Choura Milena

The story, a tale of political and amorous intrigue in Beirut, is based on one of Pierre Benoit's novels, " La châtelaine du Liban," and the film exploits the scenic backgrounds of the novel, Beirut, Palmyra and the Syrian Desert. A young captain in the Camel Corps. goes mad when he finds himself on the point of selling his country's secrets to get the money to satisfy the enchantress whose mysterious activities are concerned with espionage. The captain's eventual return to his Camel Corps. and the desert provides the opportunity for a fight with Bedouins, which marks the dramatic climax of the film.

In the Yukon, searching for gold, Hurricane picks up a paper and discovers that the girl back home is planning to marry another man. Abandoning all care, Hurricane is soon embroiled in a fight in which guns play a part. It is then that the true value of one of his companions, Flossie, a girl of the gold-fields, becomes apparent.

This relatively straightforward dramatic biography was one of two films commissioned to honor Joan of Arc on the 500th anniversary of her death, but it was soon undeservedly relegated to obscurity in favor of Carl Dreyer's triumphant 'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'. The comparison is unfair: Dreyer was an artist, but director Marco de Gastyne certainly proved himself a distinguished craftsman, and his emphasis on the Maid of Orléans early life in Domrémy serves as a picturesque, matching bookend to Dreyer's impassioned courtroom drama.