55 Days at Peking

Part of the series Power Moves: The Empress Dowager Onscreen

Packing in action and such Hollywood wattage as Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, 55 Days at Peking was director Nicholas Ray’s second collaboration with producer Samuel Bronston after King of Kings (1961). In this epic telling of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, a Chinese secret society claiming invincibility against enemy swords and bullets sets siege to the foreign diplomatic quarters in Beijing. Convinced that the revolt will drive out foreign powers harboring colonial designs on China, the Empress Dowager backs the rebels.

Despite the film’s sympathies for the besieged foreigners—Heston’s square-jawed Marine leads the charge for survival against the Boxer hordes—55 Days remains one of the rare complex depictions of the Empress Dowager onscreen. Flora Dobson breaks through her yellow-face makeup to portray a powerful woman whose miscalculations ultimately render her a tragic figure. Description by Cheng-sim Lim.