Genghis Khan

This is a biopic of Temujin (Carlo Cura/Omar Sharif). This starts with the massacre of his tribe and being taken captive. He would escape and slowly rebuild his tribe. His shaman explains that there are three circles. Their middle circle is full of poor fighting tribes while the Chinese and the white Westerners are rich in the two outer circles. He would conquer the whole Mongolian steppe and meet the Chinese emperor.

This is an old Hollywood epic. It follows the tradition of western actors playing Asian characters. I don't expect any better but it is still very old fashion and dated. The story is fictional, but to be fair, the actual history is mostly written legends and oral traditions. The story does lose steam over time. There is no criticizing the caliber of the cast despite their incorrect race. It's all very grand and very old.

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!

Irving Allen went all the way to Yugoslavia to make this foolish attempt in Technicolor and Panavision to capitalise on Omar Sharif's new-found celebrity which actually carried a disclaimer from Talking Pictures for the myriad racial caricatures on display.

The international cast represents every conceivable ethnicity except for a bona fide Mongolian. Familiar Asian types include Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Robert Morley, Michael Hordern, Telly Savalas, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, Yvonne Mitchell, Kenneth Cope and Jacqueline Pearce (the latter pair playing Francois Dorleac's brother and Wallach's daughter; the craziest line being Miss Dorleac's description of herself as "ugly-looking").

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.

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.