55 Days at Peking (1963) on Netflix
NR19632h 34mActionAdventureDrama
In 1900 Peking, the Boxers besiege the foreign legations. Major Matt Lewis leads the Marines and a multinational force, with British diplomat Sir Arthur Robertson, to hold out until relief comes.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.7/108,328 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes57%
Trailer
Plot summary
By the summer of 1900, famine across northern China drives peasants into the Boxer movement, which opposes foreign influence and the spread of Christianity. In Peking, the legations of the industrial powers sit surrounded, and the Empress Dowager Cixi gives the Boxers her tacit approval. Major Matt Lewis arrives with a new detachment of US Marines and knows local conditions well. As the attacks begin, he leads some four hundred multinational soldiers and Marines in defending the compound, working with Sir Arthur Robertson of the British Legation while they wait for a relief force. Baroness Natalie Ivanoff, a Russian aristocrat in the city, volunteers in the hospital as the siege closes in.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about 55 Days at Peking (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to handwritten records kept by White House projectionist Paul Fischer, this appears to be the last movie President John F. Kennedy watched in the White House Family Theater, screened with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy on November 10, 1963.
SPOILER
Ava Gardner became difficult during the shoot, often turning up late and drinking heavily, and screenwriter Ben Barzman suggested writing her out of the film. When she struggled to remember the lines of the Baroness's death scene, Heston suggested giving them to Paul Lukas, who was playing a physician.- Four weeks into production David Niven threatened to walk off the set unless the script was rewritten. Yordan ordered Gordon to write "a Hamlet scene for him, and he'll shut up", four or five pages of monologue for Niven's character to reflect on his actions, and the new scenes brought him back.
- The film contains the first known occurrence of the phrase "Let China sleep. For when she wakes, the world will tremble", which appeared in Bernard Gordon's script and is often mistakenly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Ray was hospitalized after a heart attack on September 11, 1962, with production six weeks behind schedule. Heston suggested Guy Green, who had directed him in Diamond Head, to finish the remaining scenes with Gardner, and by October the job passed to Andrew Marton, who was directing the second unit.
- In the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Rome, Bronston offered David Niven a role in the film for a salary of $300,000, which Niven accepted without ever reading the script.
- Andrew Marton thought the picture was shallow, "just action, action, action and there was no meaning", so he wrote a new beginning and a new ending and submitted them to Bronston and Michael Wasynski. They said no with a capital N, and Marton was very unhappy.
