The Storyline of The Cigars of the Pharaoh

Tintin and his dog Snowy are on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea when they meet Dr Sarcophagus, an Egyptologist who owns a papyrus that he believes will lead him to the undiscovered tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh (a pun on kiosk, a newspaper stand). He invites Tintin to accompany him. Tintin also has an unpleasant encounter with Roberto Rastapopoulos, a wealthy businessman.

Later on the cruise, Tintin first meet the Thompson and Thomson, who accuse him of smuggling heroin they have found in his cabin. Locked in the hold of the ship, Tintin craftily escapes and meets Sarcophagus in Port Said, Egypt.

Tintin and Sarcophagus set off and discover the tomb of Kih-Oskh. On a nearby sand dune, Tintin finds a cigar bearing the symbol of Kih-Oskh — a circle with a wavy line through it and two dots on it, rather like a yin-yang symbol. But when he returns to the tomb, Sarcophagus has disappeared.

Entering the tomb, Tintin and Snowy are startled several times by doors closing behind them. They come to a room where rows of Egyptologists are mummified. At the end of the row are empty sarcophagi with notices to indicate that they are intended for Tintin, Snowy (and Sarcophagus too in the later edition). Following items of Sarcophagus' clothing which have been left lying about, Tintin enters another room where drugged vapour puts him to sleep.

That night drug smugglers embark some sarcophagi aboard a ship but they are later cast overboard. The sarcophagi contain Tintin and Snowy who thus escape mummification. They are rescued from a gigantic wave by the crew of sailing ship. On it they meet Senhor Oliviera de Figueira, a Portuguese salesman who travels the Middle East selling to local Arabs. He persuades Tintin to buy a top hat, ski poles, a dog-house on wheels, and a lead for Snowy, and the overloaded Tintin walks away saying "Just as well I didn't fall for his patter; you can end up with all sorts of useless stuff if you're not careful".

Tintin then sets out across the desert and is captured by the men of Sheik Patrash Pasha. He hates Westerners but is then delighted to discover that his captive is Tintin, whose exploits he has read of for years, and even shows one of the Tintin books that he has read (the exact book is different depending on the version, but it is always the most recent to have been published; in the first black and white strip, it is Tintin in the Congo; in the second it is, Tintin in America; and in the colour version, it is Destination Moon).

When Tintin returns to the boat, he discovers that it has been smuggling guns. There is a lengthy comic sequence involving Thompson and Thomson who accuse him of being the smuggler. They hurry off when they think a grenade is due to explode, enabling Tintin to get away.

Tintin flees the city in a military airplane pursued by others. To save himself he takes a dive and lands in India. There Tintin finds Sarcophagus who is painting the sign of Kih-Oskh on the trees. He has gone completely mad and thinks that he is another Pharaoh, Ramesses II.

Tintin and Sarcophagus are taken by an elephant to a local colonial outpost. Later, the mad Sarcophagus escapes and tries to kill Tintin with a knife. It soon transpires that he was hypnotised by a local Fakir who wants Tintin dead. Some remarks by the Fakir lead Tintin to Zloty, a Hungarian writer, who explains that an international gang of drug smugglers is out to dispose of Tintin. At gunpoint, Tintin orders Zloty to give him the name of the gang's leader but, before he can, the Fakir, from outside the window, blows a dart at Zloty. Zloty goes mad because the dart was tipped with Rajaijah juice, the poison-of-madness.

Tintin takes Sarcophagus and Zloty to the asylum with a letter from a local doctor, but the Fakir has substituted the letter and through a misunderstanding Tintin ends up imprisoned. He escapes by jumping on an obese inmate and over the wall. Snowy is unable to keep up with Tintin and is almost sacrificed by angry Indians for frightening their holy cow. The little dog is saved by Thomson & Thompson, acting as Nataraja. They then use Snowy to track down his master, whom they are still determined to arrest.

Tintin's escape from the asylum is reported and he is recaptured at a train station. The ambulance taking him back to the asylum crashes into the car driven by Sarcophagus and Zloty. Tintin escapes and later meets the Maharaja of Gaipajama. Over dinner they hear music which the Maharaja believes is a warning that he will be driven insane like his relatives due to their opposition to the drug cartel and its oppression of the local farmers.

Tintin arranges for a dummy to be put in the Maharaja's bed. That night the dummy is hit by a dart fired by the fakir. Tintin follows the fakir to the cartel's hideout. The members within dress up in outfits that bear the symbol of Kih-Oskh and make them look rather like the Ku Klux Klan (as Tintin comments in the English edition). He manages to capture the gang which includes the Fakir, the Arab colonel and several others he met in the course of the adventure. He is later joined by the Maharaja, Snowy and the Thompson twins. Meanwhile, the tomb of Kih-Oskh is found by the Egyptian police. It contains evidence of Tintin's innocence and a map showing them to the hideout.

The Fakir manages to escape, however, and later he and the cartel's Grand Master kidnap the Maharaja's young son. Tintin chases them into the Himalayas, recovers the prince and captures the Fakir. But the cartel leader falls off a cliff and (presumably) dies.

Later on, the Maharaja informs Tintin that one of the captured members of the cartel was a servant of his. In examining cigars found in his room, Tintin discovers that cigars bearing the "Kih-Oskh" label contain heroin, revealing the means by which the cartel smuggled drugs.

Tags: jackson, cigars of the pharaoh, spielberg, tintin, tintin cigars of the pharaoh, tintin, tintin movie