LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

bluefez99 This movie is a very enjoyable homage to the Bogart and other detective films of old. Robert Sacchi nails it as Bogie and Michelle Phillips is a truly timeless beauty as Gena Anastas. However, the most noteworthy portion of this film involves the longest belly dancing scene ever produced in a Hollywood film. One well-known professional instructor commented that nothing else in cinema comes close for dance excitement. The scene, which ends up being an important part of the plot, occurs in a lushly beautiful Middle Eastern nightclub and is by all accounts mesmerizing. The pulsating music, the swirling veils and ringing finger cymbals, free-flowing undulations and beautiful costumes - and a surprise twist involving the seductive Sybil Danning - build tension and excitement until the very end. The three talented and beautiful professional nightclub dancers are led by exotic brunette beauty Kamala Almanzar, one of the US' leading belly dancers since the mid-1970s. She was hand-picked by famed Armenian musician Guy Chookoorian to travel with his orchestra on the road. Guy's ensemble is the live band that the dancers perform to in the scene. If you watch the trailer on this site, you will see a glimpse of Kamala (playing the finger cymbals behind Sybil Danning). If you're not yet a fan of belly dancing, you will be after watching this movie, and if you're an aficionado, it holds up very well after repeated viewing.

chrinic27-1 This movie should have been called "The Eyes of Alexander", and they should have done away with the Bogart concept altogether. The film started out with a lighthearted approach to Bogart's legacy and some comical moments with his surgery oriented face, but after the first 15-30 minutes it morphs into a more serious thriller, where two palm size sapphires, purportedly laid as eyes into a marble headpiece of Alexander the Great, for him, and seen by him, right before his death. So the gems are of great value not only because of their quality and size, but also because of the tie to the Greatest conquerer the world has ever known. Being an expert on Alexander qualifies me to say that this is wholly and completely a fiction, but it makes for a good movie anyway. So the film winds around some early silliness and stumbles along with all sorts of Alexander allusions in both the foreground and background (which I really liked), ending with a dated shark attack (you couldn't go to a movie in '79-'80 without some shark showing up to menace the audience). There is a yacht named Euridice (Alexander's father's young wife), a man named Alexander, Philip, Cleitus?, (it's been about 5 years since I've seen the film, so can't remember all the details), Olympias, some street names, and many others. It was fun to watch the film just to try to catch all the background details that the director (obviously an Alexanderphile himself) put in. When all is said and done, the eyes are retrieved and the camera pans in on them on a bed as the credits roll by. Kind of a neat ending. What would have been more fun would be if they went the Indiana Jones way and had an action adventure. There were many, many real artifacts that could have been used to make this more interesting, or instance, the hand-annotated (by Aristotle) version of the Iliad that Alexander kept with him all his life, even on his many journeys across Asia (would be of incalculable value if found today). Olivia Hussey (my all time favorite b-movie actress)is killed off way too early, and should have been the main actress throughout, not the girl from the Momma's and the Poppa's...though she was herself easy on the eyes. If you can find this flick, it might be worth checking out for the historical stuff and to see Olivia Hussey in an extremely funny deadpan humor bit early on, but beyond that, I'd pass on it for something more entertaining.Yours, Nick

chrinic27 I originally looked this movie up to check out the performance of Olivia Hussey. She was inspiring in her "Romeo and Juliet" and I wanted to see more of her. Unfortunately, she is only given a bit part, and then killed off? She does have some funny moments though when talking about her missing father. Her name was Elsie Borsche, and her father's name is Horsche borsche. Which she delivers with a straight face in a bantering dialogue with the Bogart guy...hysterical! Being a huge "Alexander the Great" fan I was intrigued by the imagery and allusians throughout the film on the genre. A boat in the background is named "Euridice", the film is centered around two large (palm sized) deep blue sapphires which were inset into the eye sockets of a marble head of Alexander himself. One of the main characters was named Alexander. According to the movie script, legend stated that it was the last thing that Alexander laid eyes on before he died. Rest assured this is fictional. The film ends with the camera focused on the gems lying on a bed as the credits rolled by. It's been a few years since I viewed the film, but if you like all things Alexander, this film is worth checking out just to find all the little background features related to his genre. With several films coming out on the great conqueror soon, (2004-05), it might be also worth your time just for the fun of it. If you're interested in seeing a regurgitated Humphrey Bogart you'll likely be disappointed. I am too young to really know what Bogart was like, but clearly the similar face and dead pan vocal style of this actor is as close to the real Bogart as this film gets. I also got the feeling that they started out with a concept of making a Bogart spoof film, and ended up with a historical/comedic/mystery. As an afternote, their is a scene with a shark at the end of the film which attacks a character and supposedly bytes off the prosthetic arm which was holding a pouch containing the gems. In this film era,(thanks to Jaws) every time a character entered the water, a shark attacked him...it was expected. This scene alone dates the film to the late seventies/early eighties, without even knowing outright that it was released in 1980. Overall, the film is not much more than a B movie destined to live out its days molding in some closet of a Hollywood producer and then likely just disappear. The relative rarity of Alexander films makes it worth owning for the hardcore Alexander fan, but unless you want to do a filmography on Olivia Hussey or one of the other up and coming stars of the era, avoid at all costs...which shouldn't be hard to do given the fact that you'll probably have to special order it anyway. It's been fun commenting on this film, and I welcome any questions about Alexander the Great.

jspeachy If you like Bogart, you will enjoy this film thoroughly. I only wish it was on video so I could buy it! Very nostalgic. Very Bogart...as he was in his Ace Private-Dick days as Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe.