The Golden Horde

It's a good story but a bad script. This material could have been used better. An English ambassador with crusaders arrive at Samarkand to assize the armies and threats of the Mongols under Djenghis Khan in 1220 and succeed blatantly in disturbing the peace at court and upsetting all plans of the ruling Queen (Ann Blyth) and the Mongols. The characters are made more as types than characters, the intrigues peter out into small fry business, and in the fights and battles everyone is killed except the right ones. The script gives a very casual and superficial impression, although the Queen's character (Ann Blyth) is fascinating enough but should have been made so much more of. David Farrar is not up to his ordinary standard here but feels rather degraded in such a Hollywood cliché character as this. James Macready on the other hand is just the type for his scheming shaman in his weezy voice, and Djenghis Khan himself (Marvin Miller) is also good and convincing. In brief, this is no more than a casual spectacular entertainment providing a good story with many possibilities but giving the actors, in spite of their excellence, very little chance of proving their worth by a poor shorthand manuscript.