La revanche d'Ali Baba

This very conventional oriental tale takes many characters from "the thousand and one nights " who ,with the exception of Ali Baba whose cave ,should we believe him,is used for the last time ,are not given a single chance to shine (to show their skills): Aladdin talks about his lamp,but this magical thing is no help for the oppressed; Simbad is not a sailor and has no monster to fight against;had Sheherazade been so devoid of imagination,she would not have hold her master's attention for thousand and one nights . Neela even hints at Delilah ,a biblical character ,who does not appear ,all the same.

This story is too derivative ,and there are many directors who did more exciting movies with "the thousand and one nights" inexhaustible material.

Round up the usual suspects! This Columbia Film Saturday Matinée "B" Sand and Sandle flick features Sinbad (Lon Chaney Jr.), Aladdin (Robert Clary), and Ali Baba (Phillip Zandt) as a supporting cast to a very miscast Paul Henreid. While the film was for the most part entertaining it lacked the ingredients of some of it's more formidable predecessors that featured the likes of Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Sabu, Jon Hall and various other Saturday Matinée icons of a much forgotten "B" "movies are better than ever past". This film was made after Lon Chaney Jr. grew tired of making "Wolfman" movies and demanded more versatile roles from Universal Studios. Consequently, he was released from his contract and wound up in a lot of these Columbia Technicolor wonders. On a personal basis, I had a lot of difficulty in accepting Paul Henreid as a "swashbuckling or sand and sandals" type of hero. I couldn't help the constant interruption of thinking of him as Victor Laszlo in the film "Casablanca", and the stunt double in the action scenes didn't look a bit like him. Another disrupting thought during the viewing was the fact that I kept thinking that many of the outdoor scenes seemed to be filmed at either the old Iverson Ranch or Corraganville (B Western Film Sets). The film uses all the wonderful gimmicks such as the magic door that opens when you say "Open Sessame!", complete with the 40 thieves and glorious Technicolor that make this film palatable. Give it a look for a pleasant visit to a "once upon a time" at the Saturday Matinée.

Everything is splendid in this sumptuous oriental adventure, built on all kinds of loose ends of Arabian nights with the action located in Persia in the 7th century. Paul Henreid is the hero, the general who gets defeated and dishonoured but who works his way back in glory, surrounded by three wonderful oriental ladies. There is a great musical score by John Leipold which underlines the extravagant phantasmagoria character, but the script is the best of all, brilliantly conceived with exquisite dialog all the way spiced with wonderful strokes of good and witty humour, and I don't think I have ever seen Paul Henreid this good. Lon Chaney Jr plays the joker Sinbad with Aladdin for a helpmate, it's all like a paraphrase of Michael Powell's "The Thief of Bagdad" two years earlier, and everything here reminds you of Michael Powell and his magic. It's the same vein, not equally sophisticated, but well enough to stand up for a good second. This film is a joy all through, and you will gladly return to it one day.

Both Universal and Columbia had Arabian Nights sets on their lots built for a couple of big budget epics they had done in the Forties, Universal for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Columbia for A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Because of those sets and the cost to construct them, the movie-going public was treated every year to at least one exotic Middle East tale of adventure.

The cycle at Columbia was starting to run down though with Thief of Damascus. Someone over at Columbia got the bright idea to take as many of the fabled characters from the Arabian Nights and put them into one film.

The plot such as it is involves Paul Henreid as the number one general of John Sutton as Khalid the Conqueror making a way too generous treaty with the sultan of Damascus. Since they don't call him the Conqueror for nothing, Sutton decides to take charge in the usual fashion.

Before the end of the film, Aladdin, Sinbad, Scherezade, and Ali Baba and those forty thieves make their appearance and bring about a general righting of wrongs.

This was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but sad to say the satire fell kind of flat. Besides Henreid and Sutton others who could barely keep a straight face are Elena Verdugo, Lon Chaney, Jr., Robert Clary, Philip Van Zandt, Helen Gilbert, and Jeff Donnell as a puffy cheeked Scherezade who looks like she has the mumps.

The idea was interesting, but it fell short of the mark.

1952's "Thief of Damascus" was a Columbia potboiler from producer Sam Katzman, scripted tongue in cheek with quotable lines aplenty. Evil conqueror Khalid (John Sutton) demands the arrest of his best general, Abu Amdar (Paul Henreid), simply for negotiating a treaty of surrender from the Sultan of Damascus, without his consent. With sword fights carefully sped up for the benefit of Henreid's stuntman, we get almost every character associated with the Arabian Nights- Robert Clary as Aladdin (minus lamp), Philip Van Zandt as Ali Baba, Jeff Donnell as the fetching Sheherazade, and Lon Chaney as Sinbad. Add Elena Verdugo as Neela and Helen Gilbert as Princess Zafir, all the girls provide quite a visual treat in color, but in all fairness, Howard Hughes didn't scrimp on the pulchritude when he cast so many beautiful wannabe starlets in his own "Son of Sinbad," casting Vincent Price as Omar Khayyam! (he later confided that it was indeed a very happy set). Speaking of Sinbad, 45 year old Lon Chaney looks both strong and healthy, hugely enjoying his comic sparring with Robert Clary, later on HOGAN'S HEROES, and it's nice to see him again alongside luscious Elena Verdugo, his old co-star from "House of Frankenstein" and "The Frozen Ghost" (her hair almost as long as Patricia Morison's). 'Miss Jeff Donnell,' as she was billed opposite Boris Karloff in her second film, 1942's "The Boogie Man Will Get You," was a longtime mainstay at Columbia, appearing in "The Power of the Whistler," "The Phantom Thief" (Boston Blackie), and "The Unknown" (I LOVE A MYSTERY); still only 29, she's as sexy a Sheherazade as any man could ask for. Too bad Khalid failed to ask.