O Tesouro do Condor de Ouro

Delmer Daves has assembled an impressive cast but they all rather just go through the motions in this routine swashbuckler. Cornel Wilde takes top billing as the dispossessed "Jean-Paul" who finds himself robbed of his inheritance. He has but one chance to avenge things - and that is to head to remote Guatemala and seek out a treasure that, Monte-Cristo style - will help him right the wrongs done to him. Were it ever to have escaped the confines of the studio, then perhaps it might have delivered a bit better but the action scenes are all too stage-bound and the jungle looks no more authentic than the greenhouse at Kew. Anne Bancroft brings some glamour as the "Comtesse" and George Macready some menace as the scheming "Marquis" but it's all rather too predictable and Wilde is nowhere near his charming, charismatic - or acrobatic - best. It's watchable and as a fan of the genre i still quite enjoyed it - but it isn't very good and is, frankly, instantly forgettable.

Lovely to watch and very difficult to spot those who would become a lot more famous later in their film careers. A familiar plot similar to that of the repetitive Mills and Boon series of period romantic novels. Mr. Waverley from The Man From Uncle looked odd in this as he is so used to being seen in that role, I kept expecting him to mention "channel D". No expense spared on costumes and scenery and it looks great with a nice story line and good acting. Well worth watching and if you spot a young Anne Bancroft very well done as she looks nothing like she does about 15 years later in The Graduate.

The location of the injustice is changed from 18th century Great Britain to 18th century France and the treasure is emeralds and not pearls found now in Guatemala instead of the South Seas. But the plot of Treasure Of The Golden Condor is easily recognizable as that of Tyrone Power's Son Of Fury. Cornel Wilde who was another of those standbys for Power in both their times at 20th Century Fox in the Forties when Zanuck's favorite star was otherwise occupied stands in well for Power when Zanuck decided to remake the film.

The story is that of a man deemed illegitimate because no proof of a marriage can be found and disinherited from title and lands by a cruel and avaricious uncle George MacReady. George Sanders played the uncle in the original and both Sanders and MacReady were first rate cads.

The women in Wilde's life are Constance Smith the daughter of Finlay Currie his partner in fortune hunting and Anne Bancroft whose got a yen buzzing for her cousin Wilde. Bancroft in her third feature film is MacReady's daughter, she's quite the vixen.

Wilde was always one of the best action adventure stars of his days, but he never got to the top tier level. Instead of going to television as so many of his contemporaries did he went into production of his own films that usually played as B pictures. In terms of quality they varied greatly. This film is an opportunity to see him at his swashbuckling best as he was one of the best at the fencing game. He was a member of the 1936 US Olympic team.

In the supporting cast note Leo G. Carroll as the lawyer who aides Wilde in proving his lineage, a sincere but cynical performance. Also Fay Wray as MacReady's wife, a most unhappy woman. Just married to George MacReady is reason enough.

Cornel Wilde's fans should be pleased. Technicolor as well.

The movie was broadcast this afternoon on french TV (France 3). Never heard about it before. The action takes place half in a fake Hollywood France of the "XVIIIème siècle", half on location in the real beauty of Guatemala. Delmer Daves is for sure a professional entertainer (see "Broken Arrow"), and the movie follows the best tradition of US (almost B) movies in costume, like Fritz Lang masterpiece "Moonfleet". The typography of the production credits and cast is great (in the "Drums Along the Mohawk" style, though inferior), the colors amazing, and the scenes shot in the ruins and landscapes in Guatemala - with the locals Indians - are truly beautiful. The political message against "money for money" and for freedom (Jean-Paul, the hero, is a "slave" in the French society of that time) is naive but OK. Cornel Wilde is a strange actor, but not as bad as I fear. He's good in action scenes, and can be stirring when the camera is close to his virile face. Not that sexy, but he is "un bel homme" as old French ladies would say. He and Delmer Daves must have been very proud of his great body : he's half naked twice (in 1953!), and not just a second. Anne Bancroft was a débutante, but she's very courageous in her part, a bitchy and cynic Marquise. The only problem is Constance Smith. Because she is not Debra Paget, the incredible actress of "Das Indische Grabmal". She is so not pithy, and that's a thousand pities.

This is a wonderful hour and a half of pure escapism with several ingredients from successful past Hollywood films: Citizen Kane (young boy gets ripped from poor parents and sent to live with rich relative), Wuthering Heights (stable boy falls in love with woman above his station), Lost Horizon (Conway returns to his Shangri-la and true love), a forerunner to Indiana Jones, and The Naked Prey, and a prelude to the French Revolution to boot. Some of my favorite actors are in this film (Leo G Carroll and Cornell Wilde), and a dash of 1942's Son of Fury with Tyrone Power and George Sanders, two more of my favorite screen personalities. So the film may not be perfect, but it is certainly entertaining, and helps us forget about COVID for an hour and a half. That alone is worth 7 stars these days.