Der Prinz von Bagdad

As much as I hate to admit it.....this ghastly Yvonne De Carlo bargain counter costumer had TWO releases in Australia......the first with a Jungle Jim epic CANNIBAL ATTACK......imagine that on the cinema marquee or worse, having to answer the telephone and say THAT to a prospective client.........the first in 1954 at the crumbling CAPITOL THEATRE a 2500 seat atmospheric soon to be the home of AIP extravaganzas......then it was re released AGAIN here in 1965 as a double feature with.....wait for it......can it be......the much demanded........COME September again all at The Sydney CAPITOL. What madness decided this? Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect PILLOW TALK to be reissued instead !? with COME September. ......God only knows why VEILS OF BAGDAD copped it so sweet because it helped the population of Australia be so attracted to costume epics and want to make them ourselves.

Dashing Victor Mature all decked out in Middle eastern attire plays Antar, a confidential agent of Suleiman the Magnificent sent to investigate and put down a brewing insurrection in the Empire stemming from Bagdad. There the ruling Pasha is planning a revolution and he's taxing the people dry to pay for some freebooting desert tribes to join his movement.

In the meantime Victor Mature has gathered his own group of Merry Men to join him and you would have to be quite blind to not see the parallels with the Robin Hood saga transposed to the Middle East. The sheriff of Nottingham in the piece is Guy Rolfe and that's only right I suppose is Guy Rolfe who was Prince John in Ivanhoe. Rolfe is always a great villain as he was in that film and in this one. He's got a wife with a roving eye played by Virginia Field who Mature woos as part of his overall plan. And there's dancing girl Mari Blanchard with her own agenda regarding Rolfe.

The pasha stirring all this trouble up is Leon Askin who commits the horrible sin of trying to make a deal with the Venetian Republic. Mature speaking for his employer is aghast at the prospect.

This part really got to me because in history Suleiman the Magnificent had no problem at all in dealing with unbelievers. His main foreign policy concern was his battle with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and to try and keep him in check made an alliance with the Kingdom of France and its King Francis I. Among other things Toulon was practically a Moslem naval base. In real life you take your allies as you find them. But Mature's horror at what Askin was doing threw me for a bit.

Usually Universal would cast Rock Hudson, Jeff Chandler, or Tony Curtis of their contract stable for these Middle Eastern epics. Why they brought Mature in is beyond me because this is nothing special as regard to product from that studio. Still Vic's fans will be pleased.

Neither Victor Mature nor Mari Blanchard are ideal for their parts, in my judgment. But the main plot of this film, the secret mission of Antar and his spymaster boss to uncover the tremendous plot being hatched by Leon Askin and Guy Rolfe, is one worthy of a great movie. In league with a bandit chief, they are threatening the rule of Haroun-al-Raschid himself. Blanchard's identity is finally revealed in a beautifully-written scene that neither actor is quite master enough of classical acting to realize fully; but the scene and the film are complete with double-entendres, character revelations and the smoldering beginning of an important love relationship. The film also has fine parts for: a seller who becomes Mature's friend; Mature's boss (Ludwig Donath) who is stalwart, intelligent, loyal and liable to capture and torture; and the wife of the Wazir's brother, beautifully played as always by Virginia French, who provides Blanchard with a rival and the film with some great lines. Mileage is even gotten out of a band of wrestlers of whom Mature is in command to complete his mission, including young James Arness and Dewey Martin. If you don't like this one, lively films with intelligent adventure that are well-directed and with very good dialogue are not for you.

Who cares if this film is naive, lousy and predictable? It is destined to gold diggers from the lost Hollywood stuff. Full of charm, despite the poor Universal lots settings and certainly not natural landscape, deserts or mountains.... I counfounded this one with Kurt Neuman's SON OF ALI BABA, Rudy Matés THE PRINCE WHO WAS A THIEF, or Nathan Juran's THE GOLDEN BLADE, but with Tony Curtis or Rock Hudson instead of Victor Mature, rather a Twentieth Century Fox star. Clichés galore with traitors, beautiful princesses, handsome and brave hero, golden palaces and run of the mill action scenes. That's the only film of this genre that director George Sherman made, he a western maker instead. Not only though, but certainly not tos One Thousand and One Nights scheme. But, I repeat, it's pretty fun and agreeable to watch if you are an old movie buff as I am.

I'm not recommending this movie, it pretty much dies during the endless running around the palace, but I always enjoy the exotic dance scenes in these films, they're so laughable yet stimulating. Mari Blanchard looks great while she's dancing (this being the fifties, it's all in those bare beautiful arms), and then there's the staging, the costumes etc. This one's right up there with Gina in "Solomon and Sheba", Rita in "Fire Down Below", but nowhere near Shirley in "Can-Can".