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March 1938
FILMINDIA
Overawed by all this splendor and evidence of good taste, suspected of contemplating every crime on the calendar, Marco Polo, in a very short time became the favourite of Kublai Khan, his friend iand advisor.
The Gary Cooper Marco Polo began in the usual fashion, by keeping the conversation away from business. Then by demonstrating a keen insight into the mind of a woman.
Kublai Khan on being presented with a number of slave girls finds that he is unable to accept the whole offering. His problem is which he must choose. Sensing an opportunity, Marco offers to make the choice. This he does by asking each a question. On receiving the answer, he makes the choice. On explanation, Kublai Khan is very Tiuch intrigued by the facile wit of ;he Westerner.
"How many teeth has a snapping .urtle?" That is the question used o determine which of the girls vas suited for the Khan. Those vho guessed, Marco decided to be oo unstable. Those who knew were oo clever. Those who admitted hat they did not know, both holest and of the right frame of nind.
This application of his knowedge of females was used directly a the employ of Kublai Khan. The Chan's daughter, the Princess Kuachin, provides Marco an opporunity to use his cleverness in his wn behalf. Marco meets the rincess, played by Goldwyn's new Iscovery Sigrid Gurie, in a garden nd he immediately captures her eart. It is easy work for a man of [arco's calibre, and indeed he
would be a disgrace to his profession if he failed.
Again, when he is forced to flee to the camp of the rebel Tartar Chief, Kaidu, he brings his sex appeal into play. Kaidu is all for doing away with Marco immediately. He doesn't fancy Europeans either. He, however, is plagued with an inconvenient wife. When Kaidu discovers that his wife will leave him alone in Marco's presence, he decides that it would be polite to keep him alive as long as the attraction exists. What a man!
In another direction, both in fact and fiction, Marco Polo showed the true spirit of the travelling man. He kept his eyes open and missed nothing of value. He was engaged
in selling himself in order that he might sell his goods. At the same time he did not fail to see what Cathay had to offer him for the European trade. First, there was a Chinese food staple known as spag-het. This, of course is the present day spaghetti, which is now credited as an entirely Italian food. The second contribution has had a far more telling effect on modern civilization, although it was hardly more beneficial. Marco found that the Chinese used gun powder in fire-crackers, merely for the noise-making effect. Marco, true to Western breeding, immediately envisioned great things for gun powder— as a means of mass slaughter, taking war out of the realm of play into that of business.