She

Here is a movie with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and a budget three times Hammer’s usual allowance that somehow manages to bore.

Based on H. Rider Haggard’s Victorian novel, the plot sees three Brits lured to a lost kingdom in Africa, ruled by Ayesha—an immortal Egyptian queen who’s been waiting 2,000 years for her lover to return. She thinks she’s found him in Leo, played by John Richardson, a bland young officer. Love triangles ensue.

The problem isn’t the story. It’s the casting. Ursula Andress plays the ageless, all-powerful “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed,” and looks about as comfortable as a woman at a costume party who showed up in the wrong outfit. Borderline laughable, really. She gets the most screen time, yet every line seems to pain her.

Only slightly less tepid is Richardson, our second lead behind Andress, who proves handsome but hollow. He has no chemistry with Andress and can’t hold a candle to Cushing’s animated charm.

Meanwhile, Cushing and Lee, stranded in supporting roles, do what they can with what little they’re given. Bernard Cribbins, as the dutiful valet Job, adds comic relief that’s actually funny. These three feel like they’re acting in a different movie—a better one—than Andress and Richardson inhabit.

The bigger budget, courtesy of MGM, manifests in the desert locations, the camels, the optical effects. For a Hammer production, it looks expensive. At least until you step inside those Elstree studio sets and the illusion crumbles. Papier-mâché walls. Matte-painted ruins. You also get Andre Morel cast as the shirtless leader of the enslaved Amahagger tribe, only to have his voice dubbed by George Pastell. Why? God knows.

Worse, the film just stops. The Amahagger revolt, Richardson’s fate hangs in the air, and—credits. Did they run out of money? It feels that way. Maybe they blew it all on that one great shot of the Amahagger swarming the mountain fortress. It’s a terrific image. It belongs in a terrific movie.

This isn’t it.