Very well executed

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Made to capitalize on the huge success of "Michel Strogoff" (1956) ,this not bad sequel owes nothing to Jules Verne but the hero's proper noun .Exit Nadia (who ,however ,did marry Michel at the end of the first film and the novel)who is not even mentioned .Actually the screenplay bears a distant resemblance to Hathaway's "lives of a Bengal lancer": the inexperienced young officer (Pierre Massimi ,whose part resembles that of Richard Cromwell in the 1935 classic), the tough but wise guy (Strogoff ,played by Curd Jurgends ,who,like Gary Cooper,comes to his rescue),the attractive deceitful mysterious lady (Capucine ).....It's an action-packed sequel and it features enough twists to sustain interest till the ending;for a sequel,that's still good value.

This is actually a sequel, not a prequel to the older movie, because Strogoff is now a colonel. In the old movie he was a captain and only at the final he was promoted colonel.Indeed, in the old movie Strogoff was put to a blinding torture by the enemies, however he managed to avoid the blinding itself (watch that movie to see how). Therefore, the fact he is not blind now, does not make this movie a prequel.As for the story, the old movie does not follow the Jules Verne book so closely. I found the best match with the book in the 1937 movie, The Soldier and the Lady. Pity it's a B/W one.

This is a rare instance of a prequel from this era in cinema and, even more so, an international production: in 1956, Curd Jurgens had appeared in an adaptation of Jules Verne’s “Michel Strogoff” – revolving around the adventures of a valiant and legendary Russian warrior. Now, I say this is a prequel because in the ‘original’ the protagonist is blinded – this, then, would seem to be a (probably fictionalized) previous mission of his. Anyway, I recall watching Jurgens’ first Strogoff film on a now-defunct Sicilian TV channel as a kid; I guess I had enjoyed it back then and, in fact, I’d like to re-acquaint myself with it…particularly on the strength of this one, which proved a surprisingly efficient – if rather stodgy and decidedly overlong – affair.The plot of Russians-vs.-Arabs isn’t particularly exciting or novel; what holds the interest is Strogoff’s ambivalent relationship with both a famous singer (Capucine – who’s eventually revealed as a half-caste, therefore a spy) and the arrogant, impetuous Russian prince (whom the Empress has personally asked experienced officer Jurgens to keep under control and which, naturally, leads to many a clash over the military tactics to adopt in the campaign – including the treatment of prisoners). With a traitor in their midst and the systematic depletion of transport, equipment and rations (the camels, fitted with poisoned needles, are being killed off!), the prince is forced to capitulate and subsequently held captive in an Arab fortress. However, the resourceful Strogoff organizes a wild rescue attempt – he’s to infiltrate the prison armed with explosives and, at his signal, the Russian forces deployed outside the city walls will charge; needless to say, the ruse pays off – signaling Strogoff’s “triumph” and supplying the requisite action climax to the film.By the end of it, the prince is humbled…while Capucine discovers that her love for Jurgens is stronger than her loathing of the Russians; the viewpoint is a romanticized one, then, but one hardly expected otherwise from a product designed for mass consumption as this clearly was! Incidentally, I should be getting presently to another Russian epic (but made in Italy rather than France) from the same director i.e. THE COSSACKS (1960)…