User Reviews

Jean-Paul (Cornel Wilde) is left penniless and abandoned when his father dies and his sinister uncle (George Mcready) wrongfully takes the family fortune . Jean is the rightful heir to his uncle's title and lands and he then rebels against him , the Marquis De St. Malo . Later on , he escapes to sea and goes South America along with MacDougal (Finlay Currie) . The explorers arrive in Port Rio Dulce and Jean heads to the jungles of 18th century Guatemala in search of ancient treasure , all the while plotting his vengeance . Later on , Jean encounters the Blue Lagoon . But he still finds time to fall for two beautiful women Clara MacDougal (Constance Smith) and Marie , Comtesse De St. Malo (Anne Bancroft).

Nice 18th-century costumer done in grand style that provides solid escapist yarn . Contains enjoyable footage of Mayan ruins shot on location in Guatemala , rugged scenery excellently photographed in Technicolor by Edward Cronjager , larger-than-life characters played by a great main cast , but all the performance class comes from prestigious secondary actors . The central section , when the prospectors mistaken for Gods , sags a bit , but starring Constance Smith delivers the glamorous native charmer for compensation . Cornel Wilde gives a decent acting as a dashing Frenchman who journeys to the far-off Mayan hills of Guatemala hunting a hidden treasure to win his fortune , come back and claim his heritage . Being based on the popular novel ¨Benjamin Blake¨ by Edison Marshall that was adapted in 1942 as ¨Son of fury¨ by John Cromwell with Tyrone Power , George Sanders , Roddy McDowall , Frances Farmer , Gene Tierney and set in Polynesian islands . This gave Cornel Wilde one of the best of his dashing early roles . He played several adventure movies , such as : ¨Sword of Lancelot¨, ¨Omar Khayyam , ¨At sword's point¨ , ¨A thousand and one nights¨ , ¨Norseman¨, ¨The fifth musketeer and directed/acted the classic ¨The naked prey¨ ¨.

The motion picture was well and compellingly directed by Delmer Davis . He was a good professional who directed all kinds of genres , such as: Romantic dramas : ¨Rome adventure¨, ¨Parrish¨, ¨A summer Place¨ ; WWII : ¨Task force¨, ¨Hollywood canteen¨, ¨Destination Tokyo¨ , Noir film : ¨Dark passage¨ , ¨The red house¨ , Historical : ¨Demetrius and the gladiators¨ and especially Western : ¨The hang tree¨, ¨The Badlanders¨, ¨Cowboy¨, ¨3.10 to Yuma¨, ¨Jubal¨, ¨Drum Beat¨, and ¨ Broken arrow¨.

Ultimate douchebag the Marquis de St. Malo (George Macready) locates his dead brother's son and forces him into a life of servitude. The boy grows up to become Cornel Wilde and runs off to find treasure. Routine costumer is a remake of Son of Fury, which starred Tyrone Power. That was a better film. This one's kind of dull. Wilde is fine, as is Macready as the villain. Fay Wray plays Macready's wife and I almost didn't recognize her. This was her first film in over a decade. This is also an early role for a very pretty Anne Bancroft. Despite how it seems early on in the film, she won't be Wilde's love interest. That honor goes to Constance Smith. Ernest Borgnine has a bit part. Robert Blake play a stable boy...badly. Not a terrible film to pass a little time with if you see it on TV, but nothing to go out of your way for.

The location of the injustice is changed from 18th century Great Britain to 18th century France and the treasure is emeralds and not pearls found now in Guatemala instead of the South Seas. But the plot of Treasure Of The Golden Condor is easily recognizable as that of Tyrone Power's Son Of Fury. Cornel Wilde who was another of those standbys for Power in both their times at 20th Century Fox in the Forties when Zanuck's favorite star was otherwise occupied stands in well for Power when Zanuck decided to remake the film.

The story is that of a man deemed illegitimate because no proof of a marriage can be found and disinherited from title and lands by a cruel and avaricious uncle George MacReady. George Sanders played the uncle in the original and both Sanders and MacReady were first rate cads.

The women in Wilde's life are Constance Smith the daughter of Finlay Currie his partner in fortune hunting and Anne Bancroft whose got a yen buzzing for her cousin Wilde. Bancroft in her third feature film is MacReady's daughter, she's quite the vixen.

Wilde was always one of the best action adventure stars of his days, but he never got to the top tier level. Instead of going to television as so many of his contemporaries did he went into production of his own films that usually played as B pictures. In terms of quality they varied greatly. This film is an opportunity to see him at his swashbuckling best as he was one of the best at the fencing game. He was a member of the 1936 US Olympic team.

In the supporting cast note Leo G. Carroll as the lawyer who aides Wilde in proving his lineage, a sincere but cynical performance. Also Fay Wray as MacReady's wife, a most unhappy woman. Just married to George MacReady is reason enough.

Cornel Wilde's fans should be pleased. Technicolor as well.

This film was the Indiana Jones of the fifties. I cannot recall much of the film except remembering Jean Paul in the cave during the final scene and he battles the condor and the roof of the cave comes crashing down. This was an exciting picture and I remember wishing that I could see it again but poverty prevented me from doing so. It was a thrilling film- from the beginning to the end. Its really amazing how, although it was filmed without the modern gadgetry and the computer, we were entertained with some of the finest films of which this was one. I wish I could see it again and show my children that after fifty years, the only thing that has invaded our screen is the lack of real heroism and the glorification of sex.

This is a wonderful hour and a half of pure escapism with several ingredients from successful past Hollywood films: Citizen Kane (young boy gets ripped from poor parents and sent to live with rich relative), Wuthering Heights (stable boy falls in love with woman above his station), Lost Horizon (Conway returns to his Shangri-la and true love), a forerunner to Indiana Jones, and The Naked Prey, and a prelude to the French Revolution to boot. Some of my favorite actors are in this film (Leo G Carroll and Cornell Wilde), and a dash of 1942's Son of Fury with Tyrone Power and George Sanders, two more of my favorite screen personalities. So the film may not be perfect, but it is certainly entertaining, and helps us forget about COVID for an hour and a half. That alone is worth 7 stars these days.

Delmer Daves has assembled an impressive cast but they all rather just go through the motions in this routine swashbuckler. Cornel Wilde takes top billing as the dispossessed "Jean-Paul" who finds himself robbed of his inheritance. He has but one chance to avenge things - and that is to head to remote Guatemala and seek out a treasure that, Monte-Cristo style - will help him right the wrongs done to him. Were it ever to have escaped the confines of the studio, then perhaps it might have delivered a bit better but the action scenes are all too stage-bound and the jungle looks no more authentic than the greenhouse at Kew. Anne Bancroft brings some glamour as the "Comtesse" and George Macready some menace as the scheming "Marquis" but it's all rather too predictable and Wilde is nowhere near his charming, charismatic - or acrobatic - best. It's watchable and as a fan of the genre i still quite enjoyed it - but it isn't very good and is, frankly, instantly forgettable.

I had high hopes sitting down to watch Treasure of the Golden Condor, thinking that it might have been an inspiration for the Indiana Jones films. George Macready got the film off to a rousing start with his subtle yet vicious machinations, which he applied with aplomb throughout. Had the editing, directing and other actors been up to his level, the film could have been great, but I found it to be a shameless ripoff of the 1942 film, Son of Fury, starring Tyrone Power and George Saunders. In fact, it is a virtual line by line aping of the first film, with the tired recipe of switching out one exotic locale for another, and adding color. (If any of you readers ever saw that old Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy film in which their movie studio is always shooting the same scene over and over, even the dialogue is identical, and only the uniforms of the bad guys changes, then you know what I mean! If not, the fact that such an old memory pops up over Goldon Condor...) Perhaps I am biased because I was taken aback 10 minutes into the film, with a deja vu broadside on my cranium, but I decided that as long as they top the first film, well, OK. Macready gets honorable mention, but come on, who could top Saunders as a villain? The color and cinematography were a plus, but in every other aspect, this film is an atrocious disappointment. Anne Bancroft's take on the calculating Comtesse de Malo was fine, but too brief; I think the cutting room floor has taken most of the nuance from her relationship with Cornell Wilde. The whole movie ended up no better than a go-through-the-motions remake.

Lovely to watch and very difficult to spot those who would become a lot more famous later in their film careers. A familiar plot similar to that of the repetitive Mills and Boon series of period romantic novels. Mr. Waverley from The Man From Uncle looked odd in this as he is so used to being seen in that role, I kept expecting him to mention "channel D". No expense spared on costumes and scenery and it looks great with a nice story line and good acting. Well worth watching and if you spot a young Anne Bancroft very well done as she looks nothing like she does about 15 years later in The Graduate.

Here is some trivia on "Treasure of the Golden Condor" (which is by the way a remake of Fox's "Son of Fury". It's by now a well-known fact that Otto Preminger directed some retakes on that film. That was indicated to me by producer Paul Buck, on the set of Preminger's film "Rosebud". (Buck was also Peter O'Toole's producing partner).Preminger had mentioned it to me earlier, in Paris. He did not remember the title, but gave me enough indications to find out that it was "Teasure of the Golden Condor". He said at that time that he only worked on one short scene "dealing with a snake" (of which he was terribly afraid). The extent of Preminger's contribution however is not clearly established, as Buck seemed to indicate that it went a bit further than just one day.

The movie was broadcast this afternoon on french TV (France 3). Never heard about it before. The action takes place half in a fake Hollywood France of the "XVIIIème siècle", half on location in the real beauty of Guatemala. Delmer Daves is for sure a professional entertainer (see "Broken Arrow"), and the movie follows the best tradition of US (almost B) movies in costume, like Fritz Lang masterpiece "Moonfleet". The typography of the production credits and cast is great (in the "Drums Along the Mohawk" style, though inferior), the colors amazing, and the scenes shot in the ruins and landscapes in Guatemala - with the locals Indians - are truly beautiful. The political message against "money for money" and for freedom (Jean-Paul, the hero, is a "slave" in the French society of that time) is naive but OK. Cornel Wilde is a strange actor, but not as bad as I fear. He's good in action scenes, and can be stirring when the camera is close to his virile face. Not that sexy, but he is "un bel homme" as old French ladies would say. He and Delmer Daves must have been very proud of his great body : he's half naked twice (in 1953!), and not just a second. Anne Bancroft was a débutante, but she's very courageous in her part, a bitchy and cynic Marquise. The only problem is Constance Smith. Because she is not Debra Paget, the incredible actress of "Das Indische Grabmal". She is so not pithy, and that's a thousand pities.

I absolutely loved this film as a child. When I watched it again after 60 years it was even better than I remembered. Instead of the phony Polynesians of the earlier adaptation of the original novel Benjamin Blake (Son of Fury with Tyrone Power) the acting is excellent, and the story, reset in France prior to theRevolution makes great social comments on the excesses of the aristocracy and their vile treatment of lower classes, it includes a serious interest in science and anthropology.

This is definitely worth seeing. The photography is great, and the scenes of actual inhabitants of Central America in their rituals and dancing made it ring.

Cornel Wilde was perfectly fine in the role. And the old Scotsman added interest and wisdom.

Treasure of the Condor was a pretty good movie, especially when compared with the garbage being produced today. Constance White was a beautiful lady, but was very unfortunate in her life and ended tragically. I remember that Cornel Wilde performed all of his own actions...including the movie "The Naked Prey" where he is forced to run for his life through jungle, chased by savages. BUT its Macready that I am asking about. I remember his voice from radio "way back" in the 40's....am I wrong? Its a very distinctive voice, and I swear I remember it because radio was the only entertainment we had in the home. Does anyone remember this? Can anybody confer with me in this mystery? If so, please let me know. habitzg@hotmail.com

This was the kind of great adventure stuff that Tyrone Power used to excel in. Cornel Wilde was no Tyrone Power but had the advantage to Tyrone of always doing his own stunts, like also Gene Kelly used to do, who was also a great fencer. There is not much fencing here but more pugilism instead, and his foe, the inimitable George Macready, uses any means of foul play to keep Cornel Wilde subdued and bullied into a slave. The inconspicuous Cornel Wilde however rises with a vengeance, like they always do, especially in films, and here the main attraction of the film is the marvellous sequences made on location in Guatemala among ruined Maya temples and hissing serpents - Otto Preminger had a part in the direction of this. The music is typical Hollywood by Saul Kaplan, and Anne Bancroft plays Cornel's first and only true love here, until she betrays him, like women always do, as his grandfather casually observes after a long life under oppression. It's a wonderful film and a wonderful story and a great compliment to Tyrone Power for his preceding example.