The Adventures of Marco Polo
Adventurer Marco Polo travels to China, where he finds the Emperor Kublai Khan, court intrigue, danger, and unexpected love.
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⭐ Featured Review
"This is one of the oddest films to be made in pre-war America. Gary Cooper plays the Venetian explorer, and the film opens in a Venice seemingly constructed of cardboard. Here he is pursued by his comic servant, a sort of cross between a midget and a hyperactive gondolier. In no time at all, we are in the mysterious realm of Cathay, where the streets are exotic, but seemingly made of cardboard as well. Marco is attracted by a strange voice - these medieval Chinese (or Mongols?)speak with impeccable Oxbridge accents. And this one, oddly enough, is reading to his children on some sort of verand..."
💡 Did You Know?
The film did poorly at the box-office, becoming the biggest flop up to that time for both Gary Cooper and Samuel Goldwyn; it was estimated that it lost close to $700,000.
The film was criticized for many reasons but chief among them was the casting of Gary Cooper in the lead role - many felt the part called for a brash, swashbuckling hero rather than the low-key cowboy persona that Cooper exemplified. It is interesting to note, then, the man who first brought the idea to Goldwyn: swashbuckler extraordinaire Douglas Fairbanks.
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📖 Synopsis
Adventurer Marco Polo travels to China, where he finds the Emperor Kublai Khan, court intrigue, danger, and unexpected love.