The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Archie Mayo

Writers:

N.A. Pogson (story)
Robert E. Sherwood (screenplay)

Release Date:

15 April 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Biography | Romance

Plot:

Marco Polo travels from Venice to Peking, where he quickly discovers spaghetti and gunpowder and falls in love with the Emperor's daughter...

Plot Keywords:

Marco Polo | Emperor | Kublai Khan | Spaghetti | Princess

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	Marco Polo
Sigrid Gurie	...	Princess Kukachin
Basil Rathbone	...	Ahmed
George Barbier	...	Kublai Khan
Binnie Barnes	...	Nazama
Ernest Truex	...	Binguccio
Alan Hale	...	Kaidu
H.B. Warner	...	Chen Tsu
Robert Greig	...	Chamberlain (as Robert Grieg)
Ferdinand Gottschalk	...	Persian Ambassador
Henry Kolker	...	Nicolo Polo
Lotus Liu	...	Visakha
Stanley Fields	...	Bayan
Harold Huber	...	Toctai
Lana Turner	...	Nazama's Maid

Runtime:

104 min (copyright length)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White (Sepiatone)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #3857) | Australia:G (TV rating)

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Samuel Goldwyn Company, The

Trivia:

Mrs. Ng as "Chen Tsu's Mother" is in studio records/casting call lists, but the character did not appear in the movie. Because of period and location makeup, some of the other actors are difficult to recognize.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Slaying the Dragon (1988) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Charming Eyes

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO (Archie Mayo and, uncredited, John Cromwell and John Ford, 1938) ***

In itself corny and uneven, this is typical 30s entertainment done on a grand scale; the look of the film is artificial but undeniably lavish. Being a Samuel Goldwyn production, the film is the very antithesis of a history lesson; still, it's more interesting when dealing with the title character's various discoveries in the Orient than his romantic conquests!

Goldwyn, however, could surely afford to employ a reliable cast - most of whom, though, one would be hard-pressed to accept as Chinese - including Gary Cooper (likeable as always in the lead, if not exactly believable), Basil Rathbone (a typically sly villain), Sigrid Gurie (Kublai Khan's daughter and, naturally, an object of contention between Cooper and Rathbone), Ernext Truex (funny as Cooper's flustered sidekick), Alan Hale (a jovial rebel leader) and H.B. Warner (who basically replicates his dignified Chang from LOST HORIZON [1937]). Action is sparse but nicely handled (particularly the climax) and, surprisingly, the montage sequences (a feature of many films of the era) utilize some interesting optical effects.

The IMDb lists the uncredited contribution of two other directors - John Cromwell and John Ford; since the latter's frequent cinematographer Archie Stout does feature in the credits, I'm inclined to believe Ford was involved at some point...though it doesn't really show in the finished product (the subject was hardly up his street, to begin with)! Back in the day, I had watched both the 1965 international epic MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT and the 1982 TV mini-series MARCO POLO; I'll be following this with an Italian low-brow variation made in 1961 (see review below) and might even rent the recent 1998 version, THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO (shortened to MARCO POLO for the U.S.) - if only because it features Jack Palance and Oliver Reed, and was written by Harry Alan Towers!