L’ATLANTIDE (1920)
Article #242 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 11-13-2001
Posting date: 3-29-2002

Two men encounter the kingdom of Atlantis ruled by the evil queen Antinea.

At least, that’s as much of the story as I can make out. When hunting down rare movies, sometimes you have to take what you can get. The 1920 version of L’ATLANTIDE has never had an official VHS release in this country, so I had to settle for a copy which had title cards in Italian. I figured, as a silent movie, it would rely more on visuals to tell its story than language; unfortunately, the title cards seem to contain quite a bit of important information. And since I can’t speak Italian…

As it is, it looks pretty good, with some quite striking visuals. I may have to watch the 1932 remake in order to sort out the plot, though. I was hoping to have seen that remake before the movie came up here, but time was not kind to me in that regard. I’ll just have to give this one another chance some time after I’ve seen the remake, or learned to read Italian.