zardoz-13 Review of Secret of the Incas

Secret of the Incas (1954)

Before Indiana Jones Donned His Fedora, There Was Harry Steele!!!

[7/10 · 10 June 2017]

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.