The Royal Hunt of the Sun

I'm very lucky: I actually got to view the Scimitar DVD before buying it, and I can't believe how truly awful the product! In my not-so-humble opinion, this is one of the best movies ever made. I know, I know -- pretty talky. But so are many of the best movies ever made. And how this company managed to turn the glorious film I once treasured on BETA format into this scratchy, garbled mess, I have no idea.

So back to my summary: Will anyone ever rescue this fine old film and offer it to us?

Probably not. And that is sad, considering the dreck offered almost on a daily basis.

If, like me, you fell in love with Christopher Plummer while watching The Sound of Music, Royal Hunt of the Sun is a definite must-see! As the Incan ruler Atahualpa, he's wearing very little throughout the movie and his body is absolutely breathtaking! He hasn't played that many "beefcake" roles or done many scenes that show his physical attributes, but this one definitely does! Where was People magazine and their "Sexiest Man Alive" contest when this movie was out??? Christopher Plummer would have won hands-down, no doubt!

All that aside, his acting is excellent, too. This movie re-tells this sad chapter of history very well and very accurately.

The first time I saw this flick, I was disappointed; disappointed because I'd expected an adventure tale of King Soloman proportions, an Aladdin's cave full of gold, and bloody Inca battles in a Peruvian jungle setting. In hindsight, I should've read the reviews, because my frame of mind would've been in the right place to enjoy this intense character study. Suffice to say on second viewing, I was able to appreciate the quality of the stage-born dialogue, and the precision with which its delivered by both Shaw and Plummer in their unique portrayals of demi-gods by any other name.

Narratively, it's a detailed snapshot of Pizarro's ill-fated conquest of the Incas, not for the glory of gold, but for the almost sanctimonious obsession with divinity and unparalleled colonialism. In essence, he signed his ticket before he departed Spain, promising the world he could never deliver, pursuing a pathological indulgence to satisfy his superior ego. There's an element of pity in Shaw's depiction of Pizarro, that of a mercenary without a war, unable to adjust to a civilian life. Shaw is magnificent as the deeply righteous conquistador whose eloquence in arguing secular sovereignty, fails to dominate the simple native lexicon of King Atahualpa (Plummer), communicating in a basically nonsensical series of clicks and chirps. If Atahualpa can prove he is a God, Pizarro will recognise his sovereignty, but if not, both his life and his land of rich antiquities will belong to the kingdom of Spain.

With Michael Craig, Leonard Whiting and Nigel Davenport in the wings, it's an ensemble British cast of true quality, and the performances are first rate. Set design, costumes, score and script deliver, and while momentum is at times a distinct challenge, if you're not fully engaged in the dialogue, the result is likely to be languid in pace and voluble in speak. My initial viewing was such; fortunately, I watched it a second time.

This film about the downfall of the Inca empire in sixteenth century Peru manages to be deadly dull for the first 35 minutes; even star Robert Shaw (as Pizarro) manages to be boring and glum.

Then Atahualpa, King of the Incas (Christopher Plummer) appears and Plummer shocks the movie back to life. In the process, he gives a lesson on movie-stealing; hissing, prancing, yowling, sniffing, swooping, shrieking, he effectively makes the film His and everyone else is just annoying background noise. Plummer is in his own Universe and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

Even the anti- Vietnam War scene doesn't stop the laughter. It's so badly executed that characters fall before being hit, in two cases without being hit.

As long as Plummer's on screen, this is amusing or, at the very least interesting: without him, it is pretty dull.

I saw "Royal Hunt of the Sun" soon after it came out, probably early 1970, in a theater in Cuzco, Peru. The audience was full of speakers of Quechua, and when Christopher Plummer said his first lines in, supposedly, Quechua -- twisting his face, going up and down rapidly from normal voice to falsetto, making little hawking and guttural noises in his throat in a weird impression of the glottal stops of the language -- people started chuckling, and then started actually falling out of their seats in rolling waves of laughter. Atahualpa, king of the American equivalent of the Roman Empire, inheritor of 2000 years of sophisticated cultural history, looked and sounded like a chimpanzee trying to speak German. Lack of respect? Failure to take the trouble to find a proper tutor for the few lines Plummer had to speak of Quechua? Who knows. But it was hard for the audience -- or me -- to take the movie seriously after that scene. I saw the movie again 10 or 15 years later, and couldn't help laughing all over again... and explaining to my family why it was so hilarious.