La nuit du sérail

As Tulip dies, notice how carefully he handles the vase in his hands. This is, undoubtedly, due to the fact that the props were returned to Pier 1 the day after the shooting finished.

Intimate Power has yet to meet its full destiny on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Years ago I saw this as a late night movie, and have remembered it since. It is a haunting story. It begins with a flash-forward, an abduction of a priest. The rest of the move is a flash-back, explaining why he is abducted. A British woman is on a ship which is attacked by Muslims and taken captive, then sold to be in the harem of the king. The plot includes palace intrigue, loss of innocence and freedom, rules and resistance, jealousy and hate, war and death, survival and double cross, an unlikely romance, the bonds of love and devotion. I seem to remember that the story has some basis in historical fact, and would like to know more about that. Even having seen the movie only the one time, it was so unique and compelling that I recall the story and details to this day. Adult themes: Not a movie for children, but they are being exposed to worse. (I'm pleased to have found this movie on your list, since it is not well known.)

What I saw was a throwback to cliché-cluster flicks of decades ago, but the soundtrack puts it firmly in the eighties.

It is thumpingly and enormously awful, as wretched and phony a film as could be conceived. Tittering harem ladies a'bathing, stern Turks delivering script bits from the 100 Most Popular Stock Lines for the genre. They might as well have gone beyond the scattered skin peeks to a fuller soft-core intention -- all pillow-plush and pleasures in the sultan's palace, because that's already the quality/ambiance/performance level of much of this thin 'n cheesy production.

The producers may have scored the perfectly suited shooting location, but much else in the movie seems to be reaching for the furthest reaches of inauthenticity.

Admissions: There is amusement, even delight, in encountering something so consummately lame, in wondering who could work on it and think for a moment this embarrassment should be taken seriously. I really did laugh out loud a few times at this painfully acted, double-dreadfully written, obliviously directed caricature. Maybe I WOULD view a portion of it again, preferably with someone else. "Look!...watch this! Watch!"

And..I only made it through the early half. Turned away easily without even the tiniest rhinestone of regret. (A bug buzzing by in the living room could be diversion enough from this bungle.) Could be...could be that when it moved deeper into violence and intrigue, into dramatic seizures(!) of fate and steering of history, it took a turn toward something more engaging and more plausibly presented. Could happen...right?

This film has all the trappings of a B movie.

The costuming is remarkably bad (there's tulle and lame everywhere), the acting is hokey, and the writing a little less than mediocre.

But I _love_ this film nonetheless. I own it and watch it every now and again. I enjoy the cheesiness, and it's best enjoyed with a friend or two over drinks and hearty commentary and giggles. It's a wonderful orientalist film with glitter and glam mixed with quite a bit of fantasy.

It is based on a true story, and I am surprised every time to see it was actually filmed at Topkapi palace.

Although I can see where the dissers are coming from, I found this film charming. Yeah, the script and acting could have been better, but man, what a story! Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, cousin of the French Empress Josephine, captured by pirates and sold into the Turkish ruler's harem, in later life ends up transforming Turkey into the modern age through her son. She was known as the Sultan Valideh, the Veiled Power, and she made herself and her son a bridge to the West.

She must have been something and a half, and Amber O'Shea, with a pretty crappy script, somehow manages to sell it. And of course any harem run by F. Murray Abraham is my kind of harem.

All in all, a pleasant couple of hours. I await the REAL movie of Naksh, the Sultan Valideh.