Marco Polo (1962)

Italian explorer rescues the daughter of the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, meets a hermit who has invented gunpowder and builds a cannon.

Directors:

Piero Pierotti, Hugo Fregonese

Writers:

Oreste Biancoli, Ennio De Concini

Stars:

Rory Calhoun, Yôko Tani, Camillo Pilotto

Cast

Credited cast:
Rory Calhoun	...	Marco Polo
Yôko Tani	...	Princess Amurroy
Camillo Pilotto	...	Grand Khan
Pierre Cressoy	...	Cuday
Michael Chow	...	Ciu-Lin
Tiny Yong	...	Tai-Au (as Thien-Huong)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Franco Ammirata
Tonino Cianci
Paola Falchi
Thea Fleming	...	Harem girl
Angelo Galassi
Anna Maestri
Spartaco Nale
Ching Jen Pai
Roberto Paoletti

Storyline

Italian explorer rescues the daughter of the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, meets a hermit who has invented gunpowder and builds a cannon.

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Plot Keywords:

mongol | kublai khan | hermit | gunpowder | explorer | 

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Taglines:

Mightiest adventurer of them all!

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Genres:

Adventure

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Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

August 1962 (USA)

Also Known As:

Eventyreren Marco Polo

Filming Locations:

Piazza San Marco, Venice, Veneto, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Alta Vista, Filmorsa, Panda Film

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

With the massive exterior sets, lavish interior sets and a multitude of Asian extras left over from this production, Panda had writers Oreste Biancoli and Duccio Tessari fashion a sword-and-sandal/mythological muscleman epic, Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World (1961), placing hero Maciste in a Chinese setting. Genre specialist Riccardo Freda was brought in to direct, Gordon Scott was cast as Maciste (renamed "Samson" for the U.S. version) and Yôko Tani was kept on as the female lead. It became regarded as one of the better films of that genre.

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Connections

Referenced in Totò d'Arabia (1965)

User Reviews

MARCO POLO (Hugo Fregonese and Piero Pierotti, 1961) **

Colorful but lackluster peplum version (a measure of its clumsiness is the fact that a sarcastic narrator is heard intermittently during the film's initial stages, but after a while he's all but forgotten!), in which a good deal of the detail is identical to the equally fictitious 1938 film: Marco Polo falls for Kublai Khan's daughter, Khan's evil lieutenant - played to the hilt by Robert Hundar - is planning to usurp the throne and marry the princess himself, our hero befriends a band of rebels and leads them - in explosive fashion - into the city, etc. Still, it's not hard to see how Rory Calhoun here is even less suited to the requirements of the role, though he's even more of a ladies' man than Gary Cooper!

In itself, the film is harmless enough but since an even more elaborate (if no more successful) version - the star-studded MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT (1965) - was just behind the corner, this one feels quite redundant; that said, its vast Chinese settings were re-used later for Riccardo Freda's silly hybrid SAMSON AND THE SEVEN MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (1961)!