Bagdad

The costumes, locations, and action make up for the thin plot in this story of a princess in search of her father's murderer. True, there are holes in the story, Maureen O'Hara as a red-haired Turkish princess takes a stretch of imagination, but the look of the film is wonderful. Vincent Price, as always, makes a menacing villain. One wishes there was more romance, however. A good time, nonetheless.

Lots of people don't know that Maureen O'Hara could sing. In fact, she had a beautiful soprano voice. There was no reason why she wasn't cast in The King and I or any other musical. If you want to hear her sing, you can look up some of her live performances online, or you can find the unknown old flick Bagdad.

The story and casting of Miss O'Hara makes no sense, but if you like Technicolor flicks set in the Arabian desert, you probably won't care. She plays an Arabian princess (yes, I know, with flaming red hair) who has been educated in England and is therefore more "civilized" than the other people in her village. However, when her father gets murdered, she forgets her European education and vows to get revenge. Along the way, she gets involved in a love triangle (because when you're avenging the murder of your father while trying to do your royal duty, you have time to date two men) between Vincent Price and Paul Christian. In the great Hollywood tradition, everyone in the cast is as white as they come, but some of them are made up to look Middle Eastern. Jeff Corey, Frank Puglia, Fritz Leiber, and John Sutton are certainly not from Bagdad. The costumes seem a bit silly, but no one will probably pay attention to them once they see Maureen show off her figure in her intricate outfits. This movie is for fans of hers, but not really for anyone else.

7 years after striking box-office gold with ARABIAN NIGHTS (1942), Universal were still milking the same exotic formula with moderate success; in fact, after the star of that film's female attraction (Maria Montez) started to wane, they called on fiery, red-headed Irish beauty Maureen O'Hara – who had already appeared in RKO's SINBAD THE SAILOR (1947; co-starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) – to fill in her shoes in BAGDAD and, later on, FLAME OF ARABY (1951; co-starring Jeff Chandler) which I have yet to catch up with. The threadbare plot line of English-educated Arab princess O'Hara seeking revenge on the leader of the "Black Robes" – for causing her father's death after letting him down in battle against a confusing number of rival Arab tribes! – is nothing to write home about but, thankfully, this is made up for by an agreeably camp attitude that permeates the whole film and makes the viewing more enjoyable than it ought to be. O'Hara makes for a fetching heroine in her Technicolored exotic attire (including one in which she seems to have a drape attached to her head gear!) and, despite her royal heritage, she even gets to belt out 3 operatic songs in a tavern and impersonate a gypsy dancer out in the desert!; villainous Turkish Pasha Vincent Price keeps slapping everybody around and, bafflingly, has his right eyelid almost completely closed the whole time!; Paul Christian (aka Paul Hubschmid of Fritz Lang's famed "Indian Epic" diptych), sporting a distracting Austrian accent, is another Arab 'misfit' prince with a chameleon-like personality that sees him being, alternately, a guest and a fugitive in Price's palace; John Sutton – whom I will soon get the chance to see in similar surroundings in the notoriously cheap Sam Katzman production of THIEF OF DAMASCUS (1952) – plays yet another Arab chieftain whom greed and ambition has not only turned into Price's partner-in-crime but also the leader of the Black Robes; renowned character actor Jeff Corey is O'Hara's ill-tempered associate, etc. Unfortunately, the video quality of the copy I landed is far from optimal (hazy and slightly washed-out) but still serviceable under the circumstances given that, due to the current international political and financial climate, the emergence of such films on legitimate DVD editions is growing remoter with each passing day! Having said that, I look forward to getting my hands on more lightweight, nostalgic stuff in the same vein in the future.

Bagdad is a Hollywood B movie from the 1940's that was given an unusually generous budget which covered its production in Technicolor as well as the services of three actors already recognised as stars, Vincent Price, Maureen O'Hara and John Sutton. This presumably indicates the Studio bosses who approved production felt they had a better than average script, capable of generating a very successful movie. More realistically, the script was the turkey that prevented real success and with less generous budgetary decisions it would have sunk without trace within a few months of its release.

Four extant IMDb User Comments on this film point out that Maureen O'Hara did not look like a Turkish Princess, an Arabian, an Iraqi, or a Bedouin Arab. These commentators were right in all four cases, she looked like the pale skin, redheaded Caucasian beauty she actually was. But two interesting observations follow - firstly the story in this film was so confused that, even among the relatively few comments already on this database, her character has been assigned four different nationalities; and secondly it seems strange the production budget could not even cover the cost of darkening her hair and skin (or that of co-stars Vincent Price , Paul Christian and John Sutton) - surely a minimal demand for the make-up department. Such discrepancies abound throughout this film and rob it of any validity as a serious work. Its setting is the pre-World War I Ottoman empire, but the language is (erratically) similar to the high society English of the early Georgian period and does not match the story any better than the makeup. The stars all appear to have been well aware of these deficiencies and, recognising that the film would almost certainly finish up being classified as a turkey, they decided not to attempt to compensate for them, but instead to overact outrageously -chewing up the scenery in grand style so that a fun time could be had by all. This type of film usually disappears quickly and totally soon after its release; instead Bagdad is still with us (both as a VHS tape and periodically on cable television) because they did this so effectively that, once we have accepted exactly what is being presented, we can still settle down and have a lot of fun watching it once in a while.

It has been said this was Maureen O'Hara first real starring role. Most of her fans would not accept this, but it was one that provided her with an exceptional opportunity which she seized with both hands and feet. Not only beautiful but active and athletically graceful, she is a pleasure to watch. Her fiery temperament only adds to the fun, and watching her outwit all her very threatening adversaries probably appeals to most children of all ages. Vincent Price, as the deadliest of these, plays up to her as only he can. Overall this may not be the most convincing recipe for creating a collectible film, but after accepting its limitations (and with appropriate acknowledgments to some excellent work behind the camera) I must recognise that in this instance it appears to have largely succeeded. For me, a VCD of 'Bagdad' remains a minor but still enjoyable part of my home video collection, even though NOT to be found among my historical films.

A memorable film from several points. The color was terrific; the songs that Maureen O'Hara trilled had style; the costumes were overdone; the acting and dialogue, with all those "thee's" and "thou's" were unbelievable. Maureen must have been in Elizabethan England before returning to Bagdad. I really think the whole crew, including writers, must have had a hilarious time making this screwy movie. It is so bad, it is good.