id: Unidentified Film No. 187
director: Unknown
year: 1922?
country: Italy?
alternative titles: Lotos en Egypte (Given Title)

Given title: LOTOS IN EGYPTE [Lotos in Egypt]

SYNOPSIS:
Fragment of a film set in an Egyptian location. Lotos has to marry the pharaoh in order to save a man from being fed to the lions. The man is locked up in a dungeon, and she tries to free him, but they are caught and he is fed to the lions after all. In a open space decorated with Egyptian-style decorations are several people. One man looks important (a pharaoh?) (see the pictures) and a woman surrounded by several male and female servants/slaves. The man says: “You beg for mercy for the one who wanted to rob you? Fine, and you, Lotos, will dance the dance of the veils with me”. The woman starts to dance with a veil. In another room (a dark one according the blue tinting of this scene) a man is sitting in a corner on the ground with guards surrounding him. The room looks like a dungeon. The man is brought upstairs to the pharaoh (in the picture is he is the man with the lion print cloth on). He sees Lotos dancing and wants to stop this. The pharaoh says: “take this mad men away”. Lotos continues to dance. Back to the dungeon. Lotos enters the dungeon and says: ”the guards are bribed. I give you your freedom because I feel sorry for you. He gets up an embraces her. The pharaoh enters the dungeon and they are startled. He says: ”because I love I I will pardon you. Tomorrow I will make you my queen. He on the other hand will die in the lions den.” Back at the first location: women perform a dance, Lotos and the pharaoh are watching. The man is taken from the dungeon and Lotos has to give the order to throw him in the lion’s den. She runs to the den and sees the lions eating something. She looks shocked. The last shot is curious. We see a man in contemporary (of the production date of the film) clothing sleeping with his head on a desk (see picture).

The material:
Fragment of about 200 meters from the beginning of the film. The first intertitle has number 8, the last one number 11. Tinting of the image in orange en and dark blue, intertitles green. No edgemark information on the stock

Submitted by EYE Film Institute Netherlands
email: SuzanCrommelin@eyefilm.nl

Source notes
EYE Film Institute Netherlands

Unfortunately, LOTOS, DIE TEMPELTÄNZERIN (preserved at Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv I a version with English titles – is not identical with this unidentified film. The story here is about Lotos, an Indian temple dancer and Sir Percy, a lieutenant of the colonial troops, who has stolen a sacred diamond. She follows him to Europe, recovers the diamond, but dies of her unfulfilled love to Sir Percy.

Unfortunately, LOTOS, DIE TEMPELTÄNZERIN (preserved at Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv I a version with English titles – is not identical with this unidentified film. The story here is about Lotos, an Indian temple dancer and Sir Percy, a lieutenant of the colonial troops, who has stolen a sacred diamond. She follows him to Europe, recovers the diamond, but dies of her unfulfilled love to Sir Percy.

The "Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv" owns a copy of LOTOS, DIE TEMPELTAENZERIN, a film directed by L. A. Winkel and produced by the "Continental-Kunstfilm GmbH, Berlin" in 1913. See http://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzungsmedien/filme/view/B96047?back_url=filme%2Falpha%2FL%2Fpage%3A21. I've never seen the film, but the title fits the plot given above. The last frame probably features the actor Ernst Rückert. Lotos, the main character, was played by Eva Jensen-Eck, but I don't know what she looked like.