Load of rubbish!!

Great Film overall

Good concept, poorly executed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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.

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. ?

If you enjoyed the scenery in this film, particularly the Roman Ruins of Leptis Magna, plan a trip to Libya to see this amazing piece of history. The picture in the database of Sophia Loren embracing a stone female face was shot in one of the theaters at Leptis. (It is one of the Gorgon Heads, of which there are over 100 still in tact.) The baths are still in very good shape, and the seaport and coliseum alone are worth the trip.In addition to the ruins at Leptis, there are also many other sites to visit in Libya that would make just as tremendous a backdrop to a film. In 2005, Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep were rumored to have visited the city of Ghadames, a Berber village built underground. This city housed up to 10,000 people, and is built around a large natural spring in he Sahara. Location scouts be appraised! Sabratha, villa Cyrene, Cyrenica and many many other sites are the sorts of backdrops that could truly add character to any film. (January 2007)

Legend of the Lost is a film that could have been pretty good, but was destroyed because of the lack of chemistry between the leads, John Wayne and Sophia Loren. They don't relate or react to each other at all, and every "intimate" scene between them seems forced.On the bright side, you have cinematographer Jack Cardiff's gorgeous on-location Technirama cinematography. The deserts of Libya never looked so good. And the script by Ben Hecht was actually quite good.But Legend of the Lost is a member of an entire genre (or sub-genre) of films that might best be called "Two-person Films." That is, the entire film centers on two or three characters that are somehow isolated from society and exist on their own in some desolate or deserted place. John Huston was a master of this genre, and his films The African Queen and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison may very well be the best examples of the genre. Unfortunately for Legend of the Lost, this type of film mandates that there be great chemistry between the leads, or the whole film breaks down. Look at the great chemistry between Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen and the great chemistry between Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. This is where Legend of the Lost begins to come apart. Wayne was an actor who was legendary for his ability to relate to his leading ladies on screen. Throughout his six decade long career, he played opposite a wide variety of actresses (from Jean Arthur to Marlene Dietrich to Lauren Bacall to Katharine Hepburn) and was able to light up the screen with just about all of them. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the chemistry between him and Loren just wasn't there. In hindsight, of course, its easy enough to clamor for Maureen O'Hara (who had done similar roles in the many "Arabian Knights" type adventure films she had spent most of the 40's doing), but I do give Wayne credit for taking a chance on the then almost unknown Loren. Unfortunately, things just didn't work out.Veteran director Henry Hathaway directed Legend of the Lost, and after its failure placed most of the blame on Loren, saying something to the effect that she was gorgeous to look at, but wasn't a very good actress. Although he might have had a point, Hathaway was also likely trying to deflect blame away from himself for the failure. The fact remains that he failed to overcome the casting problems that beset the film. And this is why Hathaway is remembered as a good, but not great director (and I say this as Hathaway's biggest fan). The great directors have the ability to elevate a film above script and casting problems, and Hathaway failed to do that here. Of course, Hathaway would say that given the material and genre it would have been very hard, if not impossible to do that here. And he may very well be right. In hindsight it might have been better to get John Huston himself to direct the film, though considering Wayne and Huston's equally disastrous joint project The Barbarian and the Geisha was still waiting in the future, perhaps its better Huston wasn't involved here.I've always felt that Legend of the Lost was Batjac's attempt at a "prestige picture." I think that Wayne was trying to impress the critics by producing an "artsy" film that would appeal to them, and when it failed, he went back to the familiar places and faces that he had found success with earlier in his career. It was probably a very wise decision on his part.Legend of the Lost is not for everyone. With different casting the film could have become a classic. As it is, it survives best as a remembrance of "what might have been."