55 Days at Peking | | Cast : | Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner | | Director : | Andrew Marton, Guy Green, Nicholas Ray | | Studio : | Buena Vista | | Format : | Color | | Released Date : | May 29, 1963 | | DVD Released Date : | February 28, 2001 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | Unrated | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 17, 2005 | | Summary | Fine Movie, Disappointing DVD | Content
 | I won't comment on the movie except to say that I do like it and would agree with the other favorable comments here. I've seen it more than a few times and it always is an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the DVD release. The audio is adequate though it is only stereo. I didn't notice any particular problems with it. The video, on the other hand, is decidely inferior. It looks like it was transferred from a medium quality video tape. I have seen better looking presentations on broadcast TV. I had a tape recorded off the air that looked as good as this DVD. But the tape is gone and the DVD will at least last. The best thing that can be said about the DVD's video is that it is widescreen, but it is not anamorphic. Very disappointing. I hope some company will do a decent release of this in the not to distant future. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 09, 2005 | | Summary | Epic cast for an Epic story | Content
| A full rich movie full clasic characters. Good intertainment.
I remember seeing this movie in the theater and seeing it again was a thrill. I think the quality of the movie and the music score still holds well today. Noble characters, in a hopeless situation, doing heroc acts. The cast is top notch, the music rich and exciting. This should be in your library. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 05, 2005 | | Summary | Stupid Eurocentric crap | Content
| Here's the setup: The foreign imperialists from Europe, America and Russia are the GOOD guys. The Boxers who are trying to defend their nation, their empress and their way of life from the onslaught of expanionists are the BAD guys. Barely anything about this movie is correct. History actually proved that the foreign forces actually suffered huge losses in close quarter combat with the Boxers, but you would never see a western film maker with the balls to acknowledge that, and so the Boxers are treated as just as savage and sloppy as Native Americans where depicted in films of this era. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 29, 2005 | | Summary | Still Superb | Content
| A great story, a great cast, great acting. Whats more the cavalry shows up in the nick of time and the 'good guys' win!
Buy it, or see it. If you can. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 23, 2005 | | Summary | Smotheringly Lush | Content
| In different times of different tastes, the events of the 1900 Peking siege might have made a decent movie, even if again presented as excuse for historically inspired drivel. To the misfortune of both history and movie watchers, 55 Days at Peking was filmed amidst the sixties craze for grand scale extravaganza. The result is cinema so atmospheric one yearns for an oxygen tube in the throat to counteract sensations of drowning from the humidity.
The time, place, and events lend themselves well to sixties epic. Between picture postcard wide-angle shots of The Exotic East, we are immersed in full dress parades of tasseled soldiers, a formal ball with gowns and glitter, lush silken tunics embroidered with dragons, fiery battle scenes, and further endless cinematic candy. This is film to be appreciated by those attracted to any brand of babble spoken beneath cloaks of braided uniforms and foreign cityscape. Indeed, the set designer and wardrobe master deserve credit as the real stars of 55 Days.
Competing for star billing is a soundtrack probably once hailed for richness, but which today sounds over-music'd to distraction. This could perhaps have been a good thing were the score less obvious. Attempts to flavor the film in "oriental" sound frequently recall the Wicked Witch's guards singing "Yo-Hee-Ho" in the Land of Oz. When French sailors leap over a barricade with drawn swords, we hear La Marseillaise interspersed with the orchestral drums and horns. In turn the score shouts similar unimaginative tinsel for each of the other nationalities under siege. Although this is very well written music, it's spawned from hackneyed conceptions of what that music should embody.
The movie is excellently cast as the roles could have been written specifically for each of the nominal stars. Heston plays a down and dirty marine major. Ava Gardner has her usual role of sensitive local slut. Niven is the suave level-headed British ambassador. Each punched the clock and turned in a good days work, predictably living up to type, identical to countless performances before and since with no distinguishing variation from their norm. The characters however are by no means one-dimensional -- most possess at least one and a half; the main cast often exhibits two.
Asians in 55 Days are depicted as a generic alien breed accoutered with expansive cartoon gestures and fortune-cookie dialog, sometimes varied with the folded-arm, hopping gait of coolies from 1950s television. It will look authentic to anyone living in East Rootbeer County.
As an action/adventure movie, the story is not terribly written, and is very well photographed. The battle scenes offer consistent pleasure for those so inclined. The dialog often shows ability to turn the odd memorable phrase. As I take this film to be more fiction than not, I'm unwilling to condemn it for historical inaccuracy. The story however often gnaws the leash of credulity, as when Her Majesty's Ambassador Niven dons his grubbies to crawl a sewer beneath enemy lines to torch an ammo dump.
In their dreams, the makers of 55 Days probably wanted to create a movie which felt like a lazy-man's Lawrence of Arabia. The film valiantly attempts a look of dramatic intelligence. Through exhaustive emphasis on set, costume, music, and a reliable cast of big names marking time, 55 Days squanders its efforts on the external vestments of grand scale epic, with little remaining energy to explore what flesh may lie beneath.
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