Wonderful character development!

hyped garbage

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO was a notable flop for producer Samuel Goldwyn, being a staged Hollywood version of the adventures of the famous Venetian explorer who travelled to China and brought back spaghetti and gunpowder. This one's a really hammy film which features an all-white cast in yellowface make up throughout, and the effect is hardly realistic, to say the least. Gary Cooper is miscast as the lead and there's some value from Basil Rathbone's clichéd scheming villain, but watching the likes of Lana Turner and George Barbier pretending to be Asian is quite the embarrassment. The rest is a blur of the predictable action scenes and talky melodrama.

Venetian Marco Polo (Gary Cooper) travels to China and meets the famed ruler Kublai Khan (George Barbier). While there he learns about all kinds of nifty things like spaghetti, gunpowder, and firecrackers. He also falls in love with Khan's beautiful daughter, Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie). Unfortunately he must deal with the evil machinations of Khan's scheming adviser, Ahmed (Basil Rathbone).Diverting adventure drama with a slightly miscast Cooper having a good time. Rathbone is great as a villain. Ernest Truex is good fun as Polo's comic relief sidekick. Sigrid Gurie is lovely to look at and listen to. Best scene is where Cooper teaches her how to kiss. As a history lesson you could probably wipe with it. As entertainment, it's enjoyable and fun.

This is the film that cost LANA TURNER (in a bit role) her eyebrows which never grew back. Other than that, it has no distinction whatsoever except that it provides a nice comic book excursion into the past with lavish sets of Oriental splendor but little else for compensation.Still, it's watchable enough thanks to the low-key and quietly humorous performance of GARY COOPER (an unlikely choice for the role of the Italian adventurer from Venice). It's also interesting to watch SIGRID GURIE, fascinating in close-ups with Hollywood's brand of Oriental make-up--but an actress who never managed to be more than a passing fancy.BASIL RATHBONE adds the right touch of menace as Ahmed, the villain of the piece, and ALAN HALE brings his boisterous presence to the role of a man who was afraid of his lecherous wife (BINNIE BARNES) but not afraid to dispose of his enemies in boiling oil.It gets more laughable as it goes on, but reaches new heights of incredibility with an ending that has Polo making use of explosives to bring down the enemy camp. His final fight to the death with Rathbone, near an open trap door with hungry lions waiting below and vultures overhead, is the stuff of comic book suspense.If you can suspend all disbelief long enough to enjoy it, it passes the time quickly and entertainingly. A history lesson, it's not.

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.