No, it’s not the wife this time, it’s Ayesha, the beautiful heroine of H. Rider Haggard’s 1887 book, first produced for the screen in 1935 by King Kong’s Merian Cooper. Gregory Kulon examines the making of the film that Cooper called his worst!

JOHN HUG

In early 1934, health issues and other considerations would lead Merian C. Cooper to leave his position as head of Production at RKO. It was not a decision he would take lightly, given he had secured the position in large part because of his success in creating, producing, and codirecting King Kong (1933).

This change, however, was not an indication that he intended to stop making films. On the contrary, he would soon be Vice President of Production at Pioneer Pictures, a separate entity where he could focus on the films he wanted to make. While there, he cut a deal with RKO to produce multiple films for them utilizing many of the key contributors to his success on Kong.

By June 8th of that year, the Hollywood Reporter announced two of those films he would make: The Last Days of Pompeii and a version of the H. Rider Haggard novel She. Both were to be filmed in Technicolor.

Cooper intended to make the films with his Kong co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack and his wife and Kong co-writer Ruth Rose Schoedsack. He also planned to use the team that made Skull Island and its inhabitants live.

This included the special effects genius Willis “Obie” O’Brien, along with Mario Larrinaga and Byron Crabbe. The latter two generated most of the pre-production artwork and glass paintings that brought the film its masterful visual style.

In an undated trade clipping in the Merian Cooper papers, the three men were identified as the “artistic trio” behind the settings for Kong and indicated that they would be the designers and technical realisers for these new films.

Although Last Days of Pompeii had been announced months prior to She, pre-production would be focused on the latter project first. Initially, Cooper planned to do both projects for a budget of approximately $1M each. Unfortunately, things would not quite work out that way.

HAGGARD AND THE DARK CONTINENT

Henry Rider Haggard is generally credited with creating the lost world adventure genre. Born in 1856 in Norfolk, England, Haggard spent several of his early adult years in South Africa working multiple administrative positions while learning the various cultures, geography, and animals of the so-called Dark Continent. Returning to England in 1882 to study law, Haggard quickly found his interest pulled to writing of adventures rather than attending to actions in court. After arguing with his brother that he could write a better adventure story than Treasure Island, he quickly wrote his first novel, King Solomon’s Mines, which was published in 1885. With this book, a new genre was born.

One of his most influential novels in the lost world genre, She: A History of Adventure, would be published just a short time after this first foray with magazine serialisation in 1886 followed by the novel publication in 1887. The novel’s popularity led to three further books revolving around the character of Ayesha the last of which, Wisdom’s Daughter, was finally published in 1923.

THE PILLAR OF LIFE

The novel concerns Horace Holly and his young ward, the strikingly handsome Leo Vincey.

Clockwise from above: The Cover of the Deluxe US pressbook; The sacrifice entering the great hall, artwork by Doulton “Bob” Stott; Pressbook images and part of a trade advertisement from the film’s original release, the latter showing the natives plummeting from the balancing rock

Holly is a man with looks and a build more suggestive of a great ape than the scholarly man he is. He had been entrusted by Leo’s father years earlier to raise the child in a way that included some strange academic requests including ancient languages and higher mathematics.

When Leo turns 25, Holly is to open a box which reveals that Leo is a direct ancestor of an Egyptian priest of Isis from over 2000 years ago, Kallikrates, who abandoned his calling and had fled Egypt with his lover into central Africa. There, after many adventures they encountered a Queen who ruled over savages but who possessed knowledge of the Pillar of Life and its eternal flame which can give one near immortality.

This Queen fell in love with Kallikrates and offered him the chance of countless years with her on the condition he slay his lover. He refused and is subsequently killed by the Queen in her jealous anger. Vincey’s lover escaped, and her story had been passed down for over 2000 years to avenge the death of Kallikrates. Not surprisingly, Leo decides to follow the instructions and find the source of this story. Accompanied by Holly and his servant Job, the group has a series of adventures including a shipwreck, close escapes from lions and crocodiles in a swamp,and a deadly encounter with cannibalistic savages under the rule of a powerful Queen.