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.

Royal Hunt of the Sun has been called a cult classic. Maybe so, but for me it was an incredible movie with top notch actors. The film takes a different approach to Pizarro in Peru than one would expect. The mental conflict makes for a fascinating story line as well as a riveting performance by Robert Shaw and a jaw-dropping characterization of a Sun god by Christopher Plummer. It is truly a unique movie.

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.

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.

This is a sort of strange epic spectacular film of a time when the genre was not in high demand. The story deals with the conquest of the Inca empire (now Perù) by the Spaniards leaded by Franncisco Pizarro back in the sixteenth century. This is not a movie for everyone to see it and appreciate it -it could seem a bit slow at times- but it stands as a fine and very decent product for those of us who are interested in historical events om Latin America.

"The Royal Hunt of the Sun" can be considered as the delayed complement to Henry King's "Captain from Castile" (1947) referred to the similar conquest of today's Mexico by Hernán Cortés (played accurately by Cèsar Romero). The more than 20 years elapsed between both films shows clearly the different cinematographic techniques of one time and the other; but both products have many similarities in their conception such as the crash between two completely different civilizations each one with their own religious, social and political standards and also the search of gold and riches by both "conquistadores" and their total lack of scruples for the achievement of their target (clearly leaving aside the pretended conversion to Catholicism of the natives that was the excuse of their kings to support the expeditions in a time when the church ruled in Spain).

If not totally accurate with real facts, the Pizarro saga and his confrontation with the god-king Atahualpa in "Royal Hunt" is acceptable scripted and suits enough history and mainly legend.

The atmosphere that not very prolific director Irving Lerner obtains in his film is excellent transiting a sort of a mystical sensation at times and when required; the final sequence when the Incas are waiting for Atahualpa's Sun-father to raise and bring him back to life is outstanding. The location places, settings and a weird music are very good too.

Robert Shaw plays a convincing Pizarro -daring, ambitious and greedy- who after a while shows some kind of respect and even admiration towards a man he can't quite understand. It is true that Cristopher Plummer's performance as Atahualpa is most eccentric as some reviewers state here, but who knows how a God -he and his people were convinced he was one- would behave? I think that Plummer did a very good job with his role here and his truly original acting is one of the highlights of the film.

For those who enjoy historical films with an epic frame this is one to see.