I first saw it in the old Cinerama theatre in San Francisco when I was a kid, and didn't mind the rather cardbord-y plot because there was just so much to look at and listen to - in addition to the famous cinematography it had Alfred Newman (uncle of Randy) 's stirring musical score, with all those great old songs, which I bought the LP of and played the grooves off. Maybe it was partly my young age, but I got completely caught up in its world of the past (the presence of Gregory Peck didn't do any harm either). (OK, so I wasn't that young...)

Apparently the terror on the cast's face during the river-rafting scene was real. Carroll Baker's costume got caught (or nearly got caught, can't remember exactly) in whatever machinery was used to create that roller-coastering effect, and she almost got dragged in and held underwater by it. I gather the actors weren't warned in advance just how tricky a ride it was going to be.