The Royal Hunt of the Sun *** (1969, Robert Shaw, Christopher Plummer, Nigel Davenport, Leonard Whiting) – Classic Movie Review 3818

British playwright Sir Peter Shaffer had his first big theatre hit in 1964 with The Royal Hunt of the Sun, a drama about the Spanish conquest of Peru that was staged by Britain’s newly founded National Theatre. For the 1969 film version, director Irving Lerner assiduously films the famous National Theatre production, but without the original stage stars. (The stage cast was led by Robert Stephens as Atahualpa and Colin Blakely as Francisco Pizarro.)

Lerner discovers the inevitability that playwright Peter Shaffer’s impressive evening in the theatre is difficult to translate to the movies. The literary language and heightened drama are at odds with film-making, though this production is right to rely on the attractions and power of the spectacle, the beautiful locations and the impressively extravagant performances by Robert Shaw as the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro and Christopher Plummer as the Inca king / god-chief Atahualpa.

In Shaffer’s story, Pizarro captures Atahualpa and promises to free him on the delivery of a hoard of gold.

Nigel Davenport plays Hernando De Soto and Leonard Whiting, in his first role after Romeo and Juliet (1968), plays Young Martin, though the film drops the play’s character of Old Martin. Also in the cast are Michael Craig, Andrew Keir, William Marlowe, Alexander Davion, Sam Krauss, Percy Herbert, David Bauer, Danny Yordan, Alfredo Porras, Joaquin Parra, José Panzio, Oscar Alvarez and Lisardo De La Inglesia.

Though much more magic is required, it is still in the interesting category as a film of thought, intelligence, ideas and imagination. Plus it is a testimony to the skills of Plummer and Shaw, and of course fascinating to compare with the movies of Shaffer’s other masterworks, Equus and Amadeus.

Plummer played Pizarro in the first Broadway performance at the ANTA Playhouse on 26 October 1965, with David Carradine as Atahualpa, before switching roles to play Atahualpa in the film.

The National Theatre revived the play at the Olivier Theatre in April 2006 in a production directed by Trevor Nunn, with Alun Armstrong as Pizarro and Paterson Joseph as Atahualpa.