55 Days at Peking (1963)

Truly Dreadful Film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's the summer of 1900 Peking. The Boxer Rellion explodes attacking foreigners and Christians. The Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi tries to harness the Boxers against the foreigners as differing voices in court argue. China veteran Maj. Matt Lewis (Charlton Heston) leads his US forces into the city. He tries to buy a British missionary captive from the Boxers but he's already dead. Sir Arthur Robinson (David Niven) leads the British mission trying to keep the peace. Lewis becomes romantically involved with Russian Baroness Natalie Ivanoff (Ava Gardner). Prince Tuan orders the murder of the German minister by the Boxers witnessed by Lewis. The Dowager 'advises' the foreign legations to leave Peking within 24 hours.The politics is a bit simplified. Charlton Heston is impossibly gallant and uncomfortably stiff as the romantic lead. Ava Gardner has the unenviable task of batting googly eyes at him. David Niven does the stiff upper lip very well. He's the superior actor in this one. The main Chinese characters are all played by white actors. It's a missed opportunity but business as usual for Hollywood of that era. The extras are mostly Asians which is an effort considering the filming location is Spain. The sets are impressive. The battles are compelling big actions with lots of Chinese killed as well as the prerequisite foreigners. This is an old fashion war epic with as much racial sensitivity as can be expected.

Seeing the movie in 21 century, at first glance the production seems to be very good considering there was no CG at the time so they had to construct the whole stage. They did a good job as other epics of the same period but the positive aspect of the movie ends there.Aside from the fact that we see obvious white actors poorly made up to look like Chinese, the screenplay lacks the slightest dramatic factor to incite any emotion in audience as a result, watching this long movie to the end in one session would be a torture! Obviously Matt Lewis (Heston) is the hero but what's likely about him besides being played by Charlton Heston? Nothing. He is an American marine who is where he shouldn't be and is defending a wrong cause. They are occupational forces who humiliated Chinese and try to extend their influence in their land. So what's likely about about him? What's the difference between him and a WWII Wermacht major in Russia? I guess the difference is winning and losing otherwise there is no difference in action. The loser would be evilized and the winner would be patronized but at the end, there is no difference between them. The support would be Arthur Robertson (Niven) who's rudely after realizing the imperialist agenda of British Government and since the movie is from British point of view, he leads the pack of other diplomats. The love is Baroness Ivanoff (Gardner) which her cheesy affair with Lewis is flat and boring as there is no chemistry between them.It was tried to depict the Boxer Rebellion at the dawn of 20th century on big screen. They failed to deliver an epic valuable work as the story was conceived on grossly arrogant and misleading British point of view. It could be tolerable to some degree if there was a good underlying love story which never was.It was a awful movie, not only it failed to faithfully picture the Boxer Rebellion but it is extremely boring and worst that it is an insult to Chinese people. Where they Killed thousands of Boxers but when a captain got shot, Lewis in the field hospital says "What are we doing here? Was it worth it?" or something like that as all those Chinese were dogs and the lost life of a captain was of great value. Really disgusting movie.

The detail in this film are reasonably accurate. It starts out well and develops quite believably until it gets to the rebellion itself. At this point it becomes a cowboys and Indians movie - good white guys versus anonymous Chinese who are mowed down in familiar Hollywood fashion. David Niven is made to babble on about benign Western motivations which are in complete contradiction to the reasons why they are all there in the first place. So the usual Hollywood muddle that doesn't add up. However it is worth watching and is well made. All the acting is good and although its white men and women pretending to be the important Chinese they do it without being silly or ridiculous. It doesn't offer any insights but its worth watching. The emotional quieter scenes are just padding, not convincing.

I just finished watching this for the first time and I just have to comment on it. I've been quite pleased with Samuel Bronston's mega-productions before. "El Cid" was cheesy but wonderful; "King of Kings" was an excellent dramatization of an overdone story. "55 Days at Peking" has so many highlights. Charlton Heston gives the performance of a lifetime-- it's seriously almost as good as his "Ben-Hur" and "Planet of the Apes" work. David Niven is also very good, and Ava Gardner is wonderful simply because she plays a Russian character without choking on a thick Russian accent. Dimitri Tiomkin also does some career-topping composing and conducting here. Bronston, as usual, threw a lot of money into the mix, but you can see every single penny and it pays off tremendously. The explosive battle sequences are much more effective than anything Michael Bay could crank out, and it's always so satisfying to know that every single person in every single frame is a living, breathing human. And actors like Flora Robson and Leo Genn play their Chinese characters with the awkward touch of "The Good Earth," but they do manage to eschew caricature and (mostly) stereotype. Someone ought to release this in America as a valid DVD.