55 Days at Peking

This year's Summer Under the Stars concludes today with a day of films devoted to actress Ava Gardner. And concluding her day, in the wee hours of tomorrow morning at 3:00 AM (so even if you're on the west coast but only have the east coast feed it's still technically on Sept. 1) is 55 Days at Peking.

After the opening titles, voiceover narration informs us that it is the summer of 1900, a restles time in Chinese history: the Manchu/Qing dynasty was weak, having been forced to give a lot of economic concessions to the various western powers that wanted to trade with China. Originally, the Chinese government had been in a powerful enough position to bar whole families from coming over and keep the westerners isolated in special communities much like the Japanese did with the Dutch in Nagasaki. But by the end of the 19th century the west had the upper hand. This combined with a bad harvest emboldened more radical Chinese forces, in a group commonly called the "Boxers" because of their closed-fist salute. They were trying to drive the west out wholesale, and the government was in a bind because trade duties with the west and taxes on the concessions were actually bringing in a sizeable chunk of money to the Chinese treasury.

It's against that restive background that the Americans rotate in a fresh platoon of marines to the American legation in the diplomatic quarter of Peking, under the leadership of career Marine Maj. Lewis. He shows up looking for rooms at the hotel just as a Russian, Baroness Natalie (Ava Gardner) is being evicted because her visa was revoked by her brother-in-law (Kurt Kasznar) for family reasons. Maj. Lewis doesn't know much about the local politics, but he's about to learn, and fast.

The day after he arrives, the Boxers assassinate the German ambassador to China, leading to an ultimatum from Dowager Empress Cixi (Flora Robson): all of the westerners must leave. The assembled ambassadors take a vote, with all of them voting to leave except for the American who is absent because he's dying in hospital, and the British ambassador, Sir Arthur Robinson (David Niven). The other countries, however, decide that they can't afford to give up all of their concessions to the British, so they change their minds and stay. And that causes the Boxers to start besieging the city.

The westerners are badly outnumbered, but all they have to do is hold out long enough for relief to arrive, which is supposed to get to Beijing fairly soon. Except that Imperial forces are mustered to prevent this from happening, and the westerners have to hold out longer until they can somehow get someone out of the area from below and get word that relief is still needed. Against the backdrop of all this, various personal dramas play out. These include a mixed-race child, Sir Arthur's family, and the relationship between Maj. Lewis and the baroness, which is turning romantic because apparently a movie like this needs a love interest in it.

The technical aspects of 55 Days at Peking are quite good, although it's Spain substituting for China in the backgrounds. This isn't terribly important, since the besieged quarter is all sets anyhow and mostly doesn't need large vistas. The sets and costumes work well as does the music. The weakness, however, is the story, which runs over 2½ hours and sags quite a bit, especially with the baroness character who's not really needed to advance the plot. There are also enough Hollywood-style reimaginings of the history that are probably going to bother some viewers. So it's easy to see why a movie like 55 Days at Peking got mixed reviews and hurt the career of its director, Nicholas Ray.