Treasure of the Condor was a pretty good movie, especially when compared with the garbage being produced today. Constance White was a beautiful lady, but was very unfortunate in her life and ended tragically. I remember that Cornel Wilde performed all of his own actions...including the movie "The Naked Prey" where he is forced to run for his life through jungle, chased by savages. BUT its Macready that I am asking about. I remember his voice from radio "way back" in the 40's....am I wrong? Its a very distinctive voice, and I swear I remember it because radio was the only entertainment we had in the home. Does anyone remember this? Can anybody confer with me in this mystery? If so, please let me know. [email protected]

The location of the injustice is changed from 18th century Great Britain to 18th century France and the treasure is emeralds and not pearls found now in Guatemala instead of the South Seas. But the plot of Treasure Of The Golden Condor is easily recognizable as that of Tyrone Power's Son Of Fury. Cornel Wilde who was another of those standbys for Power in both their times at 20th Century Fox in the Forties when Zanuck's favorite star was otherwise occupied stands in well for Power when Zanuck decided to remake the film.The story is that of a man deemed illegitimate because no proof of a marriage can be found and disinherited from title and lands by a cruel and avaricious uncle George MacReady. George Sanders played the uncle in the original and both Sanders and MacReady were first rate cads.The women in Wilde's life are Constance Smith the daughter of Finlay Currie his partner in fortune hunting and Anne Bancroft whose got a yen buzzing for her cousin Wilde. Bancroft in her third feature film is MacReady's daughter, she's quite the vixen.Wilde was always one of the best action adventure stars of his days, but he never got to the top tier level. Instead of going to television as so many of his contemporaries did he went into production of his own films that usually played as B pictures. In terms of quality they varied greatly. This film is an opportunity to see him at his swashbuckling best as he was one of the best at the fencing game. He was a member of the 1936 US Olympic team.In the supporting cast note Leo G. Carroll as the lawyer who aides Wilde in proving his lineage, a sincere but cynical performance. Also Fay Wray as MacReady's wife, a most unhappy woman. Just married to George MacReady is reason enough.Cornel Wilde's fans should be pleased. Technicolor as well.

I had high hopes sitting down to watch Treasure of the Golden Condor, thinking that it might have been an inspiration for the Indiana Jones films. George Macready got the film off to a rousing start with his subtle yet vicious machinations, which he applied with aplomb throughout. Had the editing, directing and other actors been up to his level, the film could have been great, but I found it to be a shameless ripoff of the 1942 film, Son of Fury, starring Tyrone Power and George Saunders. In fact, it is a virtual line by line aping of the first film, with the tired recipe of switching out one exotic locale for another, and adding color. (If any of you readers ever saw that old Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy film in which their movie studio is always shooting the same scene over and over, even the dialogue is identical, and only the uniforms of the bad guys changes, then you know what I mean! If not, the fact that such an old memory pops up over Goldon Condor...) Perhaps I am biased because I was taken aback 10 minutes into the film, with a deja vu broadside on my cranium, but I decided that as long as they top the first film, well, OK. Macready gets honorable mention, but come on, who could top Saunders as a villain? The color and cinematography were a plus, but in every other aspect, this film is an atrocious disappointment. Anne Bancroft's take on the calculating Comtesse de Malo was fine, but too brief; I think the cutting room floor has taken most of the nuance from her relationship with Cornell Wilde. The whole movie ended up no better than a go-through-the-motions remake.

The movie was broadcast this afternoon on french TV (France 3). Never heard about it before. The action takes place half in a fake Hollywood France of the "XVIIIème siècle", half on location in the real beauty of Guatemala. Delmer Daves is for sure a professional entertainer (see "Broken Arrow"), and the movie follows the best tradition of US (almost B) movies in costume, like Fritz Lang masterpiece "Moonfleet". The typography of the production credits and cast is great (in the "Drums Along the Mohawk" style, though inferior), the colors amazing, and the scenes shot in the ruins and landscapes in Guatemala - with the locals Indians - are truly beautiful. The political message against "money for money" and for freedom (Jean-Paul, the hero, is a "slave" in the French society of that time) is naive but OK. Cornel Wilde is a strange actor, but not as bad as I fear. He's good in action scenes, and can be stirring when the camera is close to his virile face. Not that sexy, but he is "un bel homme" as old French ladies would say. He and Delmer Daves must have been very proud of his great body : he's half naked twice (in 1953!), and not just a second. Anne Bancroft was a débutante, but she's very courageous in her part, a bitchy and cynic Marquise. The only problem is Constance Smith. Because she is not Debra Paget, the incredible actress of "Das Indische Grabmal". She is so not pithy, and that's a thousand pities.