Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon

Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon (also known as Marco Polo Junior or The Red Red Dragon in the United States[3]) is a 1972 Australian animated musical adventure film directed by Eric Porter, written by Sheldon Moldoff, and was the country's first animated feature film.[4][5]

Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon
Directed byEric Porter
Produced by
  • Sheldon Moldoff
  • Eric Porter
Written bySheldon Moldoff
Starring
Production
companies
Distributed byBritish Empire Films
Release date
  • December 1972 (1972-12) (Australia)
  • 12 April 1973 (1973-04-12) (United States)
Running time
82 minutes[1]
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$650,000[2]

The two sequence directors were Porter's animation director Cam Ford (who had previously worked on the Beatles' Yellow Submarine) and Peter Gardiner.

Plot

Young Marco, a descendant of Marco Polo, and his companion Sandy the Seagull set off on a journey to the mythical kingdom of Xanadu, to help Princess Shining Moon defeat the evil magician the Red Dragon.

1972 voice cast
  • Bobby Rydell as Marco Polo Junior
  • Arnold Stang as the Delicate Dinosaur
  • Corie Sims as Princess Shining Moon
  • Kevin Golsby as the Red Dragon
  • Larry Best as the Guru
  • Gordon Hammet
  • Lionel G. Wilson
  • Arthur Anderson
  • Merril E. Joels
  • Sam Gray

Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu voice cast
  • Nicholas Gonzales as Marco Polo Junior
  • Tony Pope as Foo-Ling, Babu, and Reginald the Seagull
  • Elea Bartling as Princess Ming Yu and Maiden on Pirate Ship
  • John Matthew as the Delicate Dinosaur and Marco Polo the Explorer
  • John C. Hyke as Malgor the Vulture and Sailing Ship Captain
  • Michael Kostroff as Kubla Khan and Lo Fat
  • Paul Ainsley as Wong Wei
  • Robert Kramer as Helmsman, Voice of the Flame, and Grandpa
  • Alan Altshuld as Pangu, Mr. Giovanni, and Marriage Priest
  • Tim Bryon Owen as Space Station Captain, First Mate, and Kubla Khan's Servant
  • Tony Pope, Robert Kramer, Cheddy Hart, John C. Hyke, and Chris Holter as Additional Voices

Production

The film was conceived by Sheldon Moldoff, who made the film as a co-production with Eric Porter in Australia. $60,000 of the budget was provided by the Australian Film Development Corporation. Preliminary story board work was done in the U.S., but most of the film was done in Australia.[2]

Over 70 artists were involved in the film. Sequence directors were Cam Ford and Peter Gardner, and animators were Paul McAdam, Yvonne Pearsall, Dick Dunne, Gairdon Cooke, Richard Jones, Gerry Grabner, Stan Walker, Cynthia Leech, Peter Luschwitz, Kevin Roper and children's illustrator Kilmeny Niland.[6] Background work was by Graham Liney and Yvonne Perrin, sister of Disney's Sleeping Beauty background stylist Eyvind Earle. Production took place from mid 1970 until May 1972.[2]

Only one voice, that of the Red Dragon, was provided by an Australian; actor and comedian Kevin Golsby.[7]

Release

Shortly before the film's release in December 1972, an Australian/American cartoon special about the original Marco Polo screened on Australian television, prompting the film's distributors to make the title longer to avoid confusion. However, commercial results were poor, largely due to insufficient promotion by the U.S. distributors, although it did reasonably well in Australia and Europe. The low returns from the film persuaded Porter to undertake sub-contracted TV series work from America's Hanna-Barbera (The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Super Friends, plus several one-off animated TV specials), but a subsequent financial recession in 1975 finally saw Porter shutting down his animation studio.[2]

Three books were published using art work from the film.

The film's title was changed to The Magic Medallion for its 1976 release on television.

The movie had its widest American exposure over the Showtime Cable Network in 1983 and 1984, and later the film got an extremely hard-to-find VHS from Family Home Entertainment. The movie was later included on BCI Eclipse's Advantage Collection DVD set.

In 2015, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia released a restored print of the movie on DVD to celebrate the centenary of Australian animation.[8]

Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu

Many years later, the story was re-edited and extended by scriptwriter (and original co-producer) Sheldon Moldoff, in collaboration with Ron Merk and, with additional footage, certain name changes like the Red Dragon to Foo-Ling, and added subplots, was released as Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu (2002) by Tooniversal Company, while Lightyear Video and Warner Home Video handled the VHS/DVD release.[9] The resulting version is generally considered to be vastly inferior to the original. Lionsgate Films has made this version of the movie available for video-on-demand.

References
  1. "Marco Polo Junior (U)". British Board of Film Classification. 21 March 1973. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  2. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p268
  3. Limited, Alamy. "Stock Photo - THE RED RED DRAGON, (aka MARCO POLO JR., aka MARCO POLO JUNIOR VERSUS THE RED DRAGON), US poster, 1972". Alamy. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  4. "Animation in Australia". Australian Government, Culture Portal. 24 November 2008. Archived from the original on 16 April 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  5. Vagg, Stephen (23 December 2019). "Australian Film Musicals You Probably Didn't Realise Existed". Filmink.
  6. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130847/combined
  7. "An "Anonymous" Actor". The Australian Women's Weekly. National Library of Australia. 17 January 1973. p. 7. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  8. TmqmNuMCdj (22 December 2015). "Return of The Red Dragon". www.nfsa.gov.au. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
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