Alí Babá y los 40 ladrones

What I have noticed, which I think greatly glues this film to the viewers impression after so many lapsed years, is solid non-ambitious scenario, it is an easy story, really, yet some tricks of great master of film making are: 1. joining 3 totals, from 3 different angles, with no loss of trill in action, each total represented new information about the horse chase. 2. transition in memory sequences of protagonist, with water-surface blur transitions,which is rarely used, do not know why, because it is well crafted thing. 3. Using comedy actor which has comedy charisma to play one of major side rolls. Just his appearance provokes humor, which is essential for benevolent character of this like fairy tale story. 4. Ambient of orient, carefully picked scenery for scenes made near water manifest longings and cravings for love, freedom, better life, and emphasize the strong inner romantic feelings of protagonists...

This bright and colourful cannibalisation of several "Arabian Nights" style stories sees Jon Hall play the prince robbed of his birthright by the evil Mongol Khan and his uncle "Prince Cassim", who has fallen in with the 40 Thieves since childhood and is bent on avenging this treachery. Maria Montez provides the glamour (and an accent you could cut with a knife) as the feisty, independently-minded Princess as we embark on some fun adventures. Andy Devine is dreadful as "Abdullah" but Kurt Katch hams up nicely and entertainingly as "The Khan". The film looks great and some of the swashbuckling sword fights well staged, but the acting is wooden, the script more so and the score intrusive (almost as if it were written for a silent film). It's a decent filler performance, but not amongst the best of the genre.

I have a fairly sophisticated taste in cinema classics so I am a bit ashamed to rate this as one of my Favorite films of all time. I must cite first and foremost the sublime and under-rated masterpiece of a score by Edward Ward WHICH DESERVES A CD FOR SURE!!-Kurt Katch as Hulagu Khan is one of the screens most odious villains and the very fast pace all add to it's delight.....FOR ME-Weird, but not once in the entire film does handsome Jon Hall as Ali ever actually kiss Lady Amara, the exotic Maria Montez! Another bonus is the the vision of loveliness that is GORGEOUS Ramsay Ames as the incredibly HOT, sexy and traitorous lady in waiting Nalu who betrays her mistress-I just have to own up that GULP....I love this flick! PS-What a tragedy that Bagdad today is not the happy one that we find at this film's conclusion. SO SAD.

This movie is a colourful adventure movie that is greatly entertaining if you like this old technicolor style of Orientalist films. I mainly love it because of two things: fond childhood memories from a time when I even watched it on a black and white TV set in the mid-80s and [name=nm0700084]'s Prince Cassim.

This actor has played small parts in a couple of classic movies and often appeared alongside some of the big names of his days, but it is in this movie and a couple of later productions mainly that he got a chance to show more of his talent and skills. His expressions and his work with his voice are formidable and he is seriously underrated as his range of characters is pretty impressive. Not to speak about how he managed to make this villain character mean and miserable, contemptible and touching at the same time. His Prince Cassim to me has always been the character with the most depth in this film.

That said, the film is of course to be classified as strongly Orientalist and escapist, it never lets you forget that you're watching a piece of Hollywood fiction with main characters that are boringly one-sided (good or bad) and it avoids answering the most interesting question: What Ali would've done with Cassim if he had faced the decision as he was the father of Ali's beloved and future wife who - as a good daughter - still had a soft spot for her dad despite his awful misbehaviour. But all of this is part of the style of this sort of movies at the time and therefore I find it excusable.

On the other hand the interweaving of 13th century history with a tale from the 1001 nights is done in an amazingly apt manner as the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols is in fact attributed to the machinations of a treacherous vizier (along with an incompetent caliph) in some sources, the caliph was actually killed by the Mongols and there was indeed a fugitive who claimed to be a surviving member of the dynasty and subsequently continued the line of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad in Egypt. Therefore there might've been more knowledge at work than one would expect from this type of light entertainment and I'm wondering how they came to mix these ingredients with the Ali Baba story.

All things considered I rate this 8 out of 10 because my 21st century adult self is unable to overlook the issues listed above.

Technicolor fantasy about an overthrown prince , marvelous maidens , gorgeous princess , several happy-go lucky thieves and many other things . It deals with Ali and a gang of thieves doing battle against Hulagu Khan , leader of Mongols who wants the throne for himself and orders as a hundred citizens shall be tortured to death each day , until the head of the caliph is brought before him . Being children , the prince Ali , son of Caliph (Moroni Olsen) promises eternal love to Amara . But the Mongol Army destroys the city of Baghdad with help of prince Cassin (Frank Puglia) , father of Amara. Then Ali escapes and he shelters in a cave in which thieves hide their loot. A wily young enlist the aid of a band led by Baba (Fortunio Bonanova) and Abdulla (Andy Devine is fun as nursemaid lookalike) to outwit the Grand Mongol (Kurt Katch) and to save Baghdad and its citizens from death and ruin . One time grown-up Ali (John Hall) seeks vengeance and retrieve his lover (Maria Montez of Cobra woman , Arabian nights). Baghdad in the times of the Mongol invasion the Caliph has escaped , Khan orders find him , every day until he dies a hundred of his subjects will be tortured . And so far ten years the Mongols held Baghdad and the people died in agony and only the band of thieves made resistance. A bounty is offered , ten thousand pieces of gold for the body of Ali Baba and the destruction of the band of thieves by order of Hulagu Khan of the Mongols and ruler Baghdad.

Lavish spectacle and good casting overcomes the somewhat sluggish storytelling that combines a number of familiar ¨one thousand and one nights¨ tales . Technicolor adventure fantasy adorned by beautiful cinematography by Howard Greene and George Robinson , filmed on location in Coral Pink Sand Dunes Road, Kanab, Utah, and Red Rock Canyon State Park - Highway 14, Cantil, California, USA . Striking and evocative musical score by Edward Ward . This Universal spectacle is glamorously directed by Arthur Lubin (Thief of Bagdad , Phantom of Opera , Escapade in Japan, the mule Francis series ). Easy to take , it's a good rendition of this oft-told story