The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)

I'll tell you why so serious

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's quite an expedition to go to China,if we are to believe the screenwriters!Today,Venice ,and the lovely women Marco ,a womanizer as irresistible as Casanova,seduces,and tomorrow,no problem ,we are in a Chinese village where a wise man reads the Bible to children ("are you a Christian?-No,but I want'em to be carefully taught and be aware of all religions around the world ";relevant today and even a lesson to be remembered in our troubled times)A cheap expedition :only two persons (Marco and some kind of dwarf ,here to provide the story with a comic relief ) and not a long and winding road full of ambushes or dangers .As easy as to go from the Doges Palace to Marco's uncle's mansion .(The uncle is just passing by) It's very pleasant though.Gary Cooper is handsome and his charm is as effective in China as it is in Venice (or in America);there is a very tongue-in -cheek side that sustains the interest throughout:Marco suggests he "test" the women,before a khan shocked by his brazenness;the princess ,reciting all his family tree to play for time and thus not to marry the ugly villain,the ending with a dubious moral ,which people with a dirty mind might take for a future menage à Trois.

Gary Cooper had a most interesting relationship with Sam Goldwyn. He did seven films with Goldwyn and a cursory glance at the titles shows that Goldwyn was constantly giving him better and more suitable material for him. With The Adventures of Marco Polo he could hardly have done worse.How can I say it, Gary Cooper just does not suggest a renaissance Italian Man. Unless they all had that Montana drawl. Contrast his performance here with Tyrone Power in Prince of Foxes or in The Black Rose where he plays an Englishman in the China of Kublai Khan. Power in this part would have made it believable. But Darryl Zanuck wasn't giving Ty Power's services away.To complete the film, cowboy Cooper is given a Smiley Burnette like sidekick in Ernest Truex. The two of them as the history books tell us, go off to the court of Kublai Khan to negotiate a trade agreement for Venetian merchants, particularly the House of Polo.There the real history stops as Cooper gets involved in all kinds of palace intrigue.Here's some of where Sam Goldwyn's casting gets positively zany. George Barbier is Kublai Khan and Goldwyn must have seen Cecil B. DeMille's The Crusades where Barbier played King Sancho. Worked for C.B. it'll work for me. Sigrid Gurie was another Scandinavian import, another one trying to be another Greta Garbo. If Anna Sten didn't work, we'll make Sigrid a Scandinavian Mongol Princess. Best of all is Basil Rathbone as Ahmed, his Saracen adviser who plays the part just as if he was playing Guy of Gisborne. Rathbone carried it through however, he must have seen how all around him looked so he could hide in the crowd.H.B. Warner had the year before played the High Lama Chang in Lost Horizon. Here he's a clever fellow who shows Marco Polo this latest thing the Chinese have invented called gunpowder. Actually they'd had it for some time and the west had had it also, a fellow named Roger Bacon had written extensively and experimented even more extensively with the stuff a couple of centuries before. Never mind it took Gary Cooper to see its possibilities.Sam Goldwyn's sets were lavish and the battle scenes at the end very well staged. That it has nothing to do with any history is only a minor criticism, it does not succeed because of the unbelievable plot and incredible casting.

Everyone is miscast: a Caucassian actress born in Brooklyn, herself billed as a "Norwegian beauty" cast as a weak sister Chinese princess; Alan Hale as the western Chinese rebel leader; Gary Cooper as Polo. This is an awful movie. High handed attempt to pass off a third rate piece of junk as entertainment. Historically inaccurate doesn't even begin to describe how bad this movie is -- and I happen to like Gary Cooper. But he looks uncomfortable in this worthless celluloid. This type of film is what makes so many people who are not uncritical admirers of Hollywood criticize its racism, its stereotyping and its insulting of peoples not European.

When they mention cornball Hollywood hokum they're talking about pictures like this catastrophe. I honesty don't know how I made it through the whole thing. One of the definitive pieces of half-witted rubbish ever produced. Makes John Wayne's 'The Conqueror' look like a masterwork.Like the reviewer below mentions, this is Flash Gordon level cheesy. But the makers of Flash knew they were making cheese and Buster Crabbe at least made those serials fun to watch. Cooper sleepwalks through this like he's in shock, or dreaming he's making just another bad movie at Paramount. This one transcends bad. It's not even remotely 'good' bad. It's truly one of the worst films ever made, despite having a solid cast and budget. It distresses me to no end that the writers of this debacle probably bought a new Packard with their salary. God knows what Sam Goldwyn was thinking when he gave this one the go ahead.If you get half way through this one with your sanity intact, brace yourself. By the end you'll be fighting the urge to jam a screwdriver in your ears.