Sick Product of a Sick System

Absolutely brilliant

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

GENGHIS KHAN is a second Hollywood attempt to tell the story of the notorious Mongolian warlord after the notorious John Wayne-starring vehicle of the 1950s. I haven't seen the Wayne movie so I can't comment on it, but this film is likable enough in the 1960s epic mould. The main complaint is that it isn't and doesn't attempt to be historically accurate at all but then you don't really expect that anyway from a Hollywood movie.The narrative is similar to that of CONAN THE BARBARIAN and shows Khan as a young man, captured by a rival leader played by stock bad guy Stephen Boyd. After years of slavery he grows into the youthful and handsome Omar Sharif and escapes before building his own army. Scenes of actors like Robert Morley and James Mason in yellowface are quite laughable but the film is well-mounted and the action scenes don't disappoint, featuring dozens of horse riders battling over the plains. The supporting cast is inspired, to say the least, featuring the likes of Kenneth Cope and Michael Hordern as key Mongolian allies and none other than Eli Wallach playing an Arab. Woody Strode's tough presence is a plus. GENGHIS KHAN is a watchable piece of hokum, nothing more, but certainly not a particularly bad film except in relation to the historical accuracy.

If Genghis Khan were made today a whole lot of Asian players would be in the various roles cast. Although not as ridiculous looking as Dragon Seed or even The Good Earth to today's audiences by 1965 when this film was made casting Occidental players in Oriental roles was not looked on favorably no matter how could they are. One who could get away with it was Yul Brynner who must have been contacted for the lead and he was from that part of the world.Nevertheless Omar Sharif is a credible Genghis Khan and Stephen Boyd unearths his Messala character playing Jamuga the life long sworn enemy of the boy Temujin who grows up to be Genghis Khan. Sharif realizes his dream of uniting all the Mongol tribes into one nation and then starting to conquer. By the time he was done his Mongols were advancing into Eastern Europe. I wonder why Boyd who was the villain was first billed before Sharif in the title role. I'm sure there's a story there. One who did look bad was James Mason playing a mandarin adviser to Chinese emperor Robert Morley. He really looked and sounded like a road company Fu Manchu.Genghis Khan is better than John Wayne's infamous and legendary The Conqueror, but that's not saying much.

I remembered enjoying this film when I saw it as a pre-teen on television in the '60's. I have remained an avid fan of adventure films and epics. So, when it was aired yesterday on TCM, I tuned in with anticipation. It had not aged well. Perhaps all of the anomalies are more difficult for a mature movie fan to accept.The best parts of this film are the locations, the sets, the costumes and the props. Even so, the sets are never quite convincingly grand enough. They retain the flavor of sets. The photography never captures the locations in a way that conveys the vastness of Central Asia. And the impact of the costumes and props is diminished by the fact that they are at the service of a predominantly Caucasian cast attempting to portray the tribes of Mongolia.Blonde Francoise Dorleac, who portrays Genghis Khan's wife is the most glaring racial anomaly. But the entire cast is similarly anomalous. At least Stephen Boyd and Omar Shariff aren't blond. But Englishmen, James Mason and Robert Morley look hopelessly out of place. (I personally wondered how people of Oriental heritage reacted to Mason's stereotypical pronunciation of the letter "L" as an "R!") I don't really find a lot of fault with the portrayals offered by Mason and Morley, although I do agree with the suggestion of several reviewers that they seem like they wandered in from a production of the Mikado.Lastly, I cringed at the soundtrack - typically Occidental-sounding pseudo-epic orchestrations with grandiose flourishes. The heroic-sounding 4/4 marches were typical of the Sword and Sandal epics of the day. Only a stray chord here and there suggested an Oriental setting. In that era, it was inconceivable to cast Orientals in the principal roles of a film of this one's pretensions. Under the circumstances Hollywood would have done better to simply avoid attempts to depict tales of Asian peoples.In the end, bizarre casting and completely Occidental-sounding music render this film difficult to swallow for a film-goer looking for anything beyond a shallow adventure story. With the number of Oriental actors in Hollywood films today, a GOOD portrayal of the life of Genghis Khan is ripe for filming!

Yes, the quip about the Mikado Road Company is correct. That said, this non-biography is not far as from the Lamb book as the recent TROY was from Homer. It is a fact of mythography that each retelling reflects the time and place. We grant validity to the archaic Sigurd and the medieval Siegfried, and to Wagner's. So, too, is this recasting of Genghis Khan not a biography, but a myth. Accept it for that and the story is as good a movie as "Damn Yankees" was about baseball or "South Pacific" was about World War II. In fact, maybe if this movie had a song or two... "Conquer the World" "Stepping Along the Steppes" "My Horse's Milk" ... well, perhaps not...