Mme. Kithnou Movies
An exotic dancer from Mauritius, Kithnou came to the attention of Hollywood producers after appearing as the wife of the strongman in Rex Ingram's European-lensed Mare Nostrum (1925). Strikingly handsome rather than beautiful, she went on to play the evil La, Queen of Opar, in the 1929 Universal serial Tarzan the Tiger, madly in love with the jungle king and willing to destroy all obstacles. Kithnou also had a bit in Billie Dove's Careers (1929), a talkie, but in the end, her screen career was ruined by the advent of sound. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
In the opener of Universal's 15-chapter serial Tarzan the Tiger, Tarzan, aka Lord Greystoke (Frank Merrill), returns to Africa with his bride, Lady Jane (Natalie Kingston), hoping to locate the famous Jewels of Opar and thus save the Greystoke estate in England. At their plantation, the noble couple is entertaining seemingly friendly scientist Albert Werper (Al Ferguson) who, unbeknownst to the Greystokes, is in reality a greedy soldier of fortune. To Werper, Tarzan explains how he, years ago, rescued Lady Jane from La (Mme. Kithnou), the jealous Queen of Opar. "Have you no pity for me -- a woman like yourself," a tied-up Jane had pleaded, but to no avail. Happily, Tarzan had arrived with not a second to spare to rescue Jane from certain death. Now, and despite Jane's misgivings, the Englishman is planning to return to Opar. Werper, meanwhile, conspires with Tarzan's enemy, slave trader Achmet Zek (Sheldon Lewis), to sell Lady Jane to the highest bidder. The following night, while Tarzan is fighting the ferocious lion Numa, Zek and his band of Nomads kidnap a prostrate Jane. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1926
Having struck box-office gold with his adaptation of the mystical Vincent Blasco-Ibanez novel The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, producer-director Rex Ingram adapted another Ibanez best-seller, Mare Nostrum, as a vehicle for his hauntingly beautiful actress wife Alice Terry. Set during WWI, the film casts Terry as Freya Talberg, a German secret agent. Though she seems to have ice water in her veins (there's even a hint that she prefers the company of women over men), Freya loses her heart to a Spanish sea captain, Ulysses Ferragut (Antonio Moreno). As a result, she is captured and sentenced to be executed, going to her death with a poise and dignity befitting a Joan of Arc. The firing-squad sequence is the film's piece de resistance, brilliantly photographed from the heroine's point of view by ace cinematographer John F. Seitz. Perhaps because virtually all the major characters die at the end, the film was a financial flop, even though its anti-war sentiments were perfectly attuned to the mid-1920s. For many years one of the most highly sought-after "lost" films, Mare Nostrum was restored to a reasonable approximation of its original tinted and toned glory in the late 1970s and has been shown several times over the Turner Classic Movies cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Terry, Uni Apollon, (more)
