Tonight's Movie: Secret of the Incas (1954) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

SECRET OF THE INCAS (1954), a film I've been particularly curious to see, has just been released in a Blu-ray Special Edition by Kino Lorber.

Charlton Heston stars as Harry Steele, an adventurer biding his time as a tour guide in Peru while waiting for an opportunity to make his fortune by locating an ancient Inca treasure.

Harry teams up with Elena Antonescu (Nicole Maurey), a Romanian who's fled from behind the Iron Curtain with the hope of making it to America. She helps Harry steal a small plane from the man pursuing her, with the understanding that after he uses the plane to search for the treasure he'll in turn help her get to freedom in the United States.

The quest for the treasure leads Harry and Elena to the jungle, where they find a research camp headed by Dr. Stanley Moorehead (Robert Young). And hot on Harry's tale is Ed Morgan (Thomas Mitchell), who wants the treasure for himself.

While Harry is figuring out the treasure's location and dealing with the threatening Ed, gallant Dr. Moorehead falls for Elena and quickly proposes. However, she's somewhat inexplicably stuck on the far less noble Harry...

I had high hopes for this film, given how much I enjoyed Heston's adventure film THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954) from the same year. (Giant ants and Eleanor Parker!) I was also curious about this film as Heston's Harry, along with Alan Ladd's character in CHINA (1943), is said to have inspired the look of Indiana Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). Both Heston and Ladd's costumes were designed by Edith Head for Paramount Pictures.

Alas, this 100-minute film directed by Jerry Hopper is fairly stodgy. To be sure, it has it moments -- for instance, Glenda Farrell is a stitch as an American tourist, but on screen far too little -- but the screenplay by Ranald MacDougall and Sydney Boehm is on the bland side.

The script provides little background on the characters to explain their motivations and doesn't make up for that by being an exciting action film or a steamy jungle romance. It simply moseys along.

When Robert Young gives a film a much-needed splash of energy, with his entrance in the film at close to the hour mark, that's rather saying something.

Additionally, I stand behind no one in my great love for musicals, but this film is overloaded with native folk-type music, sung by Yma Sumac, that adds way too much to the running time.

Though Heston's character develops something of a conscience over the course of the film, his excessively cynical character is not particularly attractive. It's interesting, because his character in THE NAKED JUNGLE was not exactly sweetness and light, and he also played an antihero of sorts in THE BIG COUNTRY (1958); I found him compelling and loved him in both. Here his character looks great, in that dashing jacket and hat, but I just wasn't particularly taken with him.

Maurey is pleasant but unmemorable, Mitchell is appropriately villainous, and as indicated above, I was really glad to see Robert Young, who is both sympathetic and interesting in a small role.

There are a couple fun faces in the supporting cast in addition to Farrell; Marion Ross is in an early scene as one of Harry's clients, and Alvy Moore pops up for a brief moment. Michael Pate and Leon Askin round out the main cast.

The Technicolor cinematography by Lionel Lindon is rather marred by very obvious mixtures of process and soundstage shots with some location work; it's also fairly obvious when doubles are seen hiking, as we only see them from the back. Sometimes this kind of inconsistent look can work -- for instance, it adds to the dreamlike feel of JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) -- but here the fakery simply added to my dashed hopes for something special. 

I'm typically a "glass is half full" viewer, focused on appreciating whatever a movie does give me, but perhaps my expectations were too high due to the RAIDERS connection.

There are some interesting similarities to RAIDERS in terms of the hunt for the treasure; the film is worth a look for RAIDERS fans as a curiosity, but overall, this is what I'd class as a mildly entertaining movie. It's not bad but it's also not particularly exciting. If only it lived up to the comic book style glory of the above poster!

The special edition Blu-ray has an attractive cardboard sleeve on the case. Extras consist of a commentary track by Toby Roan and a gallery of half a dozen trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

SECRET OF THE INCAS was remastered by Paramount Pictures from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. It looks very good.

As always, even if a movie disappoints me I'm grateful to Kino Lorber for helping to preserve film history, making it available for home viewing in the very best print possible.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet