55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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Producer Samuel Bronston shows characteristic lavishness in the pictorial scope, the vivid and realistic sets and extras by the thousands in his reproduction of the capital of Imperial China in 1900. The lensing was in Spain where the company built an entire city.

The screenplay presumably adheres to the historical basics in its description of the violent rebellion of the ‘Boxers’ against the major powers of the period – Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States – because of their commercial exploitation of tradition-bound and unmodern (backward) China. These market-seeking nations have in their Peking outpost gallant fighting men who, although only a few hundred in number, withstand the merciless 55-day siege.

While Ray is identified as director, some of the battle scenes actually were directed by Andrew Marton. This came to be in a period when Ray was ill.

David Niven is the British embassy head who stubbornly refuses to surrender, risking the safety of all about him, including his wife and two children. Both he and Charlton Heston perform with conviction, Heston as the American Marine major who commands the defense. Ava Gardner’s role is not too well conceived. Hers is the part of the widow of a Russian bigshot who killed himself upon learning of his wife’s infidelity with a Chinese official.

Lynne Sue Moon gives a poignant performance as an Oriental 12-year-old whose American father, an army captain, is killed in battle. Flora Robson appears strikingly authentic as the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi whose sympathies lie with the outlaws.

Jack Hildyard’s photography is excellent, particularly in getting on the big screen the savage attack scenes which take up the major part of the picture. Dimitri Tiomkin provides engaging music.

Review by Variety Staff

Samuel Bronston produced this extravagant blockbuster, shot in Super Technirama 70. Nominally directed by Nicholas Ray (who makes a brief appearance as the U.S. ambassador), Ray was taken off the film and replaced by the more pliable directorial touches of Andrew Marton. Charlton Heston stars as Maj. Matt Lewis, the leader of an army of multinational soldiers who head to Peking during the infamous Boxer Rebellion of 1900. As the film unfolds, the foreign embassies in Peking are being held in a grip of terror as the Boxers set about massacring Christians in an anti-Christian nationalistic fever. Inside the besieged compound, the finicky British ambassador (David Niven) gathers the beleaguered ambassadors into a defensive formation. Included in the group of high-level dignitaries is a sultry Russian Baroness (Ava Gardner) who takes a shine to Lewis upon his arrival at the embassy compound with his group of soldiers. As Lewis and the group conserve food and water and try to save some hungry children, they await the arrival of expected reinforcements, but the tricky Chinese Empress Tzu Hsi (Flora Robson) is, in the meantime, plotting with the Boxers to break the siege at the compound with the aid of Chinese recruits.

Review by Paul Brenner, Allmovie.com

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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55 Days at Peking (1963)

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Special Features:

- Nicholas Ray Filmography & Biography (French)
- Critic's Reviews (French)
- Stars Filmography (French)
- Trailer (French)
- Scene Access