after getting my first DVD player, ordered the DVD as one of my first. I love the story, music and cinematography. It transports me to the desert every time I watch it. I disagree that there's no chemistry between Wayne and Loren. After all they are almost at each other's throats up to the point when the lost city is discovered. He disdains her and believes she is manipulating Bonnard. When she follows and joins them in the desert, his troubles are doubled. He has one more person to look out for and must ration--even further--food and water. They begin to bond as Brazzi begins to go mad.I need to correct one commenter who describes the skeletons of the prostitute, Bonnard's father, and the guide. The guide is the one with the knife in his back and the prostitute embraced him--not Bonnard's father. Bonnard's father is the single figure off to the side with the bullet to the head. The letter found in the prostitute's purse is from Bonnard's father. The father was obviously in love with the prostitute and promised to shower her with jewels. She apparently was in love with the guide as she died with her arms around him instead of the father. Since the guide died with a knife in the back, he was the one to die first.All in all, I love this movie, and enjoy seeing Wayne in a different movie than the usual western. I would also recommend two other Wayne pictures in which he is excellent. Horse Soldiers and North to Alaska.

vladnm1987 First of all it doesn't really matter that the movie isn't a western,try to understand that we don't live on planet America and just because a western actor decides to appear in a non-western movie doesn't mean that movie is bad or the actor's performance is bad.Sure,it's not the same J.W. formula we've seen in his habitual movies,however I think this is one of his best movies because I get to see other things for a change,usually westerns resume to guns,mexicans,indians and bandits.This movie is different,it goes deeper,it has a lot of psychology in it,it doesn't have bandits,murderers or other western elements,it's a different kind of dish.Besides the idea of adventure and finding a treasure there is really no link between this movie and T.S.M.T. as some believe,the idea of searching for a lost treasure is a cliché that has been used a zillion times before!If you want to see a good movie this is it!Don't let the other negative posters change your mind because they don't have a clue of what a good movie consists in,what can you expect from somebody who gives 10 stars to idiotic movies like L.O.T.R. ?