Customer Reviews

Adventures of Marco Polo [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You simply can't take "The Adventures of Marco Polo" seriously...but as a light-hearted, glossy, tongue-in-cheek adventure, the film is great fun, from the same year as Warner's "The Adventures of Robin Hood".

With producer Samuel Goldwyn's biggest box office star, Gary Cooper, in the lead, as a drawling, skirt-chasing Polo, the film opens with an opulent, Hollywood version of 13th century Venice, then quickly moves to the steppes of central Asia, and finally the equally opulent court of Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan (George Barbier), where Cooper and his groaning comic relief (Ernest Truex) encounter Khan's exotic, if not particularly Oriental-looking, daughter (Sigrid Gurie...who learns how to kiss from the obliging Polo), and Khan's ruthless adviser, Ahmed (another terrific villainous portrayal by Basil Rathbone), who has designs on both China and Gurie.

Screenwriter Robert Sherwood tosses in a bit of history (the Chinese inventions of spaghetti and gunpowder, introduced to Polo by H.B. Warner, channeling his "Lost Horizon" persona), but clearly treats the storyline as farce, adding a feared (but henpecked) tribal chief (a heavily made-up Alan Hale), and his jealous wife (Binnie Barnes, who also falls under Polo's spell). Also, watch for 17-year-old Lana Turner in a small but showy role as a most desirable Chinese handmaiden (this is the infamous film where Goldwyn's makeup department burned off her eyebrows, permanently).

Directed by veteran director Archie Mayo (who lacked Michael Curtiz' flair for epic period adventure), the action scenes are a bit flat, and Cooper's climactic fight with Rathbone is somewhat disappointing (truthfully, he seems out-of-place confronting a swashbuckling villain). Certainly, 1938 audiences weren't 'buying' Cooper as an Italian adventurer (it WAS a stretch!), and the film flopped, but if you're in the mood for pure escapism, from Hollywood's 'Golden' age, "The Adventures of Marco Polo" is certainly worth a look!

The problem with Marco Polo is that it couldn't make up its mind whether it was a comedy or swashbuckler. Although I like him, Gary Cooper is miscast in this role (Ronald Colman or Robert Donat would have been better) and the screenplay needed to be more sober. George Barbier's Kubla Khan (sp?) is better suited to a Paramount farce with W.C. Fields. Ernest Truex, with that whiny voice, is almost unbearable. Who comes out on top as usual?....Basil Rathbone. He is the only reason I would watch this film.

An old film that's somewhat corny but still enjoyable. Alan Hale Senior is great. Basil Rathbone is - corny - but great. One of those films where unfortunately all the main Asian characters are white with Scotch-taped eyelids. If you like Gary Cooper, you gotta have this film. Very good quality with subtitles.

Ok, I know that there is a lot about this film that is silly, but I can't help it..... I loved this when I saw it as a kid, and I loved it just as much seeing it again 45 years later.

Maybe it's because I'm one of those folks who is completely willing to suspend belief and let the film makers take me into their world, but I thoroughly enjoy adventures like this one.

The transfer was good, the film making was technically satisfying, and the story.... well..... what could be more fun than traveling through strange foreign lands with your ever faithful servant by your side, partaking of the wonders along the way and battling the likes of the absolutely evil Basil Rathbone.

Ok, I'll admit that when I saw Alan Hale as the leader of the rebel tribe I had to laugh..... and yes, we was totally unbelievable, but hey, an actor has got to work, and he was in just about every other picture made during this time period so what the heck : )

As long as you don't take it to seriously, it's a fun Saturday afternoon adventure filled romp.

Much has been made about the "miscasting" of Gary Cooper as the Venetian explorer Marco Polo. However he is one of the best actors Hollywood has ever seen and I don't believe we've seen his equal yet or are likely too anytime soon. He does quite a good job in this pic and it's a fun watch. It's not up there with Sgt. York or Mr. Deeds but you can't go wrong with any film starring Cooper. Also look for Lana Turner in one of her first roles as one of Alan Hale Sr.'s servants.

Nothing can prepare you for this film. From the quantities of plastic that overwhelms the architecture to the Mme Butterfly make up on Sigrid Gurie, from the Deco thrones that look out of a starlet's living room to the Mexican desperadoes posing as Tartar guards, while wearing what could only be described as primitive space travel gear. This whole production is a delightful plunge into the nether world of pseudo-history and really sick fantasies about the Orient that would be too politically incorrect to even imagine now, as a bad dream.
Gary Cooper looks absolutely ridiculous in his Venetian costume from the first shot. This is probably one of the biggest miscast mistakes in Holywwod's record, but the horrid version of Venice that is depicted here is bad even by Vegas standards, and it includes every single one of Cooper's outfits each one outdoing the last as the worst. I am not going to elaborate on the weird growth of hair at the back of his head that looks like a mix between a junior toreador and a punk-in-training. More annoying than the outfit is his swaggering presence that looks completely out of synch with the scenes, sort of what we could expect from Dolly Parton playing Marie Antoinette.There are a series of hollering shouts from attendants and 'broads' searching for Marco Polo in the first scene, all over the fake Venice, when he is summoned by his uncles that almost transposed the entire situation to the tacky glories of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, all women are wearing polyester nightgowns and the men look so ridiculous it gives the impression of mardi gras in Alaska .The trip to Asia takes 15 minutes, maybe seven, but it actually does not matter, when they get there the plastic morphs into pseudo-China-exotica in seconds and we're at some strange place between China and Japan by way of Long Island Chinese restaurants' decor.
Basil Rathbone is the "Evil" Ahmed, vizier. He is his usual professional evil self and traitor to George Barbier's ridiculously homy Kublai Khan that is much more familiar with Archie Bunker's delicious vulgarity, style and mannerisms than with any Imperial court anywhere in history, and that includes the kitchen and toilet areas.
The only reason to watch this tragic comedy is to see Lana Turner in the role of Nazama's maid. She is sassy, gorgeous and obviously delighted with the weirdness of her outfit and surroundings. Sigrid Gurie is her counterpart in characterization: A vapid, limp, and vacuous princess that can not be understood except as a product of princely inbreeding. She is constantly smelling flowers or on the verge of fainting and can never concentrate to do either properly. One regrets that she is not devoured by the vultures that Ahmed had prepared for her, as she would have done a much better characterization as a sweet and sour pork dish.
Not to be missed for the sociological/anthropological study of Hollywood's vile portrayal of foreign cultures, which at this point is much more inaccurate, condescending and prejudiced than it ever was during the silent era.

I'll always watch Gary Cooper. But as Marco Polo he's just not that good. MGM lavish production seems kind of chinzy. Amusing? Entertaining? Not so much. He hops effortlessly from Venice to China. He messes around with another man's fiancee in the 13th century as 20th century American men were wont to do. Nobody knows what Marco Polo was really like. He brought the west spaghetti & gunpowder. The rest of the story seems like it's from the screenwriters at MGM. The movie ends with Marco taking Princess Kukachin (Sigid Gurie) to her husband in Persia, the long way around. The more time to fool around until she marries. Nice.

Amusing, entertaining.... two words I would use in describing this holiday confection from Samuel Goldwyn. Lavish sets, costumes, music and good performances from Cooper and the Norwegian Sigrid Gurie(she is equally good in THREE FACES WEST with John Wayne).

Sigrid Gurie suffered greatly in her shaky career: At the time mof this film it was found out that she was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn and that the "Siren of the Fjords" was a "fake".

The fact that her parents were Norwegian and moved back to Norway when Sigrid was 11 months was dismissed. (Their ship was not so far the Titanic when it sunk...)

Vivien Leigh was born in Darjeeling, India and Liv Ullmann in Tokyo. They were never labeled as Indian or Japanese. There are many similar examples and why poor Sigrid suffered this idiotic case in unbelivable. Goldwyn indeed called it "a great hoax"... Why Sigrid left Goldwyn after "Algiers" is no wonder.

But she did leave us with this film, ALGIERS and THREE FACES WEST - and she playes each role differently. It`s a shame Goldwyn didn`t look after her - me may have had another star in the tradition of Dietrich and Garbo. Though I must say; SIGRID GURIE had and has a quality and a presence all her own:-)