Secret of the Incas (1954)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Jerry Hopper's escapist escapade "Secret of the Incas" is a harmless little action-adventure thriller with Charlton Heston cast as a soldier of fortune. Many film aficionados have argued that this colorful little 97-minute epic 'inspired' the Indiana Jones film franchise because Heston's adventurer Harry Steele (talk about a metaphorical name!) dressed himself in an outfit that closely resembled the apparel that Harrison Ford's daring archaeologist donned for his cliff-hanging shenanigans. Mind you, scenarists Ranald MacDougall of "Mildred Pierce" (he received an Oscar nod for the Joan Crawford murder-mystery) and Sydney Boehm of "The Big Heat" put our reckless hero in tense situations as he searches for fabled hidden treasure in the Peruvian jungles. Early in this carefree opus, our hero commanders a small, propeller-driven aircraft with the heroine aboard, Elena Antonescu (the exotic French actress Nicole Maurey of "The Day of the Triffids"), and they take off with the authorities pursuing them in a jeep with pistols blazing futilely in an effort to stop them. Equipped with eight hours of fuel, Harry sets the aircraft down in a high mountain pasture just shy of the intended airport so that they won't be arrested. Afterward, he digs up a conveniently stashed inflatable raft that Elena and he use to ply the river rapids with. This in itself is reminiscent of the breathless opening in Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Mind you, the tame "Secret of the Incas" isn't a high-octane, white-knuckled exercise in cliffhanging suspense, but you can see how it is comparable to such fare. Of course, Hollywood had not attained the summit of technical perfection in the depiction of such antics back in 1954 when "Secret of the Incas" came out, but this simply means that Hopper and his scenarists can be credited with breaking the ice. Heston had starred earlier in Hopper's "Pony Express," and the director and star would re-team after "Secret of the Incas" with "The Private War of Major Benson." Hopper was strictly a contract director who endowed with films with a polish that reflected his competence. During the twilight of his career, he turned to helming television shows such as "Naked City," "The Rifleman," and "Have Gun-Will Travel." Charlton Heston toiled in B-movies like this until he got his big break in "Ben-Hur." Altogether, "Secret of the Incas" is a dandy little melodrama co-starring Oscar winning character actor Thomas Mitchell as Steele's treacherous adversary while Robert Young appears as an archaeologist who spends more time in his camp tent than on the trail of adventure.

Harry Steele (Charlton Heston) is working as a tour guide of sorts in the Peru. However, his ultimate goal is the treasure he believes he can find high in the mountains at Machu Picchu. Into his life walks a woman with the answers to his prayers - a plane that can get him to the top of the mountain. But she brings something else - he falls for her. In the end, what will it be - treasure or love?As others have pointed out, the comparisons with Indiana Jones are more than obvious - dress, map room, search for treasure, etc. When Secret of the Incas focuses on the adventure and the search for gold, it's very good. Too bad melodrama too often gets in the way of a good time - but wasn't that the case in a lot of these 50s era adventure films. Charlton Heston is quit good here and very believable. Nicole Maurey, whom I don't remember seeing before, is a revelation. One of the real stars has to be the locations. The real life Peruvian sets are spectacular. Overall, not a bad way to spend 90 minutes.

Charlton Heston made two films in 1954, and both have a South American setting. Whereas the first, "The Naked Jungle", was filmed in the USA, with Florida standing in for the Brazilian jungle, the second, "Secret of the Incas", was actually shot on location in Peru. It is often regarded as an inspiration for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the Indiana Jones franchise. Heston's character Harry Steele is, admittedly, not a professional archaeologist; he is an adventurer who poses as a tourist guide but whose real reason for being in Peru is to find an ancient gold and jewelled Inca treasure. Legend has it that the Inca Empire fell when this object was stolen from the Temple of the Sun and that the Empire will be reborn once it is found and returned to its rightful place. Steele's costume, including a leather jacket and fedora hat, is similar to that worn by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films, and at one point he even wears a light beard, something unusual in the fifties when Hollywood's leading men were nearly always clean-shaven. (Many people were upset when Gregory Peck appeared with a historically-accurate moustache in "The Gunfighter", a fictionalised biography of the Wild West outlaw Johnny Ringo). Although Steele he is the hero of the film, he is by no means wholly admirable. This was something of a departure for Heston, who normally specialised in playing the good guys. Christopher Leiningen, his character in "The Naked Jungle", may be rather stiff and lacking in human warmth, even towards his wife, but morally he is wholly upright. Steele is not. His initial intention towards the Inca artifact is to steal it; he is only the "hero" by comparison with his ruthless rival Ed Morgan. Only at the end does Steele have a change of heart. A subplot deals with his romance with a glamorous Romanian refugee named Elena Antonescu. We never discover Elena's full back-story, but she must have been a person of some consequence because the Romanian secret police have sent an agent all the way to Peru to persuade her to return to her homeland. "Secret of the Incas" is in many ways a standard action/adventure flick, but Heston always makes a very watchable action hero, and the striking photography of the Andean scenery lifts it above the level of the average fifties B-movie. it is often credited with popularising Machu Picchu as a tourist destination. 6/10

This is the most disappointing Heston film I've seen, redeemed only by the scenery and Yma Sumac's singing. The sound on my recording wasn't great and I wasn't clear why Elena Antonescu was so important a refugee. She may have arrived in Peru with very little money but she was very well dressed, even after she had changed into clothing more suitable for her flight; thus she joined the long list of women able to retain their glamour despite arduous conditions. At least we were spared the cliché of her being frightened by wild life though Heston did get to spy on her as she bathed (not in a jungle pool, but indoors). Heston's character is far from likable and there was no-one much else to empathise with; Robert Young's archaeologist was very likable until he proposed marriage to Elena. (Sad old man.) Another commentator has noted how the gold starburst seems very lightweight, and early on in the film I noted a reference to it weighing 30 pounds, which makes the elderly Mitchell's flight even more athletic. That was just about the only action in the film.