Taras Bulba *** (1962, Tony Curtis, Yul Brynner, Christine Kaufmann, Sam Wanamaker, Guy Rolfe, George Macready, Brad Dexter, Perry Lopez) – Classic Movie Review 8082

Director J Lee Thompson’s 1962 historical romantic adventure Taras Bulba stars Tony Curtis and Yul Brynner, who gets the title role of Cossack chieftain Taras Bulba, who helps the Poles defeat the Turks in the 16th century Ukraine, in this rousing historical epic story of the Cossacks’ fight for freedom from the Poles.

The uneasy alliance between the two nations turns to tragedy when Brynner’s son Andrei (Tony Curtis) falls in love with Polish aristocrat Natalie Dubrov (Christine Kaufmann) and turns against his father.

Curtis is, er, unusually cast as a 16th-century Cossack but he is not implausible at all compared with a rampaging Brynner and all his teeming extras. Director Thompson’s epic is a noisy and rousing piece of old-style Hollywood, full of cannon fire, romantic nonsense and massed horsemen thundering across the plains.

Waldo Salt and Karl Tunberg’s rather lumpy, stodgy screenplay, based on a novel by Nicolai Gogol, is redeemed by a lavish production with more than 250 speaking actors and a cast of thousands, plus striking, first-rate cinematography in Eastmancolor by Joe MacDonald and a stirring music score by Franz Waxman, which was Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for Best Score, the film’s sole nominations.

Taras Bulba, is filmed in Salta, Argentina, as well as at Universal Studios and Walt Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch in California, and based on a novel by Nicolai Gogol.

Also in the cast are Sam Wanamaker, Guy Rolfe, George Macready, Brad Dexter, Perry Lopez, Ilka Windish, Valdimir Sokoloff, Valdimir Irman, Abraham Sofaer, Mickey Finn, Richard Rust and Daniel Ocko.

It was expensive – $7,000,000 – and not terribly popular, taking $4,000,000 in the US.

The producers sought Jack Palance, who really was of Ukrainian descent, but he turned down the title role.

J Lee Thompson was coming straight off The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear.

Christine Kaufmann met Tony Curtis on the set of Taras Bulba and they began dating when she was only 17. They were married from 8 February 1963 to 11 April 1968 (divorced, with two children. She won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female for Town Without Pity (1961).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8082

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com