I will write a little more about this, because it's a bit special, at least for me, being myself born beyond the iron curtain, just like the main female character of this film. I saw Charlton Heston in many movies that I liked very much: "Soylent Green", "Planet of the Apes", "El Cid", "Ben-Hur", "The Big Country", "Touch of Evil", "The Wreck of the Mary Deare", "Major Dundee", "Agony and the Ecstasy", "Khartoum", "The Omega Man", "Antony and Cleopatra", "The Three Musketeers", "Airport 1975", "The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge", "Earthquake", "The Awakening", "Mother Lode", "Tombstone", "True Lies". All big, great films, in which he usually has the lead role. All films which delighted my childhood and adolescence beyond the iron curtain, in the same country as the character Elena Antonescu from this film. A character played by the beautiful French Nicole Maurey, whom I have seen also in "Sale temps pour les mouches", "Killer Spy", "The Scapegoat" and "Diary of a Country Priest". She is very convincing here, playing a character similar to me in real life, being also born in the same country, Romania. I've seen Thomas Mitchell in many famous and very good movies, he's a very good actor, "Gone with the Wind", "Tales of Manhattan", "It's a Wonderful Life", "High Noon", "Pocketful of Miracles". Yma Sumac, probably the greatest voice of all time, in her first role as an actress, also singing and being very funny. Leon Askin, who I saw in "Road to Bali", "The Terror of Doctor Mabuse" and "Airplane II: The Sequel", very good in the role of the Romanian officer of Securitate Anton Marcu. The story is very simple and very well accomplished by Jerry Hopper.

Stinkin' Incan tripe starring everybody's favorite bad actor, Chuckleton Messton.Messton is a cocky Peruvian guide who caters to people with names like Morris who have lots of money while concomitantly dissing people with names like Morgan who are considered crud in this cruddy flick. Not much happens for eons until another burro wanders into a scene to up-stage the actors... again. It's a rather bad film when the jackasses are more interesting than the characters in the story.Add this movie to your list of stuff to watch after you've run out of Sominex.... you really have to make sure you're stocked up on those sleeping pills so viewing garbage like this won't be necessary.

Charlton Heston made two films in 1954, and both have a South American setting. Whereas the first, "The Naked Jungle", was filmed in the USA, with Florida standing in for the Brazilian jungle, the second, "Secret of the Incas", was actually shot on location in Peru. It is often regarded as an inspiration for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the Indiana Jones franchise. Heston's character Harry Steele is, admittedly, not a professional archaeologist; he is an adventurer who poses as a tourist guide but whose real reason for being in Peru is to find an ancient gold and jewelled Inca treasure. Legend has it that the Inca Empire fell when this object was stolen from the Temple of the Sun and that the Empire will be reborn once it is found and returned to its rightful place. Steele's costume, including a leather jacket and fedora hat, is similar to that worn by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films, and at one point he even wears a light beard, something unusual in the fifties when Hollywood's leading men were nearly always clean-shaven. (Many people were upset when Gregory Peck appeared with a historically-accurate moustache in "The Gunfighter", a fictionalised biography of the Wild West outlaw Johnny Ringo). Although Steele he is the hero of the film, he is by no means wholly admirable. This was something of a departure for Heston, who normally specialised in playing the good guys. Christopher Leiningen, his character in "The Naked Jungle", may be rather stiff and lacking in human warmth, even towards his wife, but morally he is wholly upright. Steele is not. His initial intention towards the Inca artifact is to steal it; he is only the "hero" by comparison with his ruthless rival Ed Morgan. Only at the end does Steele have a change of heart. A subplot deals with his romance with a glamorous Romanian refugee named Elena Antonescu. We never discover Elena's full back-story, but she must have been a person of some consequence because the Romanian secret police have sent an agent all the way to Peru to persuade her to return to her homeland. "Secret of the Incas" is in many ways a standard action/adventure flick, but Heston always makes a very watchable action hero, and the striking photography of the Andean scenery lifts it above the level of the average fifties B-movie. it is often credited with popularising Machu Picchu as a tourist destination. 6/10

Despite the intriguing title, this is a tedious potboiler with very little to commend it save the evocative Peruvian locations. A stiff, pre-stardom Charlton Heston is an arrogant opportunist whose dress code might well have inspired Indiana Jones but his adventures, unfortunately for the viewer, are nowhere near as exciting. Robert Young (unconvinging as a belatedly introduced archaeologist), Thomas Mitchell (as Heston's double-crossing partner) and Michael Pate (ridiculously decked out in a Rumpelstiltskin hat as the Inca High Priest or something) are on hand to lend the film some much needed support but the female cast is very weak: Nicole Maurey tries too hard as the damsel-in-distress heroine, Glenda Farrell is wasted as an American tourist with an eye on Heston, and Peruvian singer Yma Sumac almost sinks the film with her embarrassing over-the-top chanting!