Marco The Magnificent (1965) We could take no end of wild guesses as to what this movie was supposed to be..........(in its final slapped together form..........who knows?.....)
An action spectacle? Hmm, maybe. A tongue-in-cheek spoof? Possibly. History turned into a dream-like fantasy? Okaaaaay. A sardonic meditation on royal power and religious war? Don't laugh, but at least one of this film's writers threw that into the mix........
Whatever the intention, this film's still a discovered bauble in BQ's never ending treasure hunt for 1960's international bizarro trash.......
And oh did we dig up a doozy here..........
........an expansive history of Marco Polo......as if told by a delirious, drunk and drugged history teacher..........
Killer cast! Horst Bucholz as a snarky, horny playboy Marco.......Orson Welles large enough to have his own zip code, playing Marco's mentor.........the ever luscious Elsa Martinelli as "The Woman With The Whip" (and she ain't kiddin')......Omar Sharif, as a who-knows-what-side-he's-on Sheik.......Anthony Quinn as a heavily sedated Kublai Khan.......and the rarely seen little starlet Lynn Sue Moon popping up as a ravishing Chinese Princess.....
But funniest and weirdest of all, Akim Tamiroff as 'The Old Man Of The Mountain', a chubby little cave-dwelling tyrant who wears an intimidating gold mask to prevent anyone from finding out.....he's chubby little Akim Tamiroff.
Poor little Marco ends up a prisoner of The Old Man, who's kind of a Medieval Bond villain. Tagging along with Marco are two devout Knights Templar, since they're on a mission from the Pope to introduce Christianity to China. Old Man won't stand for
that nonsense, so the two Holy Rollers take turns inside a jumbo glass bell, where they get gonged to death......really.
And by all means, check out the costumes on The Old Man's girl slaves.......sporting half-naked, semi sci-fi outfits that look like they belong in "Barbarella".......
Have no fear for our Marco......sprung by Sharif's Shiek Yerbooti or whatever his name is, Marco's off to China, hitching a boat ride with Lynn Sue Moon's Princess Wonton or whatever
her name is......
The Princess is on her way to a Chinese Princess Beauty Pageant run by Kublai Khan to pick out his new wife......the emcee introduces all the girls with the same resume....."She plays the lute! She writes poetry!".......the only thing missing; the girls announcing they all want world peace...
Surprisingly, Marco himself drops out of sight during most of the China stuff, which includes Anthony Quinn's Kublai blowing up his hot-tempered son's army with super-dooper fireworks.......(in case anyone forgot this was an action-adventure, you get the requisite shots of stunt guys flying off their tripped horses.....)
Yes, it's a glorious mess from the get-go.......with an offscreen narrator frequently chiming in to offer redundant commentary and clarify the chaotic scene continuity and gaping holes in whatever passed for the script. You can picture the making of this movie as nuttier than the Trump White House in operation...…...
But there's an MVP in this maelstrom........composer Georges Garvarantz, who slathers the movie with a non-stop blaring orchestral score that's ten times more epic than anything in the film itself. It's a score that sounds written for the movie these filmmakers might have envisioned in their wildest martini-soaked dreams.........but couldn't possibly pull off in reality.
For that over-the-top score and all the rest of 'Marco The Magnificent's cheesy lunacy.......3 gongs of the big glass bell...(***)
(And if anyone knows of the whereabouts of the mysterious Lynn Sue Moon, who dropped out of sight after her brief role in "To Sir With Love", feel free to chime in......)
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