AMUSEMENTS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 134, 16 January 1939, Page 4

AMUSEMENTS

“THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO “ . POLO” '- V " The screen, which lately has focussed aj majority of its bigger q>inductions on biographical subjects, has seen many remarkable characters taken from the past.

Few of these historic personalities, however, enjoyed) a life- more -significant- and romantic than Alarco Polo so few people seem to know, whom; Samuel Goldwyn has chosen as the hero of “The Adventures of Alarco Polo,” his rollicking adventurous tomance which brings • Gary Cooper to the De Luxe Theatre on Tuesday, .Wednesday and Thursday.

Marco Polo’s journey to the Thirteenth Century court of the great Kublai Khan in Kambalu, Peiping, had as its object the extension of private commerce and the development of new trade opportunities . for the j Polo Brothers, Nicolo and Alaffeo, Marco’s father and uncle, who were important merchants in the city of Venice. Thus, as the world’s first- travelling salesman, Alarco set out for distant Cathay—a three years’ journey through deserts and mountains, beset every mile or so by brigands and perils unknown to. Western civilisation. Alarco was then 21 a young gamecock, skilled in the tis.e of arms, an excellent horseman and athlete, fearless andl persevering in the pursuit of trouble, trade and amours. The young Polo served Kublai Khan for 17 continuous years, years of tremendous danger amongst barbaric descendants of Ghengis Khan, the greatest and-most ferocious of all conquerors. He finally left, us as the Khan’s ambassador, charged with delivering the Circassian-Tartar Princess, Kogatin, over in marriage to Argon, the elderly Slia of Persia and Eastern India. it is this last and most romantic episode in Polo’s career, that forms the basis for much of the story Mined by Goldwyn.

Getting a girl to play the role of , Kogatin (in-the picture she is called Kukacliin) was another problem which Goldwyn solved quickly, and as the years may judge it so. liistor-. ically. Over a year ago he placed a ycung Norwegian girl named Sigrid Gurie under contract and forbade her appearance in public. He settled her in the' Hollywood Hills, kept photographers and interviewers from her and 10 months later, in a typical Goldwyn gesture, placed her in the lead opposite. Gary Cooper. For the' supporting east/ be assigned Basil Rath bone- to play the Saracen Prince Aiiined; Ernest Truex to be Alarco Polo’s diminutive stooge, Jiingueeio; George Barbier as Kublai Khan; Alan Hal© as Kaidu; Binme Barnes as his romantic wife, and acast of 5,000 to complete one of the most imposing Min rosters or modern ti."%