Secret of the Incas (1954) on Netflix
Tour guide Harry Steele schemes to find the Sunburst, a lost Inca treasure. A bar owner who has hunted it for fourteen years wants the stone fragment that reveals where it lies.
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- IMDb6.0/102,615 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
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Plot summary
In Cusco, Peru, Harry Steele works as a tour guide while chasing a different fortune: the Sunburst, a legendary Inca treasure of gold and jewels at Machu Picchu. A fragment of a carved stone block in his possession, set on a stone map held in a local museum, points to where the treasure lies. Ed Morgan, a bar owner who has hunted the Sunburst for fourteen years, hires a sniper to frighten Harry off and vows revenge when Harry refuses to sell him the stone. Elena Antonescu, a Romanian defector with little money and the police behind her, needs to leave the country. She tells Harry that Anton Marcu, a Romanian official with a plane, is after her. Harry gives Marcu her whereabouts, then offers to fly her out if she helps him take the plane.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Secret of the Incas (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In Secret of the Incas, Charlton Heston's adventurer Harry Steele wears what later became known as the "Indiana Jones" outfit, a brown leather jacket, fedora, tan pants, an over-the-shoulder bag and a revolver, and the film has a tomb scene with a shaft of light like the "Map Room" in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Secret of the Incas was the first film by a major Hollywood studio shot at the Inca site of Machu Picchu; a sixteen-person unit including Charlton Heston, producer Mel Epstein and director Jerry Hopper spent a month filming in Peru in 1953.
- According to the article, the 1954 adventure film Secret of the Incas caused a surge in tourism to Peru.
- Wendell Corey was originally announced as the leading star of Secret of the Incas; in July 1953 Paramount took over Hal B. Wallis' contract with Charlton Heston and announced Heston would make the film after finishing The Naked Jungle.
- The female lead in Secret of the Incas was to have been played by Viveca Lindfors, but Paramount gave the role to Nicole Maurey after the positive response to her performance in Little Boy Lost.
