THE LIVING IDOL

James Robertson Justice, Liliane Montevecchi. Steve Forrest

THE LIVING IDOL (1957). Written and directed by Albert Lewin.

Down in Mexico Dr. Alfred Stoner (James Robertson Justice) leads Terry, a photographer (Steve Forrest), and Juanita (Liliane Montevecchi), the daughter of a colleague, up an inner staircase into a recess of a pyramid to see the idol of a jaguar god. Juanita is badly frightened, and Alfred wonders if she might be the reincarnation of a young lady who centuries ago was sacrificed to the god. When Juanita's father, Manuel (Eduardo Noriega), is crushed by a stone with a jaguar representation on it, she is even more freaked out. Alfred and his wife, Elena (Sara Garcia), take the orphaned Juanita under their wing, but Alfred develops an insane plan to get her out from under the alleged influence of the jaguar god. 

Beautiful beast: a stalking jaguar 

I had never heard of The Living Idol but hoped this might be a lost gem when I saw some familiar names in the cast, saw that it was in CinemaScope and Technicolor, and that it was photographed by Jack Hildyard. But my hopes started to fade the minute I saw the phony-looking and not very frightening jaguar-idol, which Alfred brings back with him to Mexico City. Forget about Juanita, the only one who seems to have an odd relationship with a jaguar is Alfred, who lets the beautiful beast out of a zoo in his crazy, senseless scheme to let it have an encounter with the poor young lady. Lest you mistakenly think that this all sounds interesting, be forewarned that The Living Idol is deadly slow and dull, with very little happening during a nearly two hour running time. At times the film almost seems more like a romance than a horror film, if that's what it even is. The shame of if is it could have gone off in so many different, much more fascinating and frightening directions, but it basically goes nowhere ... slowly. Manuel's death scene occurs off-screen and is poorly handled. Some nice scenery can't save this. You would never know that director Lewin had actually helmed a couple of pretty good pictures. This was his last one. 

Verdict: A major disappointment and pretty terrible movie. *1/2.