55 Days at Peking

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55 Days at Peking is a 1963 American epic historical war film dramatizing the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Beijing (then still Peking, in English) during the Boxer Uprising, which took place in China in the summer of 1900. It was produced by Samuel Bronston for Allied Artists, with a screenplay by Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon, and with uncredited contributions from Robert Hamer, Julian Halevy, and Ben Barzman. Noel Gerson wrote a screenplay novelization in 1963 under the pseudonym "Samuel Edwards".

The film was directed primarily by Nicholas Ray, although Guy Green and Andrew Marton assumed leadership in the latter stages of filming after Ray had fallen ill. Both men were uncredited. It stars Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, with supporting roles by Flora Robson, John Ireland, Leo Genn, Robert Helpmann, Harry Andrews, and Kurt Kasznar. It also contains the first known screen appearance of future martial arts film star Yuen Siu Tien. Japanese film director Juzo Itami, credited in the film as "Ichizo ItamiTemplate:-", appears as Col. Goro Shiba.

55 Days at Peking was released by Allied Artists on May 29, 1963. The film received mixed reviews, mainly for its historical inaccuracies and lack of character development. However, it was praised for its acting, direction, music, action sequences, and production design. In addition to its mixed critical reviews, the film grossed only $10 million at the box office against a budget of $10 million. Despite this, the film was nominated for two Academy Awards. It was director Ray's last film until Lightning Over Water (1980).

Plot

Starvation, widespread in China, is affecting more than 100 million peasants by the summer of 1900. Approximately a thousand foreigners from various western industrialized countries are surrounded and trapped in Beijing's legations. The Boxers oppose the westerners and the Christian religion and are planning to drive them out.

The turmoil in China worsens as the Boxer secret societies gain tacit approval from the Empress Dowager Cixi. With 13 of China's 18 provinces forced into territorial concessions by those colonial powers, frustration over foreign encroachment boils over when the Empress encourages the Boxers to attack all foreigners in Beijing and the rest of China. When the Empress condones the assassination of the German ambassador and "suggests" that the foreigners leave, a violent siege of Beijing's foreign legations district erupts. Beijing's foreign embassies are gripped by terror, as the Boxers, supported by Imperial troops, set about killing Christians in an anti-western nationalistic fever.

The head of the US military garrison is US Marine Major Matt Lewis, loosely based on the real Major John Twiggs Myers, an experienced China hand who knows local conditions well. A love interest blossoms between him and Baroness Natasha Ivanova, a Russian aristocrat who, it is revealed, had an affair with a Chinese General, causing her Russian husband to commit suicide. The Russian Imperial Minister, who is Natasha's brother-in-law, has revoked her visa in an attempt to recover a valuable necklace. Although the Baroness tries leaving Beijing as the siege begins, she is forced by events to return to Major Lewis and volunteers in the hospital, which is battered by the siege and is running out of supplies. To help the defenders, the Baroness exchanges her very valuable jeweled necklace for medical supplies and food, but she is wounded in the process and later dies.

Lewis leads the small contingent of 400 multinational soldiers and US Marines defending the compound. As the siege worsens, Maj. Lewis forms an alliance with the senior officer at the British Embassy, Sir Arthur Robertson, pending the arrival of a British-led relief force. After hearing that the force has been repulsed by Chinese forces, Maj. Lewis and Sir Arthur succeed in their mission to blow up a sizable Chinese arsenal.

As the foreign defenders conserve food and water, while trying to save hungry children, the Empress continues plotting with the Boxers by supplying aid from her Chinese troops. Eventually, a foreign relief force from the Eight-Nation Alliance arrives and defeats the Boxers. The troops reach Beijing on the 55th day and, following the Battle of Peking (Beijing), lift the siege of the foreign legations. Foreshadowing the demise of the Qing dynasty, rulers of China for the previous two and a half centuries, the Dowager Empress Cixi, alone in her throne room, having gambled her empire and lost, declares repeatedly to herself, "The dynasty is finished".

When the soldiers of the Eight-Nation Alliance have taken control of the city, after routing the Boxers and the remnants of the Imperial Army, Maj. Lewis assembles his men, having received new orders from his superiors to leave Beijing. He stops and circles back to retrieve Teresa, the young, half-Chinese daughter of one of his Marine comrades who was killed during the 55-day siege. Aboard his horse, she and Maj. Lewis leave the city behind, followed by his column of marching Marines.

Cast

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Uncredited roles

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Production

Development

On September 8, 1959, producer Jerry Wald announced he would be producing a film on the Boxer Rebellion tentatively titled The Hell Raisers for 20th Century Fox. He had hoped to star David Niven as a British officer and Stephen Boyd as a United States Marine commander while Hope Lange and France Nuyen were sought for supporting female roles.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A few weeks later, on September 24, it was reported that Wald had signed Niven, Boyd, and Nuyen for their respective roles.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Meanwhile, producer Samuel Bronston had enjoyed commercial success from making historical spectacles in Spain, particularly King of Kings (1961), directed by Nicholas Ray, and El Cid (1961), directed by Anthony Mann starring Charlton Heston. In Paris, screenwriters Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon were brainstorming ideas for potential historical epics. During one story conference, Gordon suggested the Boxer Rebellion, having recalled reading a theatrical play while working in the Story Department for Paramount Pictures during the 1940s. Yordan dismissed the idea, but after he had returned from a cruise in London, his wife located a book with a chapter titled "Fifty-five Days at Peking" inside a bookstore and showed it to him. Fascinated with the title alone, Yordan pitched the idea to Gordon, who noted that he had earlier pitched the Boxer Rebellion.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Bronston stated he was attracted to the Boxer Rebellion because it showed "the unity of peoples, no matter what their beliefs, in the face of danger. This incident is what the UN symbolizes but has not yet achieved."<ref name="los">Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 1961, Bronston announced he was planning a trilogy of historical epics in Spain, among them was 55 Days at Peking and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). For 55 Days at Peking, Alec Guinness was being sought for a lead role while a British director was to be selected. Filming was slated to begin in spring 1962.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That same month, Wald told The New York Times that he was unhappy with Bronston's plans as his project had long been in development, with a final script draft being written by Barre Lyndon; Wald had also wanted Guinness to star in his project. Furthermore, he stated that he had filed an infringement complaint with the Motion Picture Association of America because he had approached Yordan to write a script in 1956.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In April 1962, Wald instead sold the project to NBC as a television film,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> but his death three months later prevented its continuation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Casting

In September 1961, Heston was initially slated to star in The Fall of the Roman Empire, but he expressed reluctance after reading the screenplay.Template:Sfn In November 1961, Heston was presented with a treatment for 55 Days at Peking, and by this stage, Ray was chosen to direct the film. "It might be an interesting period for a film," wrote Heston. "I'd like to work for Nick, too."Template:Sfn However, Heston was still reluctant. In December 1961, following the Madrid premiere of El Cid, during a flight back to Los Angeles, Yordan and Ray again pitched the idea to Heston, and this time he agreed to star in the film. Heston wrote in his journal, "I feel uneasy, but I'm now convinced I must go basically on what confidence I have in a director's talent."Template:Sfn Subsequently, The Fall of the Roman Empire was placed on hold as its already completed sets were later demolished and replaced with the Forbidden City sets for 55 Days at Peking.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

In March 1962, Bronston told columnist Hedda Hopper that he had hoped Katharine Hepburn would portray Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Also, Bronston wanted Ava Gardner for the female lead, although Heston did not want to work with Gardner and instead pushed for Jeanne Moreau.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, the role had been offered to Melina Mercouri who refused it because she wanted more rewrites of the screenplay.Template:Sfn On June 11, it was reported that Gardner and Hepburn had joined the cast.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Rome, Bronston offered David Niven a role in the film for a salary of $300,000, to which he accepted without reading the script.Template:Sfn On June 12, Niven's casting was announced.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By late June 1962, Hepburn had dropped out of the cast, and Bronston announced that Flora Robson had replaced her to portray the Chinese empress, while Robert Helpmann would play Prince Tuan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Writing

In 1977, Ray recalled, "The pressure was tremendous. On a $6 million production, I had no production manager, and a 21-year-old assistant director. No script. I had two artists in my office, one Chinese and one Spanish. I'd describe the scene to them, they'd draw it and then I'd give it to the so-called writers and say, "Write a scene around this?"<ref name="take">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Prior to filming, Gordon and Ray had worked on a draft in which the former struggled writing as he contracted "colds and the flu and constantly ran a low-grade fever." After four weeks of work, they presented pages of their draft to Yordan, who ordered them to "go back to square one and write the kind of clumsy, impersonal, fat historical opus" that the international distributors wanted."Template:Sfn With filming nearly approaching, Yordan suggested hiring Arnaud d'Usseau to assist Gordon with writing some scenes, particularly those with Gardner. Gordon later recalled that d'Usseau worked meticulously slowly and "simply couldn't find his way into our script." After a few weeks, d'Usseau left the project with none of his work being used. Shortly after this, blacklisted screenwriter Julian Halevy accepted Gordon's offer to rewrite some scenes, among of which were new scenes for the Empress Dowager.Template:Sfn

By May 1962, Gordon delivered a 140-page shooting script,Template:Sfn but most of the scenes were merely summarized or sketched in. That same month, Heston received the script, but disapprovingly jotted in his journal that "[t]he love story is very arbitrary, I think; the dialogue primitive."Template:Sfn Filming would proceed without a finished script and on-set rewrites were frequent. It had been suggested that a native British screenwriter should revise the dialogue for Niven's character for which Robert Hamer had been hired for the task. Ultimately, his services were later turned away as Hamer had sunken into alcoholism. Yordan then recruited Jon Manchip White to help rework the script, but it did not pan out.Template:Sfn

Four weeks later into production, Niven threatened to walk off set unless the script was rewritten. Yordan ordered Gordon to write "a Hamlet scene for him, and he'll shut up." Gordon then wrote four to five pages of monologue for Niven's character to self-reflect on his actions. The new scenes were sent to Niven, prompting him to return and finish filming.Template:Sfn

Filming

Principal photography began on July 2, 1962.<ref>Scott, John L. (June 29, 1962). "Lee Remick, Garner Named as Co-Stars: They'll Do 'Wheeler Dealers'; Ireland Joining 'Peking' Cast". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 11 – via Newspapers.com.</ref> The film was shot on location in Las Matas.Template:Sfn Three thousand extras were required, including 1,500 Chinese. There were estimated to be 300 adult Chinese people in Spain so the rest were imported from all over Europe, particularly London, Rome, Marseilles, and Lisbon.<ref name="Leralta">Template:Cite book Template:In lang</ref><ref>Wilson, Earl (October 13, 1962). "Baritone Lucky He Found Weede". Los Angeles Times. Part I, p. 15 – via Newspapers.com.</ref><ref name="safe">Template:Cite news</ref>

As production continued, Gardner became difficult during the shoot, often turning up late, disliking the script, and drinking heavily. One day, she walked off set claiming an extra had taken a photograph of her.Template:Sfn Ultimately, the idea to write Gardner out of the film came from screenwriter Ben Barzman, who had rewritten El Cid.Template:Sfn According to Heston, Yordan had written a death scene in which the Baroness dies of shrapnel wounds. By the time the scene was shot, Gardner struggled to remember her lines. Heston then suggested giving her lines to Paul Lukas, who was playing a physician.Template:Sfn

On September 11, 1962, Ray was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack.Template:Sfn At this point, production had fallen six weeks behind schedule with Gardner's role being nearly complete, but significant scenes for Heston and Niven had yet to be shot. To replace him, Heston suggested Guy Green, who had previously directed him in Diamond Head (1963), to finish the remaining scenes between him and Gardner.Template:Sfn Green subsequently left the production, and by October 1962, directorial duties were transferred to Andrew Marton, who was directing the second unit.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Marton reflected, "When I came onboard, I thought the picture was very shallow, just action, action, action and there was no meaning. I wrote a new beginning and a new ending and submitted them to management—who consisted of Bronston and Michael Wasynski ... Anyway, they said 'NO!' with a capital N, capital O. And I was very unhappy."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Regardless, Marton invited director John Ford onto the set, who had advised him to shoot the sequences with no hesitation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Heston finished his scenes on October 20, 1962, for which he wrote in his journal, "What I have learned from this, I hope permanently, is never start a film without a good finished script."Template:Sfn Principal photography ended on November 15, 1962.Template:Sfn

Release

Allied Artists, who had earlier distributed El Cid, distributed 55 Days in Peking in the United States and Canada.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Globetrotting">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In October 1963, Variety reported Allied Artists had invested $2.9 million in the advertising and distributing costs.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> On May 28, 1963, the film received a gala invitational premiere at the Beverly Theater in Los Angeles.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bronston funded the film's production by pre-selling the film to international distributors based on the project's title, and the involvement of Heston and Ray.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In February 1962, Earl St. John announced that the Rank Organization would be putting up half the budget, which was then £2.5 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Overseas, the Rank Organization distributed the film in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and the Far East. Columbia Pictures distributed the film in Australia.<ref name="Globetrotting" />

Home media

Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD February 28, 2001. A UK Blu-ray from Anchor Bay Entertainment was released in April 2014.

Reception

Critical response

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described the film as: <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

[R]ousing, sometimes exciting, action fare that should keep the customers alert and entertained even if their intellects are confused. The fact of the matter is that the principals and the multitudinous extras involved have no more depth than Occidental and Oriental figures on a Chinese tapestry. And their actions—at least the reasons behind the actions of the principals — are rarely explored fully. Without authentic historic background, a viewer gets a foggy picture, if any, of the real causes of the Boxer Rebellion.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> {{#if:|

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}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }} Gene Arneel of Variety praised the production design and Jack Hildeyard's cinematography, but also felt the script "plays interestingly but somehow lacks appropriate power. The characterizations don't have the intensity of the struggle."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Philip K. Scheuer for the Los Angeles Times wrote that "For sheer color magnificence—photographed by Jack Hildeyard in Super Technirama 70—it is as breathtaking as El Cid. Only this time, instead of medieval Spain, it is the China of 1900, complete with Forbidden City and surrounding legations. It should hold and fascinate spectators for its two-and-a-half hours of sheer, pell-mell movie making, even though characters are stereotypes whose melodramatics are as dated as the period itself."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Time magazine felt "Pictorially, the film is magnificent, and some of the handsomest scenes—an orange sun rising over the peaks of the Forbidden City, midnight pyrotechnics as the Imperial arsenal blows up, the gates of the great Tartar Wall being stormed by Boxers in scarlet turbans—are almost as good as the evocative paintings by Water-colorist Dong Kingman, which open and close the picture. It was doubtless ghastly to wait 55 days at Peking until international reinforcements arrived, and the moviegoer who experiences the whole siege in two hours and 30 minutes comes out feeling lucky."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Awarding the film four complete stars, Dorothy Masters of the New York Daily News wrote: "A powerful drama of global interest, the film has integrity, a component frequently lost in the razzle-dazzle dangled by so many multi-million-dollar colossals."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 58% based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 5.43/10.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Box office

55 Days at Peking premiered at the Beverly Theater, earning $22,000 within a week.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It later opened nationwide in 21 theaters throughout 15 key cities, in which it earned $400,000 during its first two weeks.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> During the first weekend of June 1963, 55 Days at Peking became the number-one box office film in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

By August 1963, 55 Days at Peking had reportedly earned $3.25 million generated from 400 theaters throughout the United States. Milton Goldstein, the foreign sales manager for Bronston Productions, told Variety the film was doing "solid [business]" in several international countries, a few of which even outpaced El Cid.<ref name="Globetrotting" /> By January 1964, the film's domestic gross was $10 million,<ref name="numbers"/> which generated an estimated $5 million in theatrical rentals.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

By November 1963, the film was reportedly doing "brisk business" in roadshow engagements in Canada and had opened to "record [business]" in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Later that same month, it was reported the film had earned $239,560 from seven theaters combined in Tokyo and Osaka during its first 17 days of release.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Academy Award nominations

Music from this film was responsible for two nominations at the 1964 Academy Awards. Dimitri Tiomkin and Paul Francis Webster were nominated for Best Original Song for "So Little Time", and Tiomkin was nominated for Best Music Score – Substantially Original.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Legacy

55 Days at Peking contains the first known occurrence of the phrase "Let China sleep. For when she wakes, the world will tremble", which is often mistakenly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. While appearing in the film in a script by Bernard Gordon, the phrase did not appear in the subsequent books versions by Noel Gerson (written under the pseudonym Samuel Edwards).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

55 Days at Peking appears to be the last movie watched by President John F. Kennedy in the White House Family Theater on November 10, 1963. President Kennedy's screening of the film accompanied by his wife Jacquline Kennedy was noted in handwritten records kept by White House Projectionist Paul Fischer. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Comic book adaptation

See also

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References

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Bibliography

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