55 Days at Peking (Blu-ray)

I was in the mood for a good, old fashioned adventure epic and decided on “55 Days at Peking”, which was released in 1963. It not only didn’t disappoint, but surpassed my expectations. This was a Samuel Bronston production. Bronson was an almost visionary producer who wanted to create prestigious films on an epic scale with great historical accuracy and a budget to match. To even begin to afford these projects he moved his production company to Spain, where it was possible to afford mammoth full scale sets, hundreds of extras and a large behind the scenes crew. Of his first three films, two were box office successes. “King of Kings” (1961) did well despite poor reviews and “El Cid” (1962) was a worldwide juggernaut that scored critical raves and was one of the five biggest box office films of the year. This set him up enough to imagine two new films, “55 Days at Peking” and “The Fall of the Roman Empire”.Bronston tended to use the same people frequently. “55 Days at Peking” was directed by Nicholas Ray, a director known more for iconoclastic films that tended to sympathize with outsiders (“Rebel Without a Cause”), film noir (‘In a Lonely Place”) and films that turned genre conventions on their head like the gun-toting Joan Crawford in the Western, “Johnny Guitar”. You wouldn’t expect him to direct a historical epic, but he had joined Bronston to direct “King of Kings” and was chosen to direct this film, which showed his talent for widescreen composition. Bronston’s credited screenwriter was usually Philip Yordan, who often hired blacklisted writers to actually write the scripts under his approval, providing income for them but often receiving more credit than was actually due since their names couldn’t be mentioned. Co-writer Bernard Gordon (who had been blacklisted) was a friend of Younans and was working regularly with Bronston’s company. This film was the first in which he received credit as co-writer. Dimitri Tiomkin wrote the Oscar-nominated score and would also score “The Fall of the Roman Empire ”.The film is mostly successful in every way, though fans of action movies will probably be disappointed. In the 60s era of epics, and at 2 ½ hours this is an epic, the goal was to set action scenes within a dramatic film with many characters and subplots. For this reason the film plays as long quiet sections with lots of dialog interrupted by scenes of military action heralded by trumpet calls. The acting is quite good, though the nature of the film requires them to be little more than stock figures. Heston and Niven work very well as the rough around the edges American Major and the British Legate with the perfect pearl gray cravat and form a great team when called upon to save the day. The most interesting part is that of a Russian Baroness, played by Ava Gardner. A trope of the epic genre was that there had to be a major romance, and you would think that’s all she was here for, but in fact she is given an intricate backstory as a woman who had an extra-marital affair and must redeem herself as the film progresses.This is the early 60s, so of course Europeans and Americans play the major Chinese roles (only 1/10 of 1% of the U.S. population was of Chinese origin at this time - U.S. Census). Flora Robson is wonderfully authoritarian as the formidable Empress Dowager Cixi. Things were far enough along in terms of accuracy for Bronston wanting Chinese extras to play the rest of the Chinese people, though the producer had to hire them from Britain as there were few Chinese in Spain at the time.The film is most successful in its visuals. Not only was Ray a director who loved to use lots of color, but Bronston was a producer who spared no expense in achieving period accuracy and who built gigantic sets (this was the biggest movie set ever built until next year’s Roman Empire film) and built them in three dimensions so the cameras could shoot from any angle or direction. He enjoyed inviting historians and scholars to his sets so they could approve the level of accuracy. The sets for the Legation and the Forbidden City, including the famous Tartar Walls are excellent, and at full size, give the film credibility in every frame.Historical Background (this can be skipped but it helps a lot to know at least a bit of it).The most surprising thing of all is the level of historical accuracy, something that I have come tonever expect in a motion picture. The Boxer rebellion is much too complicated to go into here, but I will give a few examples. The timeline, roughly from June to August of 1900 is accurate. The nations involved in the Eight-Nation Alliance are accurate: Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, United States and Japan. Japan was a newcomer, having opened to the West early and, quickly learning that technology was what made the difference between colonizer and colonized, quickly mastered it to become a colonial power itself. They had already defeated China in the first Sino-Japanese War. The Secretary of the Japanese Legation was the first important foreigner killed, nine days before the German Envoy (shown as first in the film). The United States had only one area of concession, the coastal city of Tianjin. Of course the U.S. importance is built up for the sake of box office (while Japan actually provided the most troops) but they were busier elsewhere in Beijing and the Americans were a big part of the 400 military in the Legation District. The legation heads are all based on real people. Niven’s character is based on Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the man who negotiated Britain’s 100 year lease of Hong Kong among other things. Heston’s is based on Major John Twiggs Meyers, who led the charge to take back the Tartar Walls.The Chinese are given fair treatment. In the past the Europeans might have been portrayed as innocent and saintly, but the movie makes it clear in its opening and in the speech made by the Empress to the Legates, that China was being carved up by the foreign powers. In fact, they were on the verge of literally doing so, but at the moment were content with “spheres of influence” which meant control of coastal cities, building warehouses, factories and railroad lines, stationing troops and other concessions. The background of the Boxers as a peasant movement and the droughts being seen as the loss of the Mandate of Heaven is also accurate. The Chinese were divided on the foreigners and the Boxers and so were the Empress’ two favorites, the vehemently pro-boxer Prince Tuan who wanted to kill all foreigners and the government and military leader Ronglu (here Jung-Lu) who saw that idea as futile and who successfully prevented Tuan’s generals from getting artillery to blow up the legations. The Imperial decrees are all presented in the right order. When Cixi virtually declared war by bringing in the army, all of south China opted out, refusing to recognize it. The Boxers were more angry at Christian missionaries and Chinese Christians than they were at the Legations.The film gets more fanciful towards its end, but that is to be expected. It has some great moments like the approach of a siege tower that seems like something out of Mordor. The attempt by the Boxers to burn down the Legation District happened, but they accidentally burned down the most important library in China instead. The ammunition dump escapade also happened, though movie logic had to have the two lead actors do it (not true). When the Alliance troops finally arrive, they’re shown as just so many units when there were actually 20,000 who came to the rescue. The movie barely made money because of its huge cost. It did well overseas but only made its ten million dollar cost back in the U.S. I think it was the topic. Asia was barely mentioned in American education and I doubt that many Americans knew what the Boxer Rebellion was and so it did not spark much interest. Without knowing anything, it would be hard to keep up with the film’s developments. It’s still a good film worth seeing.

Excellent , classic movie. DVD is clear,n no sound problems. Recommend this great way of buying the classic movies.

An old school spectacle, even if it drags a bit in the middle. Cleverly framed with the various national anthems of the various foreign legations. There is plenty of drama, Ava Gardner looks spiffy in her late-Victorian finery, and both Charlton Heston and David Niven are stoic and manly in their respective ways. Good fun.

I enjoyed watching the movie. It has been a long time since I last seen it

Awesome sharp video from the actual 8-perf 70mm Super Technirama wide screen print delivers fantastic imagery. Compared to my old DVD it is FAR WIDER screen (2.35:1!), showing so much more of the movie it is like a crisp new film entirely. I even liked Ava this time. Seeing those spectacular sets like this was a joy, every scene gorgeously recreating Peking, 1900. I love this movie and I love this BluRay.The BluRay disc played great on my 1 year old Sony even though others said it would not play in US. Audio is excellent 5.1 surround, though I had to crank up my rears to get it the way I liked it. Oh, this was a very special evening performance indeed.Im gonna add another 5 stars for the "Splash screen" that begins the menu is a great copy of the theme song in fine stereo, and someone put a lot of work into the visuals. Hate when they just dump the film onto disk, this instead is an elaborate and well done presentation that satisfied a long-time need in my collection. Tossing out the old DVD IMMEDIATELY.There is a bonus longish short film about Charlton Heston, with some important people in his life like Lydia and several producers and friends. We can finally see who it was that received some of those sketches Hest did!Only small downside, and it is minor, for some reason they did not use the original promotion art and instead weakly recreated it.

This is a marvelous action-adventure movie about an incident that really occurred in Peking (Beijing) in 1900. It's usually known as The Boxer Rebellion and happened when China was suffering from a lack of rain (and experiencing a real food shortage) and the fact that the various Western powers had carved up China into their own little colonies.The story is mostly told from a Western point of view, though all the major historical reasons are mentioned from time to time as the story plays out. But mostly it is an action movie showing lots of battles, some marvelous scenery and some great cinematography. It was one of the better epic movies of the time. I liked the characters portrayed too; there are some wonderful story lines that make the movie more enjoyable.I have long had an interest in history and have enjoyed many an historical film. I've learned to be cautious as far as the real history portrayed in them. Here they actually do a better job than many, but the details are more about the fictitious characters than what really happened.For the history, a simple online search for "Boxer Rebellion" will get you some more information about the real thing. If the movie gets a few more people interested in an event that has been forgotten by many, so much the better.