Debra Paget’s Erotic Snake Dance from 1959’s The Indian Tomb
Harald Berger and his Indian lover, the temple dancer Seetha, desperately flee from the shikaris (cavalry) of Eschanapur’s maharajah Chandra, who burn a whole village just for letting them pass invoking traditional hospitality. A spider weaves a web so the trackers won’t look for them in a Shiva temple, but she is caught outside, he left for dead after a steep fall into a crocodile-infested water. Meanwhile his sister Irene and brother-in-law Dr. Walter Rhode, the architect who refuses to build a tomb to bury Seetah alive for scorning the ruler’s love before the hospital he was asked for, guess the truth, and try to make their assigned Indian servant Asagara talk, who dreads incriminating his sovereign. She can’t believe Chandra’s claim Harald was killed on a tiger-hunt, and the architect finds the bloody shirt he produces doesn’t have the button she mended. Prince Ramigani plots seizing Chandra’s throne with rajah Padhu, courtiers and the corrupt General Dagh, as soon as Chandra gives offense by marrying the unworthy dancer, which would turn the Hindu priests and ordinary people against him. Seetah dances to charm a cobra in the temple by way of oracle of the goddess, but when she trips Chandra kills the beast, is accused of blasphemy but decides to wed her anyhow, intending to bury his unwilling queen as soon as the monumental tomb is ready. Irene overhears Ramigami forcing Seetah to accept the loveless marriage for the life of Harald, whom he has secretly incarcerated in the palace’s vast subterranean, and plans with her and Walter to find him and flee, using dynamite to create a diversion..
