James B. Fagan

A framework story serves as context for a retelling of the Exodus story and, most importantly, a recycling of footage from the silent version of The Ten Commandments.

That old theatrical war-horse Bella Donna (previously filmed in America by Alla Nazimova) was resurrected by Britain's Twickenham Studios in 1934. Conrad Veidt stars as sinister Egyptian Mahmoud Baroundi, who even before the film gets under way has left a long trail of ruined women behind him. His latest victim is American girl Mona Chepstow (Mary Ellis), whom Baroundi treats like dirt and makes her like it. The plot centers around a murder by poison, as evidenced by the film's deliberately exotic title. Critics in 1934 praised newcomer Mary Ellis for underplaying her role, but many film fans preferred Nazimova's arm-waving histrionics in the earlier version.

Bella Donna, a seductive woman snares Nigel Armine into marriage and he takes her to Egypt to live. Tired of her simple husband, Bella becomes involved with brutish Baroudi.

On the day of his wedding, Sir John Carteret's fiancée, Moonyeen, is killed by a jealous rival named Jeremy, leaving him emotionally devastated. Carteret spends three decades in seclusion, mostly communing with the spirit of Moonyeen, until he learns that her niece, Kathleen, has become an orphan. He adopts and raises the child as his own but is alarmed when, as a young woman, she falls in love with the son of Moonyeen's murderer.

Bella Donna ( Pauline Frederick ) a seductive woman snares Nigel Armine ( Thomas Holding ) into marriage and he takes her to Egypt to live. Tired of her simple husband, Bella becomes involved with brutish Baroudi. To get rid of Nigel, she begins slowly poisoning him. However, Nigel's friend Dr. Isaacson arrives in time to save him. Now Baroudi wants nothing to do with Bella, and neither does her husband. Totally alone now, the distraught Bella wanders off into the desert.

British officer Capt. Leslie Yeullat is at present on leave in London. Falling in love with Ruth Dangan, the wife of his commanding officer, Yeullat does the gentlemanly thing by suppressing his own emotions for the sake of the Regiment. He goes so far as to resign from his commission and returns to India as a civilian.

American law clerks Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne and Rodney Blake are nearly broke in Monte Carlo when Hawthorne breaks the bank. While driving through the impoverished kingdom of Bovinia, Hawthorne falls in love with a woman he meets when he retrieves his blown-off cap. Deciding to stay, Hawthorne is persuaded to finance a revolution until he learns that the woman he loves is Princess Irma and that she is in danger of being assassinated.

After marrying an archaeologist, a Victorian-era woman with a sordid past realizes that she is not ready to settle down with one man.