Venetian Marco Polo (Gary Cooper) travels to China and meets the famed ruler Kublai Khan (George Barbier). While there he learns about all kinds of nifty things like spaghetti, gunpowder, and firecrackers. He also falls in love with Khan's beautiful daughter, Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie). Unfortunately he must deal with the evil machinations of Khan's scheming adviser, Ahmed (Basil Rathbone).Diverting adventure drama with a slightly miscast Cooper having a good time. Rathbone is great as a villain. Ernest Truex is good fun as Polo's comic relief sidekick. Sigrid Gurie is lovely to look at and listen to. Best scene is where Cooper teaches her how to kiss. As a history lesson you could probably wipe with it. As entertainment, it's enjoyable and fun.

This is the film that cost LANA TURNER (in a bit role) her eyebrows which never grew back. Other than that, it has no distinction whatsoever except that it provides a nice comic book excursion into the past with lavish sets of Oriental splendor but little else for compensation.Still, it's watchable enough thanks to the low-key and quietly humorous performance of GARY COOPER (an unlikely choice for the role of the Italian adventurer from Venice). It's also interesting to watch SIGRID GURIE, fascinating in close-ups with Hollywood's brand of Oriental make-up--but an actress who never managed to be more than a passing fancy.BASIL RATHBONE adds the right touch of menace as Ahmed, the villain of the piece, and ALAN HALE brings his boisterous presence to the role of a man who was afraid of his lecherous wife (BINNIE BARNES) but not afraid to dispose of his enemies in boiling oil.It gets more laughable as it goes on, but reaches new heights of incredibility with an ending that has Polo making use of explosives to bring down the enemy camp. His final fight to the death with Rathbone, near an open trap door with hungry lions waiting below and vultures overhead, is the stuff of comic book suspense.If you can suspend all disbelief long enough to enjoy it, it passes the time quickly and entertainingly. A history lesson, it's not.

The above statement is what one critic referred to when the film came out in 1938.It is simply an awful amateurish-like production by Samuel Goldwyn. Mr. Goldwyn produced an absolute bomb here in his depiction of Polo (Gary Cooper) going to China.By the way, with the exception of a map stating Cathay, ancient Cathay is referred to as China in this film. Who did the research for Mr. Goldwyn here, the 3 stooges?The acting is just awful. Gary Cooper comes across like a western star and Sigrid Gurie, his leading lady, must have thought she was doing a poor imitation of Luise Rainer in "The Good Earth."You know you're in for it when Ernest Truex, the bookkeeper, goes singing "Marco Polo" on a gondola at the beginning of the film.Alan Hale and Binnie Barnes play leaders in western China where the Kublai Khan sends them to. The Khan, played by a fellow by the last name of Barbier, sounds like a Brooklyn or Bronx truck man. Barnes and Hale are completely unfaithful to each other.Basil Rathbone, as evil as ever as the horrible Ahmed, minister to the khan, even looks disgusted and rightfully so by all this.H.B. Warner provides the firecrackers, spaghetti and gun powder for all this.Goldwyn lost a bundle on this mess and rightfully so. Since Technicolor was sparingly used in 1937, the film did not have it. It would not have helped.

If you want good fortune, avoid this one, cookie!! The big disappointment is that it is in b/w. You can put up with almost anything in glorious technicolor, but not this. It is painful to watch and the corny Confucius line is intentional to give a taste of that. From the shame of the lack of genuinely oriental actors (although this can be forgiven to some extent given the range of the conquests of the Khans. For example, the Princess, obviously Swedish/German with light eyes) could have been the conquest of Khan and a foreign woman of a farflung edge of the empire) to the failed attempts at humor, this one is a loser. But the acting is so horrible you really don't want to forgive them anything. Especially the so-called humor like shouting "Marco! Polo!" in the beginning of the film. Laugh riot that. Not.The one redeeming factor of the film is Gary Cooper. If you are a die-hard Gary Cooper fan you will probably watch him in anything so you may be forgiven for watching this.But if you're not a GC addict you should avoid this at all costs or risk having your brain fried worse than fireworks in your ears.