Reduced She

The latest, and worst, film adaptation of H Rider Haggard's She was made for television in 2001.* Screenwriter Harry Alan Towers, known for schlocky fantasy babe movies like Gor and Warrior Queen, turns the story into one mainly about scantily clad models fighting over Leo Vincey.

In this version, Holly is played by Edward Hardwicke, who's best known for playing Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, much as the 1935 version cast Nigel Bruce in the role, another actor best known for playing Watson. I guess people saw Holly as a Watson kind of character. I guess I can see that from the point of view that he is the narrator of the book, much as Watson is of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the story would seem not to be about him but about Ayesha and Leo. However, that's a very shallow reading of the book. Holly is a very peculiar character and his preoccupations with gender--his self-described misogyny, his ape-like appearance, and his feminine name set him up as an intriguing person to be meeting an immortal matriarch. Film versions seem to want to drain him of any possibly interesting qualities.

Leo's father, in a very brief role, is played by a pre-fame Christoph Waltz, here called Michael Vincey. As in the 1935 version, Leo is actually present when Vincey explains everything to Holly, unlike in the book. Also unlike in the book, but like every film adaptation, we actually see She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed within the first few minutes of the film. I guess filmmakers generally believed for some reason that if the movie's called She, we gotta meet She as soon as possible (again, in this version, "She" is used as a name, though she does reveal in this version to Leo that her real name is Ayesha). However, the characters don't actually meet her until 52 minutes in to the hour and twenty minute movie. A surprising amount of time is spent with Leo, Holly, and Job among the Amahagger, who are once again shown to be white in this version. Otherwise, Towers freely invents and shuffles around characters. In the book, a young Amahagger maiden named Ustane falls in love with Leo while an elder Amahagger man, a chief called Billali, acts as guide and patron for the three Englishmen. In this movie, Billali has been removed and replaced by Ustane who functions just like Billali in the plot except she wears a fur bikini. Meanwhile, a new character is introduced called Roxane to function exactly like Ustane in the book. Yeah, they called this member of an isolated tribe in a lost world "Roxane". Why not call her Jennifer or Caroline? Ustane is played by the very beautiful Martina Colombari who must not be able to speak English because she was clearly dubbed over by another actress. Roxane is played by Marie Baumer who accidentally shows her nipples in one scene. Ian Duncan, who plays Leo, accidentally shows his genitals in another scene. In both cases, the bits were clearly meant to be cropped out of frame or the director was relying on low resolution television. Or maybe they just made a mistake and no-one noticed because hardly anyone even watched this movie.

Randolph Scott, in the 1935 version, played Leo as an American because that's how American movies did things in the '30s, studios not trusting audiences to accept a foreign hero. Maybe that's why, in this 2001 version, Leo, though still being English, is shown to have spent time living in Texas, coming back complete with two cowboy hats (which he wears in just two scenes) and anecdotes about Wyatt Earp. It was one of a few things that made me think the filmmakers were much more familiar with the 1935 film than they were with the book. I can't think of another reason why they'd think it so important to establish a connexion between Leo and America.

Ophelie Winter is the least impressive actress to play Ayesha and perhaps the filmmakers knew it. Or maybe she had too many demands for her role because her presence in the film is oddly subdued, showing up late and leaving early, her famous jump into the fire coming before the film's real climax, a fist fight between Leo and Ayesha's captain of the guard.

Who would be my dream casting for Ayesha? Beauty is subjective but I think any film Ayesha ought to be someone whose beauty is known to be consistently admired all over the world. The most obvious choice for me would be Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who has the added bonus of a regal bearing. A sense of intelligence and wisdom is also lacking in all the actresses to have played the character, except maybe Betty Blythe.

*I'm skipping over the best adaptation of She, from 1965, because I've already written about it twice. First in 2015, before I'd read the book, and again in 2023, after I'd read the book.