The Golden Horde
(1951) was Ann Blyth’s first historical costume drama.
Some stars were less successful in historical pieces, seeming too modern and too familiar to us in their modern personalities (Clark Gable in Parnell, Cary Grant in The Howards of Virginia, you could have a long list, even a blogathon about stars ill-fitting in historical roles). For Ann Blyth, however, whose transcendent beauty, skill in accents and articulation, and sensitive approach to her roles, the effect is quite natural. She's a good time-traveler. We can also take as
an explanation a remark she once made on her ability to play Veda Pierce, a
character quite opposite to her own personality. She told interviewer Lance Erickson Ghulam:
“…one’s imagination is
a very deep well.”
We, too, are required to use our imaginations to enjoy this
story of a small band of Crusader knights rushing to the aid of the Princess of
Samarkand in defense against the horde of Genghis Khan. It’s the year 1220, and this exotic locale on
the eastern fringe of the Persian empire, part back lot and part Death Valley
National Park, brings us perfect Saturday matinee-type adventure.
The threat to the Princess and her kingdom is easily
comprehended. The mention of Genghis
Khan in the western world evokes the image of a ready-made villain. No explanations are necessary. The story would flow pretty predictably,
except for two concurrent and confounding aspects of this film, one good and
one bad.
First, the Princess is an intelligent, independent woman
running a matriarchal (for the past few generations, anyway) kingdom with
brilliant success. A change of pace from
the standard Hollywood damsels in distress, and this is a welcome breath of fresh
air. The second aspect, however, is the abject
stupidity and rudeness of the knight come to save her. David Farrar comes pretty close to turning
this romantic adventure story into a broad parody.
I am inclined to think it is the fault of the studio, either
in the form of the front office, the producer, or the screenwriter for making
the otherwise dashing Mr. Farrar into a first-class fool, in pandering to the kind of sentiment
of the day that dictated that strong women could not be desirable and therefore
should be subjugated by the hero.
However, Ann Blyth, who has top billing here, name above the title, was able to play an intelligent and authoritative woman
with warmth and grace, not like a demanding shrew, and the very image of her
being subjugated by a roughneck doesn’t work.
Perhaps if she had played the Princess with the personality of Veda Pierce, someone wildly temperamental, sharp-tongued and harsh, this might
come off, but not with the gentle strength and even righteousness she displays here . The hero
just ends up looking like a bully, and a stupid one at that.
Moreover, the script is based on the tales of Genghis Khan
by Harold Lamb, who was known for peppering his meticulous historical novels
with independent women who were quite often smarter than the male characters. This is great source material for The Golden Horde, but David Farrar, so
strong in his previous British films, like The
Black Narcissus, is badly served by Universal tinkering with what would
have been a bold story, and instead shoehorning the movie into what they
imagined would be palatable for audiences of the time. The exotic tapestry quickly becomes threadbare.
Genghis Khan, played by Marvin Miller, waits outside the
city of Samarkand, and sends ahead a scouting party made up of his son, played
by Henry Brandon, and a local warlord who is a new ally, played by Howard
Petrie. Along for the ride is the
devious shaman, played by George Macready.
All three character actors did their share of minor roles in
B-movies and lots of episodic television. Probably Mr. Petrie scored higher
with some small roles in A-list films.
Petrie has an interesting place in this movie, where we actually
sympathize with the barbarian, laugh at him, and boo him all at the same
time. He wants his spoils of war, and
since he and Henry Brandon are extremely jealous of each other, Petrie is
alternately blustering and paranoid over his place in the scheme of things,
suspicious of the boss’ son, so to speak.
He is petty, foolish, but dangerous in his own spiteful way, and with
his all-too human foibles, he comes across as the Frank Burns of middle
Asia. At one point when he thinks the
princess has been murdered, he actually looks sad.
It is really no challenge to watch an historical costume
piece like this and pick out all that is either not historically accurate, or
to mock those aspects which keep the film from being a documentary. It’s not a documentary. It’s a no-holds-barred popcorn-throwing
Saturday matinee adventure, and if you can’t accept that with a smile, you’re
about as humorless and shortsighted as David Farrar’s character in this
movie. Are even half the magical events of the Harry
Potter series realistic? No. But I guess if you’re paying $15 a ticket to
see it, you accept it.
So, too, in an old Hollywood movie like this, we have to accept
that some of the Mongol troops are going to sound like they come from
Jersey. Like Henry Brandon, who is so
unconvincing in his flat delivery that he really needs that scimitar to make us believe him when he
threatens everybody. Otherwise, he just looks like a schmuck with road rage.
Oddly, critic Harold V. Cohen in his syndicated column
decided it was Ann Blyth who was unbelievable in her role, because of her
real-life reputation for being “sweet” and “wholesome,” and because he assumed the Princess was supposed to be some sort of sultry harem girl.
Although Miss Blyth is
attractive and appealing, her charms are wholly circumspect, and hardly the
type to froth cutthroat tartar chieftains at the mouth and send them reeling
and staggering.
He felt her miscast, “like a senior class Cleopatra and
having an awfully unhappy time of it," and assigned her the brunt of the responsibility (along with director George Sherman's "unimaginative direction") for the film not being better.
The whole unreal tone of The Golden Horde is summed up in this incredibly naive bit of casting...Now Miss Blyth can take off those veils and go back to her cashmeres and dirndls, where she belongs. In The Golden Horde, they've sent an innocent child to do a woman's work.
I think Mr. Cohen’s remarks reflect what must have been the
studio’s spin on the Princess as a seductress who uses womanly wiles to
distract the enemy until the brave English knight can show up. The reviewer has completely missed the point
that she is not a seductress; she is using her brains more than her sexuality
to foil the enemy, and all in spite of
the English knight. His criticism and misinterpretation is as silly as it is sexist.
When Henry Brandon and Howard Petrie show up with their
advanced guard, Ann Blyth has already sent her subjects, including her
soldiers, to safety in the surrounding hills. Robert Hunter is her captain. Donald Randolph is a trusted minister, who
along with her court astrologer, played by good old Leon Belasco (see
our tribute to him in his brief Holiday Inn role here), refuse to leave their princess and remain behind with her in the
palace. She has a plan to thwart the
enemy, and though they are doubtful, all her male staff respects her authority
and most especially, her intelligence.
She gives them permission to leave, but they are loyal and protective.
Also remaining are her ladies of the court, headed by Peggie
Castle. All have the run of this remarkable
palace with its worn stone steps and a zillion secret passages that allow them
to come and go right under the noses of the enemy soldiers who are all set to
pillage and burn Samarkand to the ground. The warlords talk about taking the captive women to their tents. Ann and her ladies intend to commit suicide by poisoning themselves if it comes to that.
Ann, with the help of her court astrologer, welcomes the leery
barbarians and informs them she has been eagerly awaiting them, because of the
prophecy at her birth that a mighty warrior would come from the East and marry
her, and rule by her side in Samarkand as head of a great empire.
She made that part up.
Of course, both Henry Brandon and Howard Pietrie thinks he
is the lucky guy. Since they already
hate each other, it’s not a hard sell for them to try to kill each other over
Ann, which is what Ann is hoping will happen.
She makes one of those glorious movie entrances atop a stone
staircase, used with the same breathtaking effect in pretty much any film this
was done. If you want to make a grand entrance at a party, get a great gown and walk down stairs, slowly, inviting everyone to look at you.
Enter David Farrar.
Here’s where you really have to suspend disbelief, never
mind the guys who sound like they come from Jersey. When David and his small band of Christian
leftovers from other lost battles ride over the dunes, we are faced with the
memory of Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
with pompous Crusaders in chain mail shouting every line as if it were a great
pontification. The only difference is
the Monty Python gang galloped on foot, banging coconut halves together to
emulate the sound of hoof beats, while David Farrar and his boys really ride
horses.
To be fair, Russell Metty’s cinematography of the rough,
barren landscape and the soldiers crossing the plains, armies clashing swords
is pretty good, but with David Farrar bellowing, a dopey friar whose unimaginative
lines such as, “poor misguided heathen,” there are cringeworthy moments that
make one wish the script was tightened up just a little.
For instance, though David Farrar, with his brooding, sulky
good looks was one of the first of the anti-heroes of his generation, we’re
still supposed to pull for him, but we can’t when he proudly reports his résumé
of qualifications to the princess that includes his own army being wiped out just
before he made a daring escape and lived, a fact of which he is immensely proud.
Ann is told by her counselor of her own defeated soldiers, “They
died with honor, your Highness.”
She responds, “Only in the peculiar thinking of men does
that make them less dead.” With sharp
lines like this, we expect Ann’s future consort—and obviously, David Farrar,
according to the rules of the game, is going to end up romantically involved
with her—should be her equal.
Instead, when she nixes his plan to destroy Samarkand in
order to save it (?) he furiously calls her, and will call her repeatedly
through the movie, a “pigeon-brained half-wit.”
He berates Captain Robert Hunter, “Have you sand in your
belly that you take orders from a stupid female?” Mr. Farrar eventually concedes her beauty is
a plus, but he never notices her dignity, her courage, or her sense of honor. He never really seems to fall in love with her, but rather takes her as spoils of war.
It is an irresistible, but fruitless hope, that the man at
Farrar’s side, his aide played by Richard Egan, will take over and be the hero
of the movie. But we keep hoping for
it. Egan has such quietly authoritative screen
presence, even in this very small role, that you can really see the future
star. A more controlled, world-weary and
cunning anti-hero would have been a better romantic match for the princess, someone who did not insult her quite so much, but might actually try to woo her a little.
There are a few places in the script that point out the
mismatched personalities between the leads with intentional humor, such as when
Ann, frustrated at David Farrar’s blustering attempts to save her that ruin her
plans, “He’s a meddling fool. He can do
nothing but interfere,” and “I should have poisoned that English lout. He’ll spoil everything,” and at her wit’s end
when he bungles another plot, “For the sake of heaven, will you stop protecting
me!”
There are also unintentionally funny lines, with poor David
Farrar carrying the brunt of them.
However, when she rescues him and his trapped men by showing him a
secret tunnel out of the palace and leading into the hills, he marvels at the
construction.
“Shrewd general. At
least one of your ancestors must have had some brains.”
“The shrew general was my great-grandmother.”
He eventually comes to appreciate, if not admire, her intelligence
and the nobility of her matriarchal ruling family. We notice, more than he does, her physical bravery, scuttling about
between palace and hills to plant herself as a decoy to the two combative
warrior chiefs. For her part, she comes
to see the worth of his soldier’s experience in training her men in the hills. That will have value when Genghis Khan shows up and needs convincing.
When Genghis Khan comes to town himself, leading a long
ribbon of his army stretching to the farthest horizon, he is stopped at the
gates by the combination of the skills of both princess and knight, and the
survival instincts of the deceitful shaman: the prophecy that Samarkand will be
the burial place of anybody who comes to destroy it. The sight of a mass of dead bodies in the
courtyard convinces Genghis Khan that Samarkand is not worth his time. He turns away.
The real terror in this movie is George Macready as the
sinister shaman, a little orange man with more intelligence than any of Ann’s
assorted enemies. Genghis Khan enters
too late, coming off as a tired old high-level manager who’s miffed with his
college kid son working in the stockroom during summer vacation.
One of the things I get a kick out of in these far-off land
of long ago stories is the image in my mind of Tatars and knights, along with
cowboys and princesses and circus clowns all eating at the studio commissary in
costume. The studio is a universe as
exotic as any of these far-off lands, and just as dangerous. Especially for the Princess. According to the syndicated column of Sheilah
Graham:
Ann Blyth was sent
home Friday after a freak accident on the set of The Golden Horde…David Farrar, trying to save her from
Genghis Khan, accidently flicked her face with the tip of his sword. Gave her a bloody nose and a cut lip.
Another column reported:
…a broadsword in the
hand of Ann’s co-star, British leading man David Farrar, slid off the metal
helmet of his adversary and stuck Ann in the face. The actress was momentarily stunned and
received first aid treatment for a cut cross her forehead. Two days later the Irish lass was holding a
golden goblet of wine in one hand while a bowman drew a bead on the goblet and
shot it out of her grasp. Ann was
showered with the goblet’s contents and the arrow barely missed her wrist and
hand by scarcely an inch.”
You can almost hear Ann tell her cast, “WILL you stop
protecting me!”
It seems, with the intelligent, appealing character and the beautiful costumes, this would have been a fun role for Ann Blyth to play, if you don’t count getting slashed with swords and shot with arrows.
It was a world where David Farrar, in his first American film, had
to contend with that other outside world wrecking his scene. From a report by columnist Harold Heffernan,
as soon as Farrar began a speech:
…a huge DC-6 transport
plane roars over the sky over the Universal-International lot, drowning out the
sound of the actor’s voice. Without
hesitation, Farrar goes right on,
“We’ve also invented a
large flying machine which verily makes the sound of a thousand windmills. Forsooth, Milady, if my ears do not deceive
me, there’s one of them up there now!”
The cast broke up and the director hollered, “Cut!”
Mr. Farrar, understandably, hoped his new Hollywood contract
would lead to better things, but after a string of mediocre films where he was
invariably cast as an historically costumed villain, he left Hollywood for good
and went back to England.
He was twenty years older than Ann Blyth when they made this film, but
with his rugged good looks, his age was not the problem. Perhaps his swagger was overcompensation for
his being middle-aged, or perhaps it was the imprint of the script and studio
that felt a bellowing male was a strong male.
Whatever the fault, I can enjoy a fantasy spectacle such as this.
I can believe the smart princess on whose delicate shoulders the burdens
of an entire kingdom rest. I can accept the
blustering warriors who sound like they come from Jersey or Fort Wayne, the
enigmatic dancing girls who look like they've been trained by Martha Graham, the grubby warriors from central casting. I can overlook the storytelling necessity that different cultures from far ends of the earth can meet in one distant place and all communicate in American English. I can even believe a swaggering English
knight who does more harm than good.
What I can’t swallow is the romance between that knight and
the princess who is his intellectual, emotional, and moral superior.
What does she see in him? That is the question the movie must answer,
but spends more time dazzling us with the thwok
sound of arrows piercing into the chests of a hundred extras, the exotic
costumes of the clashing cultures, and the gauzy and colorful drapery tight
against the womanly figure of Ann Blyth.
By the way, the thundering theme song you may recognize as later being
re-used for King Kong Versus Godzilla (1962),
US version at least. I have to thank my
twin brother John for pointing that out.
Waste not, want not, I guess.
As far as I know, this movie is one of the lost tribes of Universal. You might find a knock-off homemade DVD from some guy selling them pinned to the inside of his trenchcoat in a back alley somewhere.
Come back next Thursday for another historical costume drama
when Ann attempts to avenge her murdered father in the court of England’s King
Charles II in The King’s Thief
(1955). David Niven plays a scoundrel, as only David Niven can.
RADIO: I'll be a guest on John Losh's radio program this Sunday, August 24th, noon to 1:00 CT, 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. ET. Tune into
Losh-Man's Hollywood Classics on http://www.1027thehog.com/ and 102.7 FM-Excelsior Springs, Missouri. If you've ever wondered if I am as long-winded speaking as I am writing, now's your chance to find out.
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The Bonham Daily
Favorite, Bonham, Texas, November 18, 1951, “Tiny Ann Blyth Proves Durable
in Film Roles,” p. 2.
Classic Images, February
1995, “Ann Blyth: Ann of a Thousand Smiles,” by Lance Erickson Ghulam.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, November 12, 1951, syndicated column by Harold V. Cohen; February
7, 1951, syndicated column by Sheilah Graham, p. 16.
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THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable: EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.
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TRIVIA QUESTION: I've recently been contacted by someone who wants to know if the piano player in Dillinger (1945-see post here) is the boogie-woogie artist Albert Ammons. Please leave comment or drop me a line if you know.
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UPDATE: This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -
"Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings
"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey
"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films
"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''
"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood
Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.
by Jacqueline T. Lynch
The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.
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A new collection of essays, some old, some new, from this blog titled
Movies in Our Time: Hollywood Mimics and Mirrors the 20th Century is now
out in eBook, and in
paperback here.
