If you bought The Tiger of Eschnapur, you must have The Indian Tomb, which completes the tale of love, death, treachery, and enlightenment in Maharajah Chandra's Eschnapur. 
    The second part of the pair of Fritz Lang bombs begins in cheerful serial cliffhanger blissfulness with a five minute recapitulation of the first film. Yes, in five minutes the audience is up to snuff and ready to return to the sands where a pair of unconscious lovers lie . 

Charming the scales off the cobra. ©Fantoma

    Thank Shiva for roving caravans. A Caravan finds Seetha and Harald and brings them to a village to recover. Meanwhile, back at Chandra's palace brother-in-law architect partner Walter Rhodes and Harald's sister arrive in Eschnapur to find brother missing. Chandra, practically foaming at the mouth, insists that Rhodes begin construction of a tomb instead of the contracted hospital project. Prince Ramagani is sent with crack trackers to find Harald and Seetha and decrees go forth to every village that helping the missing lovers will mean death and destruction.      
     Despite god Shiva's spidery magic, Seetha finds herself a prisoner at the palace. Ramagani is convinced that if Chandra marries Seetha, he will fall to the prince. He convinces Chandra to reconsider Seetha's treachery. What's a maharajah to do? Happily lust rules the day and he is willing to forgive and forget, but not for long, because Seetha admits she still loves Harald.  And what has become of Harald? Is he dead? Who will save Seetha? Will the foundations of the palace collapse? What about the sudden appearance of General Dagh?  The Indian Tomb provides all the answers. 
     Once again, the second of the Lang films features the spectacular location sets in India. Debra Paget gets a revs up the dance moves a little more as Seetha. Paul Christian (Hubschmid) does his best to break through the script chains. Claus Holm and Sabine Bethmann playing the Rhodes' join the cast to over-act in unison. 
     The Fantoma team has treated these late Lang efforts with great respect. The DVD of The Indian Tomb is consistent with The Tiger of Eschnapur in every respect. The transfer elements appear  worked over big time. Colors are beautifully saturated. The appear almost painted on the screen. Individual colors are well defined with no color bleeding. Dig those big jewels: even the light reflected through them is softly captured on clothing. The chief transfer shortcoming is color instability at scene transitions. It's almost as if the transfer equipment hesitates before locking in on a new color scheme. The material is otherwise quite clean. Save for a couple of small scenes,  image is delivered with maximum resolution. Blacks are as rich as can be. Shadow detail balances perfectly with the intense color scheme. Lighting in a few Day-for-Night sequences is questionably bright. You can watch Paget and company go through the paces in English of German 2 channel mono. In English, the dialogue has a hollow ring to it. In German, it looks ridiculous. English subtitles are available if you choose German language. 

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