SHE is a lot of things but shy isn’t one of them. ‘She’ lets the selected one (as in eternal mate-to-be) and his destined-to-perish-badly companions know what kind of loony tuned she-force She is: “I am yesterday, and today, and tomorrow. I am sorrow, and longing, and hope unfulfilled. I am Hash-A-Mo-Tep. She. She who must be obeyed! I am I.”  Now let’s cast your pretty friend—with the great bod, nice manner and mostly because she’s my only competition—into that handy mile-deep fire pit. But only after a banzai ceremonial dance scene that would make shrooming ravers shrink in awe, a mini-classic rivaling debauchery’s greatest hits.

One of us is good in this movie

Like daring explorers (or men bewitched by the promise of sex within, say, 1,500 miles) we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Blame the gonzo weirdness of this 1935 fantasy-adventure, the first sound version of the famed H. Rider Haggard novel “She: a History Of Adventure”, previously done several times for the cinema in the silent era. Directed by Irving Pichel and Lansing C. Holden, the script the work of Ruth Rose (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young) and Dudley Nichols (tons). They revamped the story’s baking African setting to the icy Arctic, somewhere in Siberia (nobody asked Stalin, apparently) and fiddled name changes. But production was the keynote for this doozy, and that was the province of the master of King Kong, Merian C. Cooper, who brought along a number of Kong personnel, notably composer Max Steiner.

Visiting his ancestral home in England, American ‘Leo Vincey’ (Randolph Scott) is convinced by his dying uncle and his uncle’s family friend ‘Horace Holly’ (Nigel Bruce) that Vincey’s lookalike ancestor discovered the ‘Flame of Life’ that confers immortality. But that deceased relative found it 500 years ago, in Siberia. Expedition! In the frozen North, they join forces with a nasty cur named ‘Tugmore’, and ‘Tanya’ (Helen Mack), his sweet, spirited daughter. An avalanche opens the way to a hidden kingdom (well, queendom) in the lost city of ‘Kor’. A cannibalistic tribe has to be dealt with, and then there’s the blindly obedient priests, guards and maidens serving ‘Hash-A-Mo-Tep’ (Helen Gahagan), imperious ruler who believes Leo is the reincarnation of his DNA relative, and has been brought there by Destiny to be her boy toy love match for eternity. Unless of course She changes her mind. But what are the chances of that? Ever go shopping or arrange furniture?

One of the year’s numerous adventures, at the box office and with reviewers of the day this didn’t stack up next to the likes of Mutiny On The Bounty, The Lives Of A Bengal Lancer or Captain Blood.  That was either because its fantasy elements were sneered off as pulp (the year’s other ethereal exercise with reincarnation, the underrated Peter Ibbetson, likewise got a lukewarm response) or because the theatrical dramatics delivered by learning-as-he-went Scott, 36, and Broadway star Gahagan, 34, were in his case awkward, in hers florid. Likable Randy Scott would thankfully improve, but in this movie he’s a talking mannequin. Gahagan’s success on Broadway and as an opera star didn’t transfer in her first & only film role, though the costuming she was adorned with did give Walt Disney hints about what to do with the Evil Queen in his upcoming Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Four years before he’d luck into playing Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Holmes in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Bruce, 39, comes off with hearty brio (check out that horrific headgear the man-eaters have prepped for him!) but the scene-stealer is the other Helen, 21-year-old Miss Mack, who gets our vote for Surprise Dish of 1935. She’d also been in Son Of Kong. Though not achieving stardom, Helen did deliver delight in The Milky Way and His Girl Friday, just as she brings a winsome charm and unforced sex appeal to She‘s ‘good girl’. *

Forget the cast chatter, the look of this oldie is outstanding for its day, and still impressive enough to draw appreciative oohs & ahh’s many decades on (and presumably closer to She’s next soulmate date). The obvious but pleasing matte work, the deluxe art direction and costuming, and the special effects are great Old School rousers, with the avalanche and the leap-over-chasm-onto-teetering-boulder standouts. Max Steiner’s mystery-evoking score is excellent, and when it comes time to really unleash the Kraken’s of phantasmagoria the insane ceremonial number as someone special is set to be sacrificed (thanks for the honor, but I’d settle for a t-shirt) was rapturous enough to demand an Oscar nomination for Dance Direction. With Steiner’s majestic scoring, and the creepy movements of the devotees in a spectacular setting the sequence transcends its essential absurdity to achieve true baroque brilliance, mixing excitement, chills and atavistic savagery into one of the most outrageous showpieces of its era.  A See & Disbelieve Situation of the highest order. **

Forced by R-K-O to cut back the budget severely in order to share bread with his big city-leveller The Last Days Of Pompeii  Cooper delivered the goods for $521,000. Initially losing money, a 1949 re-release with ‘Pompeii’ took the take up to $2,900,000, moving into spot #33 among ’35’s bulging crop.  With Gustav von Seyffertitz (best said fast three times, as the high priest), Samuel S. Hinds (uncle who expires on cue) and Lumsden Hare (Tanya’s brute father who expires like we want him to). 102 minutes.

Care for some aged Siberian ‘Hash’?

* She with True Grit—Helen Gahagan married actor Melvyn Douglas. She quit show biz for politics and served three terms in the House of Representatives (from California) before being defeated by Richard Nixon in one of the dirtiest smear campaigns of the era. She coined his nickname “Tricky Dick”. Helen Gahagan Douglas (1900-1980) was a “she” who deserved to be obeyed. And honored.

** She wizz—the Dance Direction category, put in because of the plethora of elaborate ‘top this!’ musicals of the time, was only on tap for three years before the ‘ordinary’ director’s branch pressured the Academy to nix it. In ’35 there were 13 nominees. Stiff competition included the sublime Top Hat and the jaw-dropping Gold Diggers Of 1935 but for sheer nuttiness She bakes the cake even if She didn’t get to eat it. A split win went to Broadway Melody Of 1936 and Folies Bergère de Paris. All we can say is they better be pretty electrical bananas to keep up with the capering servants of ‘Hash-A-Mo-Tep‘.

The 1965 remake stuck with the book’s ‘Ayesha’ and the African setting. Genuine American patriot Helen Gahagan Douglas did more for her country (eternal pox on Nixon) but genuine Swiss natural wonder Ursula Andress did more for the one Who Must Be Obeyed.