The Wizard of Baghdad

I happened on this film simply because the TV was on and the FMC channel on cable happened to be showing it this one Sunday. The credits scene was of Dick Shawn riding on a magic carpet singing the intro song. I was intrigued. The previous review is right on point, I can only add that this appears to have been a vehicle for Dick Shawn and is really not much more notable otherwise. It has that pastel look of "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T" or "Forbidden Planet", and is simply typical of that era. One interesting line is that in the first ten minutes of the film Shawn has an audience with William Edmonson ("Asmodeus", King of the Genies) through a looking glass, Edmonson remarks that "...Baghdad will become the center of the World!" How prophetic film can be in 1960.

I saw this film in 1964 during a re-run at the local cinema in Bangalore, India. I was 9 years old at the time and thought that the film was great fun. That's it; it is basically a juvenile film and should be seen as such, not deeply analyzed from an adult perspective.

Oddly enough, I remembered two scenes from the film that helped me to track it down 50 years later. First was the sequence where the boy prince escapes in a basket and is wounded in the process. Second, the wrestling scene where the prince, now a strong young man, flattens the Caliph's court wrestler in a bout. Good memories from a bygone era!

I'm sure it's a delight for little children, especially since there is a wise talking horse, a flying carpet, a prince and a princess, and a tiny Aladdin appears for a few moments. I wanted to see the movie because of the lead actor, Dick Shawn, who gave the title of the movie, which I fell in love with when I saw him in "The Producers" by Mel Brooks. The role of L.S.D. - Lorenzo St. DuBois from "The Producers" is one of the greatest comedy roles ever, an absolute delight. But in this Wizard of Baghdad, he's disappointing. Diane Baker, the princess, very young and very beautiful, an actress I have admired in so many other movies (and much better roles), she remains the only reason to watch the film. A star only for her.

I saw this movie as a 7 year old and thought it was great. I was not worried about plot and great acting. As a child I saw it as fun. Pre Harry Potter Magic, good vs evil. If you are going to judge it as an adult, pan it all you want, but if you see it a a film a child might enjoy, you might get a totally different point of view. Your children might enjoy it more than "Citizen Kane" or "On the Waterfront". There are a lot of great movies out there, and I could care less if Dick Shawn's acting wasn't perfect or the script was terrible. I wanted to be entertained and as a child I was. I really don't think this was a movie made for an adult audience. Who cares if you could see the wires or they used co2 to simulate clouds. It was the 60's. Star Wars had not changed the way we looked at special effects. Like the old Flash Gorden Serials or Superman of the 40's. They were what they were, and kids loved them.

Cheap, shoddy, lamebrained Sam Katzman production (now there's a redundancy) with Dick Shawn a genie assigned to unite two lovers and help them overthrow the usurper who now rules Baghdad. Shawn is an acquired taste, and you won't acquire it by watching him in this. He hams it up to the extreme with his hipster routine (it worked a few years later when he did it in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Producers" but it doesn't work here at all) and opens the film doing a painfully embarrassing and flat-out stupid song-and-dance number called "Eenie Meenie Genie," and further embarrasses himself later on in an even more idiotic number where he sings, jumps and pirouettes in front of the assembled court. The performances by such usually reliable character actors as John Van Dreelen, Vaughn Taylor and Don Beddoe reflect their apparent embarrassment at being stuck in this picture (if you've noticed the word "embarrassed" being used a lot in this review, it's intentional), the direction by the usually competent George Sherman is almost nonexistent, the sets appear to be made of cardboard, the "action" scenes are laughable . . . in other words, the entire picture is a dud. Avoid it.