Genghis Khan

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!

This film would really be better off using a fictional character in the lead role, instead of a historical one, as almost nothing in the story told here about Genghis Khan matches up to accepted history.

Plot In a Nutshell: Mongol tribal leader Temujin (Omar Sharif) tangles with sworn enemy Jamuga (Stephen Boyd) and gathers his strength in neighboring China while dreaming of uniting the various Mongol tribes into an insurmountable Horde.

Why I rated it a '6': as mentioned in my title, I found the film to be OK. Not great, not absolutely terrible. It tells a story about Genghis Khan's beginnings, but it's just a story. It diverges early and often from accepted history, and that unfortunately is a drawback. Watching this film you learn almost nothing about the real Genghis Khan, because virtually all of it is fantasy. If you can live with that, great. Just don't write a term paper about Genghis Khan based on this film is all I can say.

There are many comments in reviews here complaining about the cast, where almost all of the Mongol and Chinese roles are played by non-Asians. While that might be distracting for some, one must understand that movie making is a business. Sure you can stock this film with a bunch of Asian actors, and who in 1965 would go pay to see that? That's not how the business worked. John Wayne famously (or infamously) portrayed Temujin in a different film, and why? Because he was a box-office draw!

Elizabeth Taylor played the Egyptian Cleopatra. Kirk Douglas played the Thracian Spartacus. People would pay to see them, they didn't care what roles they were playing. Same with this film. So you have James Mason and Stephen Boyd and Eli Wallach and Telly Savalas in it. Actors people knew and might pay to see, as opposed to a bunch of unknown but more ethnically accurate ones they won't pay to see. This isn't a hard concept to understand here. Or shouldn't be.

I find it amusing that the same people who complain about the cast in this film have no problem with the cast speaking English in the film. None of these historical characters spoke a word of English. The reviewers here somehow don't complain about that, but do complain because they aren't ethnically Asian? Why doesn't it bother you that every character speaks fluent English, because that's even more off-base than their skin pigment. All of the reviewers complaining here want to see ethnically accurate actors, and then want them to very inaccurately speak English? Lol ok.

A huge negative in this film is the widespread abuse of horses in the battle scenes. It is obvious to the viewer that multiple 'trip wires' were used, causing waves of horses to fall violently while in full gallop and it's just painful to watch. It is highly likely more than one had to be put down as a result of those trip wires, and that's a sad thing to contemplate. If you are a horse lover, I would suggest forwarding over these scenes.

6/10. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Maybe on a rainy day. Not anytime soon.

Not quite as bad as John Wayne's famed turkey THE CONQUEROR, but getting there. Problem was with this flick, the makers dumped historical accuracy in favor of developing a Ben-Hur-Messala type confrontation between Genghis Khan (Sharif, at the height of his popularity) and his nemesis, a scowling bewhiskered Jamuga (none other than "Messala" himself - Stephen Boyd)

Plenty of Mongol action and cruelty and the concluding battle between Sharif and Boyd is pretty in-your-face stuff. Production values were OK and suitably epic-ish in feel. The wheels start to fall off though with Robert Morley as the Chinese Emperor, some throwback to his role in 55 DAYS IN PEKING and worse, mega-british James Mason as Kam Ling, as likely a chinese adviser to Morley as Adam Sandler playing Abraham Lincoln. In a minor role as Subatai, Kenneth Cope is struggling to hold down any credibility whatsoever, having been first-string comic relief to David Frost on the THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS TV show.

Not for the epic Hall of Fame I'm afraid!

I have to admit I didn't think this film was half as bad as I have been led to believe through negative reviews here on IMdB and elsewhere. So, if it isn't all bad ... I agree it isn't historically accurate but neither was Elizabeth and 100s of other 'historical' films. It is a bit leaden in places, true. Francoise Dorleac gets a bit tiresome although even she has her moments. The script may be a bit dodgy in places but looking at what we get in recent years ... I don't have a problem with Sharif in the title role at all - I thought he was fine. The 'Chinese' being Mason and Morley was distracting but even at their worst these two were always entertaining. Eli Wallach and Michael Hordern make interesting appearances. Even done on the cheap the film doesn't look bad and I enjoyed it better than, say, Demetrius and the Gladiators. And then there was cute Stephen Boyd if all else failed, always a pleasure to watch. Genghis Khan a turkey? Let's just say 'I've seen worse'.

This has about as much to do with the real Genghis Khan as the Hughes film"The Conquerer".If you want to know about the real historical figure,read Lamb's 1920s book.That aside,we have to appreciate the production values of the film.Sets,props,etc.,are all ok.None of these people,however,can scarcely be imagined as Central Asians.Greek Savalas and Alabaman Strode come closest.Wallach,as the Shah,makes an acceptable sly villain,and not an unbelievable Levantine.Everybody else is not only much too European,but much too Nordic,as well.(Sharif is only a minor exception to this generalisation.)And Morley,Mason,and Hordern all act as though they wandered in from a road company of "The Mikado".Watch this film for amusement,and perhaps free-wheeling historical fiction(aka Robert E. Howard),but don't take it too seriously.