MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT (1966)

In 1271, Pope Gregory wants to establish peace and trade agreements with Mongol leader Kublai Khan and sends a small group of diplomats led by merchant Niccolo Polo and his brother Matteo. The pope sends Niccolo's young son Marco along, opining that "youth and beauty" may accomplish more than wisdom. Their long route takes them through the Crusades in the Holy Lands after which they split up on two separate routes. Marco goes into the Gobi Desert where he and his Templar guards are captured by a warlord known as the Old Man of the Mountain who wears a gold mask and only reveals his face to people he is going to execute. One of the Templars is tortured to death inside a huge glass bell lowered over him. Emir Alaou intercedes to free Marco, and later Marco has a run-in with some bandits and is saved by a woman known only as The Woman with the Whip. Once in China, Marco discovers that the peace-leaning Khan is at war with his aggressive son and rebel, Prince Nayam, and Marco sees gunpowder being used for the first time. Ultimately, Marco sends his father back home but decides to stay with Khan as his trusted advisor. This is certainly just as fanciful as the 1938 film with Gary Cooper, and that version, which is only so-so, is more entertaining than this one. The major problem seems to have been the relatively low budget and muddled script. Rather than the grandeur of other epics of the era like SPARTACUS or CLEOPATRA, this looks, feels and sounds like a B-level Hercules film. The handsome Horst Buchholz (pictured) is OK as Marco, but he never feels like a three-dimensional character. In fact, the only character who does is Kublai Khan, played with some gravitas mixed with charm by Anthony Quinn. Omar Sharif, as the emir, shot this before he made Zhivago, though it was released in the States after that film so it could benefit from his name. Orson Wells has what amounts to a cameo in the first scene as Marco’s mentor. I don’t really have much to say about this. The print I saw on YouTube (under the title The Adventures of Marco Polo) was widescreen but not in great shape, so a restoration might benefit the film. [YouTube]