Word: waltari
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...ETRUSCAN, by Mika Waltari (381 pp.; Pufnam; $4.50), takes its readers on a Cook's tour of the Mediterranean world of 500 B.C. The voluble guide is a young superman called Turms, who clobbers men, conquers women and seeks his ease in the lap of the gods ("I saw her, the goddess, taking shape and resting lightly on the couch, lovelier than all earthly women . . ."). Turms is also busy making history. He contributes to the death struggle between Greece and Persia by setting fire to the temple of the Persian goddess Cybele in Sardis, helps incite war between Carthage...
MOONSCAPE (Putnam; $3.50)."With clumsy fingers I undid two buttons of her frock, slipped my hand beneath it and ..." And Mika Waltari, whose bestsellers (The Egyptian, The Adventurer, The Wanderer) would be considerably shorter if his heroines knew about zippers, is off meandering again, this time in his native Finland. This volume consists of five not-very-short stories. The title yarn tells what happens to the unbuttoned country girl: she grows up to be a movie star with a boudoir-view of life ("There are no impotent men, only unskilled women, don't you think?"). Another story...
...Egyptian (20th Century-Fox), based on Mika Waltari's bestselling novel of Egypt in the 14th century B.C., is described in studio releases as a "$5,000,000 CinemaScope De Luxe Color picturization . . . with 67 major sets, seven stars, two dozen featured players, 87 other speaking roles and over 5,000 extras." Authenticity is rampant in every scene. All 5,000 extras, for instance, have brown eyes, because the research department read somewhere that "there were no blue-eyed Egyptians in the 14th century B.C." Furthermore, the "5,000,000 objects" of Egyptian antiquity in the film were imported...
Edmund Purdom, as the Egyptian doctor, gives as good as he got from Author Waltari. Jean Simmons, as his bright angel,' looks pretty carrying a jug on her head. As his dark angel, Bella Darvi manages, even while wearing green nail polish and a wig like a blue floor mop, to stave off the horselaughs-no mean accomplishment. Gene Tierney models some fetching Egyptian clothes, and Victor Mature's chief contribution to his role is the strength to carry 65 Ibs. of armor on his back...
With considerable skill, Novelist Waltari parallels the fall of Constantinople with the fall of gorgeous Anna. For much of the book, he keeps his readers on the hooks, trying to guess which surrender will come first. Constantinople, as any practical reader could guess, holds out just a bit longer than Anna...