''Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon'' (also known as ''Marco Polo Junior'' or ''The Red Red Dragon'' in the United States) is a 1972 Australian-American
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...
Eric Porter
Eric Richard Porter (8 April 192815 May 1995) was an English actor of stage, film and television.
Early life
Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to bus conductor Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth (née Spall). His parents ho ...
, written by
Sheldon Moldoff
Sheldon Moldoff (; April 14, 1920 – February 29, 2012) was an American comics artist best known for his early work on the DC Comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" (uncredited collaborator ...
, and was the country's first animated
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
.
The two sequence directors were Porter's animation director Cam Ford (who had previously worked on the Beatles' '' Yellow Submarine'') and Peter Gardiner. The film was later re-edited and combined with new sequences to become ''Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu'' in 2001.
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.
Arnold Stang
Arnold Sidney Stang (September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009) ''
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
Tony Pope
Anthony J. Pope (March 22, 1947 – February 11, 2004), also known as "Anthony Mozdy", was an American voice actor. He is best remembered for voicing Goofy for eleven years. He also worked on the first two DVDs of LeapFrog, voicing Mr. Websley ...
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
Michael Kostroff (born May 22, 1961) is an American actor. He appeared on the HBO program ''The Wire'' as defense attorney Maurice Levy. Kostroff starred in the fifth season of the series and appeared in all four earlier seasons as a guest star ...
as Kubla Khan and Lo Fat
* Paul Ainsley as Wong Wei
*
Robert Kramer
Robert Kramer (June 22, 1939 – November 10, 1999), born in New York and educated at Swarthmore College and Stanford University, was an American film director, screenwriter and actor who directed 19 films between 1965 and 1999, most of them ...
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
Sheldon Moldoff (; April 14, 1920 – February 29, 2012) was an American comics artist best known for his early work on the DC Comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" (uncredited collaborator ...
, 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
The Australian Film Development Corporation was an organisation created and funded by the Australian Government in the 1970s, intended to allow filmmakers in the Australian film industry to create movies for everyone to see. In 1975 it was repl ...
. Preliminary story board work was done in the U.S., but most of the film was done in Australia.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p268
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
Kilmeny Niland (1950 – 27 February 2009) was a New Zealand–born Australian artist and illustrator. While best known for her children's book illustrations, she worked in a wide range of genres, including animation, wildlife art, miniatures, ...
. Background work was by Graham Liney and Yvonne Perrin, sister of Disney's ''
Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...
'' background stylist Eyvind Earle. Production took place from mid 1970 until May 1972.
Only one voice, that of the Red Dragon, was provided by an Australian; actor and comedian Kevin Golsby.
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
''The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''The Amazing Chan Clan'') is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, animated by Eric Porter Studios in Australia and broadcast on CBS from S ...
'', ''
Super Friends
''Super Friends'' is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes, which ran from 1973 to 1985 on ABC as part of its Saturday-morning cartoon lineup. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera and was based on the Justice League of ...
'', plus several one-off animated TV specials), but a subsequent financial recession in 1975 finally saw Porter shutting down his animation studio.
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 HBO and Showtime premium cable networks in 1983 and 1984 respectively, 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.
''Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu''
Many years later, the story was re-edited and extended by
scriptwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
T ...
(and original co-producer)
Sheldon Moldoff
Sheldon Moldoff (; April 14, 1920 – February 29, 2012) was an American comics artist best known for his early work on the DC Comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" (uncredited collaborator ...
, in collaboration with
Ron Merk
Ron Merk is an American independent filmmaker based in San Francisco, California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately ...
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. Lightyear Video and Warner Home Video handled the VHS/DVD release. 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.