Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

arthur_tafero I like the Incas and Machu Picchu; but this film is not even as good as the Donald Duck version that I once read in Comics and Stories. It just lies there dead in the water. A sleazy version of Indiana Jones by the not-so-great actor, Charlton Heston, who plays the aptly named Harry Steel, does not help. Nor does the casting of a heavy, Tomas Mitchell, as a fat old rival for a rare Inca treasure. Robert Young is ok, as is the B actress female lead. The photography is good, but the FOUR musical solos by the Inca singer (one would have been MORE than enough) led me have several gin and tonics to get through the film. Watch it ONLY if you love Inca stories, and get ready Fast Forward all the musical numbers by the Inca singer.

Spikeopath Secret of the Incas is directed by Jerry Hopper and written by Sydney Boehm and Ranald MacDougall. It stars Charlton Heston, Nicole Maurey, Thomas Mitchell, Robert Young and Glenda Farrell. Music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Lionel Lindon.Harry Steele (Heston) is an adventurer searching for a hidden piece of Incan treasure in the Peruvian lands. But others are interested in the item as well, for differing reasons...I have to wonder if I have just watched a different version to some other on line reviewers? I have seen quotes attributed to Secret of the Incas that range from rip-roaring action to ebullient adventure, odd, then, that it really is neither of those things. Oh it's fun enough, bolstered by a rugged Heston and a shifty Mitchell, but it's hardly action orientated. In fact it doesn't gather pace until the last twenty minutes. The dialogue is often twee, the characterisations atypical of the genre, while a shift in attitudes for our hero is sadly unsurprising. There's no bad performances, mind, just that what they are given to work with is bordering on the mundane.Where the pic scores highly is with its stunning Peruvian vistas, awash with Technicolour, it's high end photography from Lindon (Oscar winner for Around the World in Eighty Days). Also of note is Hopper's good use of extras, hundreds of them, he knows how to craft a good scene and keeps the pic interesting when the flaccid screenplay threatens to sink the interest value without trace. Correctly cited as one of the biggest influences on Indiana Jones (specifically Raiders of the Lost Ark), anyone who has seen both films will know "Incas" influence is great. They will also know why "Raiders" is so beloved by the action/adventure film fan, it's because it "IS" an action/adventure film of some substance. Sadly "Incas", as watchable as it is, is pretty run-of-the- mill stuff that finds decent enough characters struggling to find any action or indeed, any adventure. 6/10

Marlburian This is the most disappointing Heston film I've seen, redeemed only by the scenery and Yma Sumac's singing. The sound on my recording wasn't great and I wasn't clear why Elena Antonescu was so important a refugee. She may have arrived in Peru with very little money but she was very well dressed, even after she had changed into clothing more suitable for her flight; thus she joined the long list of women able to retain their glamour despite arduous conditions. At least we were spared the cliché of her being frightened by wild life though Heston did get to spy on her as she bathed (not in a jungle pool, but indoors). Heston's character is far from likable and there was no-one much else to empathise with; Robert Young's archaeologist was very likable until he proposed marriage to Elena. (Sad old man.) Another commentator has noted how the gold starburst seems very lightweight, and early on in the film I noted a reference to it weighing 30 pounds, which makes the elderly Mitchell's flight even more athletic. That was just about the only action in the film.

Robert J. Maxwell In the 50s, between historical epics, Chuck made a few pretty good exotic adventure flicks. Two of them were located in South America -- the one in which he is a plantation owner fighting both a horde of army ants and Eleanor Parker's sexual experience, and this one, in which his career consists apparently of nothing more than acting as a guide in Peru, swindling rich tourists, and seducing their bored wives. Both have some snippy dialog. The censors must have been asleep at the switch.I can't remember the plot too well. I saw it on its release as a kid, and only more recently once on TV, when some of the lines and some of the scenes sent me into ictal spasms.A lot of traveling up and down rivers, to tricky places. Thomas Mitchell as a grubby, greedy American after Incan treasures. (And they were THERE too, the ones that Pizarro didn't make off with. Cripes, the royal family wore garments made of gold, and after they were worn once the garments were thrown away!) Mitchell's most memorable line. He's wringing his hands with glee, practically drooling, as he fantasizes about how they're going to rip off some priceless treasure that night. "Ahh, nobody ever made a buck in the daytime!" Later, Mitchell makes a grab for a golden statue or something and falls off the mountain some thirty-thousand feet. Later someone asks Heston what killed Mitchell. "Gravity," he replies.But the most hilarious exchange, the one I could hardly believe on second viewing, takes place between Glenda Farrell, the middle-aged bored wife of a dull bulb of an American zillionaire. She's eyeing him as he slinks around the room polishing his rifle or something and she asks if he likes his job. It goes something like, "It's a living." She: "How do you approach your work?" He: "I take it slow and easy." She: "That's just the way I like it. Are you good at it?" He: "I've never had any complaints." It goes on, but I can't.It's a lively movie, completely unbelievable, as is the voice of Yma Sumac, a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to the mother of the school girl I was dating at the time. The natives are laughable. Oh, they existed, just as the Inca did (though the name "Inca" was used only in reference to the incestuous royal family), but they didn't look anything like these Hollywood head shrinkers from Central Casting. I hope I'm not getting this mixed up with Heston's other South American adventure!Robert Young is stuck with the role of the nice guy -- again. It must have been an easy morph into Marcus Welby, MD.In its own quiet way this is a classic of its kind, if pure schlock can be considered a kind. Quite enjoyable.