55 Days at Peking
Encyclopedia
55 Days at Peking is a 1963 historical epic film
Epic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...

 starring Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

, Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

, and David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...

, made by Samuel Bronston Productions
Samuel Bronston Productions
Samuel Bronston Productions was an independent American film production company, founded by Samuel Bronston in 1943.The company produced several epic films, the most notable of which are, John Paul Jones , King of Kings , El Cid , 55 Days at Peking and The Fall of the Roman Empire .The films were...

, and released by Allied Artists. The movie was produced by Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure, Leon Trotsky. He was also the petitioner in a U.S...

 and directed by Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....

, Andrew Marton
Andrew Marton
Andrew Marton was a Hungarian-American director, producer and editor...

 (credited as the second unit director), and Guy Green
Guy Green (director)
Guy Green OBE BSC was an English film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. In 1946 he won an Academy Award as cinematographer on the film of Great Expectations...

 (uncredited). The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 was written by Philip Yordan
Philip Yordan
Philip Yordan was an American screenwriter of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s who also produced several films.He was also known as a highly regarded script doctor...

, Bernard Gordon, Ben Barzman
Ben Barzman
Ben Barzman was a Canadian journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and died in Santa Monica, California, USA. He is best known as a writer or co-writer of more than 20 films, from You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith to The Head of Normande St...

, and Robert Hamer
Robert Hamer
Robert James Hamer was a British film director and screenwriter. He was the son of the actor Gerald Hamer ....

, the music score was written by Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...

, and the cinematographer was Jack Hildyard
Jack Hildyard
Jack Hildyard, B.S.C. was a British cinematographer who worked on more than 80 films during his career...

.

In addition to directing, Nicholas Ray plays the minor role of the head of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 diplomatic mission in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. This film is also the first known appearance of future martial arts film
Martial arts film
Martial arts film is a film genre. A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently...

 star Yuen Siu Tien
Yuen Siu Tien
Yuen Siu-tien was a Chinese martial arts film actor in the late 1970s. Yuen is perhaps best known as Beggar So in three films: Drunken Master, Story of Drunken Master and his final film Dance of the Drunk Mantis...

. The Japanese film director Juzo Itami
Juzo Itami
, born , was an actor and a popular modern Japanese film director. Many critics came to regard him as Japan's greatest director since Akira Kurosawa. His 10 movies, all of which he wrote himself, are comic satires on elements of Japanese culture....

, credited in the film as "Ichizo Itami", appears as Colonel Goro Shiba
Shiba Goro
-External links:*- Notes :...

.

Plot

55 Days at Peking is a dramatization of the Battle of Peking
Battle of Peking
The Battle of Peking, or the Relief of Peking, was the battle on 14–15 August 1900 in which a multi-national force relieved the siege of foreign legations in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion...

 during the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...

 which took place in 1900 China. Fed up by foreign encroachment, the Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi uses the Boxer secret societies to attack the foreigners within China, culminating in the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Peking (now Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

). The film concentrates on the defense of the legations from the point of view of the foreign powers, and the title refers to the length of the defense by the colonial powers of the legations district of Peking
Beijing Legation Quarter
The Peking Legation Quarter was the area in Peking where a number of foreign legations were located between 1861 and 1959. In Chinese, the area is known as Dōng jiāomín xiàng , which is the name of the hutong running through the area...

.

The foreign embassies in Peking are being held in a grip of terror as the Boxers set about massacring Christians in an anti-Christian nationalistic fever. United States Marine Corps Major Matt Lewis heads an army of multinational soldiers and Marines defending the foreign compound in Peking.

Inside the besieged compound, the British ambassador gathers the beleaguered ambassadors into a defensive formation. Included in the group of high-level dignitaries is the sultry Russian Baroness Natalie Ivanoff, who begins a romantic liaison with Lewis. As the group conserves food and water while trying to save hungry children, it awaits reinforcements, but the wily Empress Tzu Hsi is plotting with the Boxers to break the siege at the compound with the aid of Chinese troops.

Eventually, the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance
Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose military forces intervened in China to suppress the anti-foreign Boxers and relieve the siege of the diplomatic legations in Beijing .- Events :The...

 arrive to lift the siege over the legations district and put down the rebellion, an event which foreshadowed the demise of the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

.

Cast

  • Charlton Heston
    Charlton Heston
    Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

     as Maj. Matt Lewis
  • Ava Gardner
    Ava Gardner
    Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

     as Baroness Natalie Ivanoff
  • David Niven
    David Niven
    James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...

     as Sir Arthur Robinson
  • Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

      as Dowager Empress Tsu Hzi
    Empress Dowager Cixi
    Empress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....

  • John Ireland
    John Ireland (actor)
    John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...

      as Sergeant Harry
  • Leo Genn
    Leo Genn
    - Early life :He was born at 144 Kyverdale Road, Stamford Hill, Hackney, London, England to a Jewish family. His father, Woolfe Genn, was a jewellery salesman and the maiden name of his mother, Rachel, was Asserson....

     as Gen. Jung-Lu
  • Harry Andrews
    Harry Andrews
    Harry Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English film actor known for his frequent portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the 1965 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the...

     as Father de Bearn
  • Robert Helpmann
    Robert Helpmann
    Sir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer...

     as Prince Tuan
  • Juzo Itami
    Juzo Itami
    , born , was an actor and a popular modern Japanese film director. Many critics came to regard him as Japan's greatest director since Akira Kurosawa. His 10 movies, all of which he wrote himself, are comic satires on elements of Japanese culture....

     as Col. Shiba
    Shiba Goro
    -External links:*- Notes :...

  • Kurt Kasznar
    Kurt Kasznar
    -Early life:Kasznar was born in Vienna, Austria as Kurt Servischer. His father left when Kurt was very young, his mother married a Hungarian restaurateur named Ferdinand Kasznar, and Kurt assumed his surname. He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s for The Eternal Road in which he...

     as Baron Sergei Ivanoff
  • Philippe Leroy
    Philippe Leroy (actor)
    Philippe Leroy, full name Philippe Leroy-Beaulieu is a French film actor. He has appeared in over 150 films since 1960. Leroy has been living mostly in Italy since the 1960s and has worked extensively in Italian cinema, as well as in his native country...

     as Julliard
  • Paul Lukas
    Paul Lukas
    Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...

     as Dr. Steinfeldt
  • Lynne Sue Moon as Teresa
  • Elizabeth Sellars
    Elizabeth Sellars
    Elizabeth Sellars is a British actress.Sellars was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She appeared on the stage from age 15 and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts...

     as Lady Sarah Robinson
  • Massimo Serato
    Massimo Serato
    Massimo Serato, born Giuseppe Segato, was an Italian film actor with a career spanning over 40 years.Serato was born in Oderzo, Veneto, Italy and started appearing in films in 1938. He played leading roles in several historical dramas and sword and sandal epics, mainly Italian, as well as roles in...

     as Menotti Garibaldi
  • Jacques Sernas
    Jacques Sernas
    Jacques Sernas is a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career.-Early life and education:He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, the son of Jokūbas Šernas, a signatory of the 1918 Act of Independence of Lithuania, who died when Sernas was a year old. His mother took him to Paris,...

     as Maj. Bobrinski
  • Jerome Thor as Cpt. Andy Marshall
  • Geoffrey Bayldon
    Geoffrey Bayldon
    Geoffrey Bayldon is a British actor. After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle , after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in the long-running BBC science fiction...

     as Smythe
  • Joseph Furst
    Joseph Furst
    Joseph Fürst was an Austrian international film and television actor known for his English language roles....

     as Cpt. Hanselman
  • Walter Gotell
    Walter Gotell
    Walter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...

     as Cpt. Hoffman
  • Alfred Lynch
    Alfred Lynch
    Alfred Cornelius Lynch was a British actor on stage, film and television.Lynch was born in Whitechapel, London, the son of a plumber. After attending a Roman Catholic school, he worked in a draughtsman's office before entering national service...

     as Gerald
  • Alfredo Mayo
    Alfredo Mayo
    Alfredo Mayo was a Spanish actor.- Biography :After leaving his studies of medicine in 1929, Mayo debuts at theatre with the company of Ernesto Vilches...

     as Spanish Minister
  • Martin Miller
    Martin Miller (Czech actor)
    Martin Miller, born Rudolph Muller was a Czech character actor who played many small roles in British films and television series from the early 1940s until his death...

     as Hugo Bergmann
  • Jose Nieto
    José Nieto
    José Nieto , is a Spanish musician and composer, best known for his film work.- Life :Born in Madrid, Spain, in 1943, in 1958 he joined the band "Los Pekenikes", playing the drums. He began his career as a professional musician in 1962 in orchestras and jazz dance groups...

     as Italian Minister
  • Eric Pohlmann
    Eric Pohlmann
    Eric Pohlmann was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor.Born Erich Pollak in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, he was a classically trained actor who studied under the renowned director Max Reinhardt...

     as Baron von Meck
  • Aram Stephan as Gaumaire
  • Robert Urquhart
    Robert Urquhart (actor)
    Robert Urquhart was a Scottish character actor who mainly worked in British television during his career.He was born in Ullapool, Scotland on 16 October 1921, educated at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh and made his stage debut in 1947...

     as Cpt. Hanley
  • R.S.M. Ronald Brittain
    Ronald Brittain
    Ronald Brittain MBE was well known during his lifetime as an archetypal Regimental Sergeant Major and for having possibly the loudest voice in the British Army. He was often featured in World War II training films and was reported on widely in the newspapers of the day. On retirement from the...

     as Sgt. Britten
  • Fernando Sancho
    Fernando Sancho
    Fernando Sancho was a Spanish actor. Sancho was born in Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain, and died in Madrid after surgery....

     as Belgian Minister
  • Michael Chow as Chiang
  • Nicholas Ray
    Nicholas Ray
    Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....

     as U.S. Minister (chief diplomatic representative)
  • Yuen Siu Tien
    Yuen Siu Tien
    Yuen Siu-tien was a Chinese martial arts film actor in the late 1970s. Yuen is perhaps best known as Beggar So in three films: Drunken Master, Story of Drunken Master and his final film Dance of the Drunk Mantis...

     (uncredited)

Production

  • The film maintains a certain curiosity value for cinephiles due to its credited director Nicholas Ray
    Nicholas Ray
    Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....

    . Best known for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause
    Rebel Without a Cause
    Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...

    , starring James Dean
    James Dean
    James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...

    , Ray was a tortured individual at the time of the production of 55 Days at Peking, somewhat akin to the Dean persona he helped to create for Rebel. Paid a very high salary by producer Samuel Bronston to direct 55 Days, Ray had an inkling that taking on the project, a massive epic, would mean the end of him and that he would never direct another film again. The premonition proved correct when Ray collapsed on the set, half-way through the shooting. Unable to resume working (the film was finished by Andrew Marton
    Andrew Marton
    Andrew Marton was a Hungarian-American director, producer and editor...

     and Guy Green), he never received another directorial assignment. In the final months of his life, he collaborated with Wim Wenders
    Wim Wenders
    Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...

    , on the 1979 feature Lightning Over Water aka Nick's Film/Nick's Movie, which recorded his last moments.
  • The film was shot in the vicinity of Madrid
    Madrid
    Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

    , and most (thousands) of the Chinese residents of
    Chinese people in Spain
    Chinese people in Spain form the ninth-largest non-European Union foreign community in Spain. , official figures showed 145,425 Chinese citizens residing in Spain; however, this figure does not include people with origins in other Overseas Chinese communities, nor Spanish citizens of Chinese origin...

     Spain
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

    , and some from other parts of Europe
    Europe
    Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

     were hired as extras.
  • The film gives little background of the humiliating military defeats suffered during the First
    First Opium War
    The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...

     and Second Opium War
    Second Opium War
    The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...

    s, Sino-French War
    Sino-French War
    The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...

     and Sino-Japanese war
    First Sino-Japanese War
    The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

     or the effect of the Taiping Rebellion
    Taiping Rebellion
    The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...

     in weakening the Qing Dynasty
    Qing Dynasty
    The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

    . However, situations in which the various colonial powers exerted influence over China and which were a great source of outrage that drove many Chinese to violence are alluded to in the scene in which Sir Arthur Robinson and Major Lewis visit the Empress after the assassination of the German minister.
    • Dowager Empress - "....the Boxer bandits will be dealt with, but the anger of the Chinese people cannot be quieted so easily. The Germans have seized Kiaochow, the Russians have seized Port Arthur, the French have obtained concessions in Yunnan, Kwan See and Kwantang. In all, 13 of the 18 provinces of China are under foreign control. Foreign warships occupy our harbours, foreign armies occupy our forts, foreign merchants administer our banks, foreign gods disturb the spirit of our ancestors. Is it surprising that our people are aroused?"
    • Sir Arthur Robinson - "Your Majesty if you permit me to observe, the violence of the Boxers will not redress the grievances of China"
    • Dowager Empress - "China is a prostrate cow, the powers are not content milking her, but must also butcher her."
    • Sir Arthur Robinson - "If China is a cow, Your Majesty, she is indeed a marvelous animal. She gives meat as well as milk...."
  • Charlton Heston
    Charlton Heston
    Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

     stated that the working relationship between himself and Ava Gardner
    Ava Gardner
    Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

     was very bad. Heston reported that Gardner was very difficult to work with and behaved unprofessionally throughout filming. By contrast, Heston said he greatly enjoyed working with David Niven
    David Niven
    James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...

    . Heston would work with Gardner again, in the 1974 Universal
    Universal Studios
    Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

     disaster film Earthquake
    Earthquake (film)
    Earthquake is a 1974 American disaster film that achieved huge box-office success, continuing the disaster film genre of the 1970s where recognizable all-star casts attempt to survive life or death situations...

    .
  • 55 Days at Peking was filmed in Technicolor
    Technicolor
    Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

     and Technirama
    Technirama
    Technirama is a screen process that was used by some film production houses as an alternative to CinemaScope. It was first used in 1957 but fell into disuse in the mid 1960s...

    , which involved the horizontal use of 35-millimeter film, resulting in 70-millimeter printed film format. The aspect ratio was 2.20:1, with the image viewed at 2.35:1 on 35-millimeter prints.
  • Dong Kingman
    Dong Kingman
    Dong Kingman was a Chinese American artist and one of America's leading watercolor masters. As a painter on the forefront of the California Style School of painting, he was known for his urban and landscape paintings as well as his graphic design work in the Hollywood film industry...

     painted the watercolors for the titles as well as gave an uncredited appearance in the film.

Academy Award nominations

The film received two Academy Award nominations for Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...

 (Best Song and Original Music Score
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

).

Home media

DVD release came on February 28, 2001, nearly thirty-eight years after the film's premiere.
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