Les aventures de Marco Polo

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO is an unjustifiably maligned film. Yes, it has a lot of problems with it, including the miscasting of the Chinese characters (Sigrid Gurie was a mistake), the sluggish middle part and somewhat insulting plot points concerning Chinese culture in general (they don't know what a kiss is?) but if you overlook this (yes, it might be much for some), there's actually a fun film here with Gary Cooper at his most relaxed and handsome, Basil Rathbone being wonderfully evil, some cool vintage Hollywood sets, an exciting climax all done with an amiable goofy tone to it which makes you forget the film's obvious weaknesses.

The best thing about ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO is Gary Cooper. I've seen several films with Cooper, including Morocco with Marlene Dietrich, DESIGN FOR LIVING with Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, and HIGH NOON with Grace Kelly, etc. Always thought he was fine in those films but a bit of a stiff but in MARCO POLO he's never been more at ease and fun here. With his wavy hair and 6'3" frame, he's sure cuts a striking figure. The camera loves him. The worst thing in this film is Sigrid Gurie. This was her first major role and the poor girl drags the whole film down several notches. Not only she doesn't look Chinese at all but her voice is horrible. I feel sorry for her, having been put in such an awkward role. Thankfully, Basil Rathbone is there to bring balance to the uneven film with a control and yet knowingly campy performance.

So to recap, a fun old fashioned adventure film with Gary Cooper at his most enjoyable.

This is one of the oddest films to be made in pre-war America. Gary Cooper plays the Venetian explorer, and the film opens in a Venice seemingly constructed of cardboard. Here he is pursued by his comic servant, a sort of cross between a midget and a hyperactive gondolier.

In no time at all, we are in the mysterious realm of Cathay, where the streets are exotic, but seemingly made of cardboard as well. Marco is attracted by a strange voice - these medieval Chinese (or Mongols?)speak with impeccable Oxbridge accents. And this one, oddly enough, is reading to his children on some sort of verandah facing the street. This public recitation is from the New Testament, and Marco immediately completes the phrase, as it were. The placid mandarin figure takes this in his stride, and happens to mention that he is treating his son to a crash course in both eastern and western wisdom - which is not bad for a place that has not yet been visited by a European.

Soon our Gary (er, Marco) is served a mysterious oriental dish called 'spaghet', which he thinks he will introduce to Venice when he returns.

At the royal palace (made of a superior form of cardboard), he is soon immersed in the intrigues of the court of Kublai Khan. After some swashbuckling and some overacting, he falls for a beautiful princess. Alas, she is pledged to another, but our hero is given the task of escorting her to her intended.

And so they sail away into the sunset on a large sea-going junk (!), and he states that he will at least have her to himself for the year long voyage. The film ends on this morally dubious note, and the implication is that he eventually returned with his spaghetti to Venice and opened a restaurant.

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!

I don't have much to say about the film; it's another pretty, but merely adequate Hollywood hoo-hoo. But - although the film (of course) plays loose with historical fact - it must be remembered that Marco Polo did it as well, and there is almost no actual record to compare anyone's version of the story against: Polo (like Cellini) was a notorious liar-in-print. It is now assumed that his record of his journey is quite spurious, and written to enhance the glory of his accomplishment. As there is no other extensive record of the journey, there can be precious little "truth" or "fiction" to be be determined about any Marco Polo narrative. Like Cellini, he has "pre-dramatized" his own story.

Worthless as biography and not even much of a Gary Cooper adventure film but on a camp level there is entertainment value here. You would think with a tale as rich as Polo's they wouldn't have to fabricate an almost entirely false one but such was Hollywood film making in the 30's.

All the obviously Caucasian women are made up with Jean Harlow eyebrows and dark makeup not for one instance being convincingly oriental. About those eyebrows: within the cast in a small role about an hour in is Lana Turner as a maid/concubine, to prepare her for the role the makeup department shaved off her eyebrows and they never grew back! It wasn't worth the sacrifice she is no more convincing than anybody else. Most absurd is the usually reliable Alan Hale who looks preposterous. There is nothing wrong with his performance except its one that would feel right at home in a western but he is supposed to be a Mongol warlord, so authentic it is not.

Sigrid Gurie, the Siren of the Fjords as she was billed but who was actually born in Flatbush, doesn't make much of an impression as the romantic interest. Binnie Barnes tries to inject some life into the picture and have some fun with her role as Alan Hale's wife but is likewise handicapped by her makeup. Gary Cooper does not look at all like a traveling merchant in the 13th century but like Gary Cooper of course, oddly that's one of the films strengths since even when faced with the unlikely sight of Basil Rathbone as Ahmed a Mongol villain Coop is there to remind you that this is a vehicle for its star and little else.