AB Trends

The movie was good, but I was disappointed, because it was not the movie I was trying to find. Maybe you can help with that. The movie I was trying to find had Maria Montez (and Danny Kaye – I think). It was sort of an Arabian movie, but it had music of Rimsky Korsakov (I have no idea what the name was). Any suggestions as to how I might find that movie? I’m not too good looking for things like this.
Rating: 2 / 5

Arabian/Oriental adventure was one of the rages in Hollywood of the war years, made all the more attractive by the huge commercial and artistic success of the Alexander Korda production THE THIEF OF BAGDAD in 1940. A couple of years later, Universal decided to do its own “Arabian Nights” adaptation, making it quite apparent by the obvious title, the hiring of BAGDAD costar Sabu for a major role, and the use of Technicolor (a first for the studio) that it was going for the same audience. The film didn’t disappoint at the time, getting several Academy Awards technical nominations and making a decent chunk of change for producer Walter Wanger and the studio.

Sadly, it doesn’t really hold up today, and certainly isn’t going to be any kind of competition for the British film among the annals of classic adventures. The problems are manifold; first, a tired storyline that makes the fairly simple plot of the earlier film seem Proustian in comparison, in which good Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid (Jon Hall) gets overthrown by his evil half-brother Kamar (Leif Erickson), flees and falls in love with Kamar’s intended Scheherezade (Maria Montez), while being helped back to his rightful place by loyal acrobatic performer Ali Ben Ali (Sabu, of course). Second, plodding direction by John Rawlins – forgotten today and deservedly so if this is a typical example of his work – which tends to cut away from the action sequences before we can actually get into them, and focus far too much on boring exposition, with uninteresting set-ups throughout that rarely help to take us out of the cheap sets and into fantasy-land. And third, terribly mediocre acting on the part of nearly everyone apart from Sabu – and a focus on slapstick antics that, again, keep us continually aware that we’re watching a movie. Casting Shemp Howard as Sinbad certainly doesn’t help, and a vaudevillian/slapstick sequence at a blacksmith shop towards the end is a serious low point.

But Sabu IS compelling, as always – he belongs in a better film; and the color, particularly in the early sequences, is excellent, even stunning. Montez gets a lot of flack as an actress in general, and I can’t say that I find her as beautiful as her reputation, but her odd accent and seriousness actually work pretty well here, though she’s not really given much to do apart from a dance scene at the end which looks like it could have been body-doubled for the most part. And I suppose that all in all, this probably works as a camp-fest if you can’t take it seriously (and how could you?).

Nothing much in the way of extras here on this well-mastered DVD, just a nice little Robert Osborne intro and the original trailer. All in all, a fun waste of an hour and a half, and worth a look for anyone who, like me, is a bit obsessed with this kind of exotic adventure story. Just don’t expect this to be one of the best examples.
Rating: 3 / 5