Popular reviews

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 12

  RKO's version of H. Rider Haggard's She is vastly better than Hammer's take on the story, made thirty years later. Among other things, this version leans hard into spectacle, with wonderful Deco sets, great use of miniatures and matte paintings, and eye-catching, Busby Berkeley-esque choreography and camerawork during the human sacrifice scene.

  In addition, RKO's version of the story does better by its female characters than Hammer's, allowing 'the other woman' — here called Tanya (a breathtakingly gorgeous Helen Mack, whose boobs vibe flawlessly with the style of She's kingdom), there Ustane — far more dynamism and agency before she, too, turns into a person who actually says out loud "I shall have nothing if you take away being near…

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  Review by Gentry ★★★ 1

  “You are reborn, and my mourning has ended.”

  The Flame of Life

  ❗Watched the 102-minute B&W version

  Want to see reincarnated bridegroom Randolph Scott sit at the feet of an all-powerful female demigod as she waxes thanatological about immortal dreams and memories? Then take heed of She, a Merian C. Cooper adventure film in the vein of King Kong, Son of Kong (where Helen Mack also appeared), and other H. Rider Haggard-inspired lost world yarns. Haggard’s She had been given the silent treatment a decade earlier, but this would be the first talkie adaptation, and it leans heavily into the medium of sight and sound with bombastic Max Steiner music and then-modern visual effects via stereopticon plates, miniatures, matte paintings,…

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  Review by PT99 ★★★

  "No... Don't learn the secrets to eternal life... That's, like... not the human spirit, or whatever..."

  6/10

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  Review by Xeremy Hall 🟠🟢🔵 ★★½

  RiffTrax Presents: She

  Look how that man's dressed!
  - "Like Ziggy Stardust!"

  Bridget Nelson and Mary Jo Pehl, the ladies of RiffTrax, team up to give us a very amusing look at this 1935 colorized adventure fantasy about a hidden civilization ruled by an immortal queen. As Bridget and Mary Jo watch this trainwreck of a fantasy, they have a lot of material to work with including, one of the dumbest reactions to an avalanche in history, a death scene where a man just dies while sitting in a chair talking, and a group of cavemen putting on a dance recital which the characters are relieved to find out is a human sacrifice instead.

  The core film seems to be…

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  Review by cult_vegetables ★★★ 3

  The quest for immortality leads to an underground Siberian realm in H. Rider Haggard's ready-to-wear pulp adventure. More an influential novelty, lapsing into purplish exposition and boxy performances- still, the huge Deco sets and zany exotica presage the peplum, epic and unapologetic fun.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 13

  Three songs by this title are now fighting for space in my head (Misfits, Tommy James, and, uh, Green Day...). So it goes.

  I could see an argument that this demonizes women in power, or that it's a decent portrayal of a powerful woman. It's likely both. Mostly, though, it seems to be an excuse for Art Deco sets that are mind bogglingly good. Just so good. So fucking wonderfully good. Alien and pristine and ragged and prehistoric and vibrant and melodramatic and epic all at once good.

  Apparently, this is based on a very popular book I've never heard of, so I bought it. I am eager to see all versions of this, especially the ones that are apparently…

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  Review by threepenny ★★★★½ 5

  An extraordinarily creative adaptation that moves the action from deepest darkest Africa to winter whitest Arctic, with giant art deco sets and repurposed gates from King Kong and She Who Must Be Obeyed deciding she wants Randolph Scott for her own and creating the look for the Evil Queen from Snow White. Nigel Bruce is his his usual bumbling charmer, on hand as a stout friend, and Helen Mack is the girl Scott would just as soon stick with, and I don't blame him. And what is She's secret to eternal life? Forget mystic mumbo-jumbo, it's radiation! Is this the first monster of radiation in movie history? I have a DVD of this that also includes a painstakingly made color version overseen by Ray Harryhausen, but in the end I still prefer the original black and white. A grand follow-up to King Kong and a legendary flop, but yet I've watched it numerous times and still find much to enjoy.

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  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★½ 8

  With the Orientalism on display, and the weird Victorian gender politics, there's so much wrongness here on every level that it's completely indefensible, pure 19th-century-imperialist id-pulp. Except for one thing: the two-strip technicolor is heartbreakingly beautiful.

  EDIT: except it isn't two-strip technicolor, it's modern-day colorizing. Originally planned to be shot in color, but they changed their mind before production started. I can't recommend a colorized movie, and I'm not going back to rewatch it in black and white to form a meaningful opinion.

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  Review by PUNQ ★★★½ 1

  This is the type of adventure movie one would associate more with the 1950s, with the slightly cheesy studio sets which are also stunning in it's own way. But this is a 1935 movie when larger scale adventure productions was not the norm, so it was a nice change from the usual melodramas and light comedies.

  
  "She" is a novel that's been attempted several times and I've seen two of the silent versions (1911 & 1925), and this version easily beats those two in my eyes. This is also a different adaption of the story adding other elements to make it more screen friendly.

  
  It's mostly the production values that make this a special treat. Scenes like the avalanche, the ritual…

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  Review by Chris Hughes ★★★

  1935 was the height of adventure and discovery fiction in film, books, comics and radio shows. The 1935 version of She is the second feature length adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s 1887 novel of the same name. 

  This version of She was producer Merian C. Cooper’s follow up to King Kong and it displays the same level of inventiveness. The various special effects are spectacular and there are some interesting costumes too. There’s a healthy amount of white colonialist propaganda included but that’s to be expected for a film of this era. So if you can get past that it’s reasonably entertaining.

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  Review by mrbalihai ★★★½ 5

  If you've followed me on LB for any length of time, you know that I'm a fan of Victorian-era adventure novels, and that the "Lost World" genre is a particular area of interest. I've already covered the spotty cinematic history of H. Rider Haggard's "She" in an earlier review of the 1965 Hammer version with Ursula Andress, which is one of my favorite films of all time, so how does this earlier version compare?

  Well, it certainly has it's pleasures, some dubious, and some sublime. The dubious part comes in with the story, which rearranges the plot of the novel in...[cough]...shall we say "unique" ways. The biggest change is moving the story from Africa to somewhere above the Arctic Circle,…

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  Review by 1bl15

  If George Lucas was to declare that the romantic scenes in Attack of The Clones, were actually an homage to She, like A New Hope was an homage to Flash Gordon, I'd totally buy it.