Product Description

After more than two decades of exile in Hollywood, master filmmaker Fritz Lang triumphantly returned to his native Germany to direct the lavish two-part adventure tale The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb from a story he had co-authored almost forty years earlier. In the grand tradition of the serialized cliffhanger, this film picks up right where The Tiger of Eschnapur ends. The adventure concludes with a rescue from a sandstorm, a trek through the jungle, a cave of lepers, and a bloody palace rebellion. Together, these films provide the cinematic link between the classic silent serials and the modern action/adventures of Indiana Jones and The Mummy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100940 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-10-16
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com
In the late 1950s, director Fritz Lang returned to the German cinema, home of his great silent creations Die Nibelungen and Metropolis. His new project was, appropriately, a throwback to the early German days, a two-part cliffhanger originally conceived for the silents. The Indian Tomb is part two, picking up where The Tiger of Eschnapur left off, as a lovesick Maharaja exacts his vengeance. Once you adjust to Lang's measured pacing (and if you accept the variable acting), the movie's bright colors and complicated political machinations take over. Auteurists will recognize Lang's impeccable eye for screen space and his obsessive concern with the price of tempting fate. Even nonauteurists will appreciate the revolt of the underground leper colony and the cobra dance performed by Debra Paget, who wears something less than a bikini. This is melodrama served up without apology by a director more interested in patterns than psychology. --Robert Horton

Additional features
This superbly transferred DVD offers both German- and English-language versions of the film. As the English is awkwardly dubbed and poorly spoken, and the dialogue is of a comic-book variety anyway, the German version is smoother and less stilted to watch. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Very strange and fascinating cult film
Second part of Fritz Lang's bizarre epic about Indian mysticism shot for television and cut into two features by the studio (the other part being The Tiger of Eschnapur); it's a brilliantly executed pulpy and humorous masterpiece, with breathtaking color cinematography and elaborate set design which rivals the underworld city in Metropolis. Lang really celebrates the artifice of film, and his uncanny sense for mise-en scene proves his mastery of the craft. It's certainly a strange work and perhaps a bit hackneyed, but one should keep an open mind and sink in to the vivid images and spectacular naive tale of power and magic.

Lang's Indian Epic
The American video release of director Fritz Lang's two-part Indian epic has finally arrived. Admittedly, "The Indian Tomb" (1959) is not among Lang's finest achievements, but it remains a visually stunning, imaginative work - far superior to the slow-paced first installment, "The Tiger of Eschnapur." Except for Debra Paget's exotic beauty, one wishes Lang had assembled a stronger cast for his atmospheric adventure. In addition, the film suffers from some hokey passages involving our ineffectual hero. Still, the film's vivid color photography, architectural compositions and lavish sets are unique in cinema history. Paget's erotic cobra dance, the cave of lepers, and action-filled climax represent Lang at his best. Regardless of its flaws, the director's Indian saga ranks with "Metropolis" (1926) as his most ambitious production. It's a cinematic journey worth taking.

Truly dreadful
This film is so terrible it perhaps marks Lang's lowest point. From the heights of M and Metropolis he descends to perhaps the worst dialogue, most phoney plot and most absurd depiction of India I have ever seen in a movie. I have been to Rajasthan and Lang's depiction of Udiapur (the actual setting) is a nonsense. Not only do we have well-lit interior caves with shiny, level studio floors and plastic rocks; not only do we have ridiculously paintined images of the gods; not only do we have the most abjectly ridicuous fight scenes; not only do we have plastic crocodiles; not only do we have palm trees (there are none in Rajasthan); not only do we have Siva presented as a goddess - as ludicrous as calling the Virgin Mary a man - but we have the priest of Siva wearing a Vishnaivite tika and spouting total nonsense. The semi-nude temple dance with the wooden snake on strings (clearly visible) is such a mish-mash of Hollywood style lasciviousness and westernized misrepresentation of Indian dancing it's pathetic. I love Lang's early work, but this is a laughable travesty of anything Indian. It's backdrops and scenery are b-movie standard and this film is fit only for the trash heap of movie history.