La rosa di Bagdad

I saw this film at a children's Saturday morning matinée in 1958. I was bowled over by it, and have tried to find it, but it has never resurfaced. The basic story is the usual tale of Arabian Nights princess escapes a wicked Vizier, is saved by a good looking lad and it all ends well. It has never appeared on video - even though the voice of the young Julie Andrews would surely be guarantee of a decent sale if only out of curiosity. Is the film lost, I wonder? Julie Andrews was a child prodigy, and at the time this film was made was doing the rounds of the music halls which were then in the process of dying away in the face of competition from films and (eventually) television. Her singing and acting were marvelous - although she must only have been about 12 at the time.

Pretty similar to the classic tale of Aladdin, you'll see a beautiful young princess with a bumbling father who's influenced by the powerful magician Jafar, and all in the exotic Arabian locale. You'll see a little boy who tries to save the day and win the heart of the princess, but he needs the help of a genie in a lamp. But most important is what you'll hear: a fourteen-year-old Julie Andrews. Anyone who has heard her sing "I Could Have Danced All Night" knows she had a significantly more grandiose voice than she utilized for the rest of her career, but until you've heard her singing opera as a teenager, you won't know the full extent of her operatic potential. She "dummied down" her voice for the next forty years to appeal to the general public, but you can imagine the types of songs she would have sung if she hadn't.

The Singing Princess really isn't great. It's an Italian cartoon dubbed in English, and it's obviously made with cultural differences. There are large portions when you'll be rolling your eyes hoping Julie Andrews will show up again soon, so you really have three options: fast-forward the scenes she isn't in, hang in there, or skip the movie and find old recordings online of her teenage splendor.

Actually, I have _not_ seen this film. I just want to point out that it is _not_ lost and has be transferred to video.

I did an amazon.com search and found several listings for the film

I can't link to the amazon site. This group considers that "too long" a word. However if you search for "The Singing Princess," you should be able to find it.

I'm trying to present this information, but IMDb wants "ten" lines of text with no junk.

I don't want to get into trouble, but I don't have a lot else to say on the matter.

If you're interested, I hope this is of use to you.

This was Julie Andrews first movie and she made it when she was only 14 years old. Since it's animated you of course don't see her face but her voice is very recognizable. It has a typical plot with the typical good-guy-saves-the-day sort of thing. It's very similar to Aladdin in many ways. I didn't find it particularly interesting but it was still cool to hear Julie singing when she was so young! One dis-advantage was that the film was very bad quality because it was made so long ago. Overall a very sweet movie but I would only recommend it to young children and Julie's biggest fans! It's hard to get a hold of so if your looking for it go to www.half.com

Like I said, animation is an art form, and in a few countries in the world, there are some excellent animations. In this beautifully animated film, the beautiful princess Zelia is betrothed to the cruel sheik Jafar, thanks to the power of a magic ring given by his sorcerer. And so, her minstrel/friend Armin uses Aladdin's lamp to rescue her.

Julie Andrews, in her film and voice-acting debuts, supplies the voice of Zelia in the film. The film was originally made in Italy in 1949 and later released in an English-language version around 1952; my very first glimpse of Italian animation was the TV series Winx Club. The influence of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is clearly evident in the film's look, the plot, and the characters.

As I said, I am starting to love fantasy movies (animated or live-action) set in Arabia. My favorite characters from the film are Calina, Armin's little magpie, and the princess herself too. You know, not many discuss the Non-Disney Princesses, and I have added Zelia to the list I had made of the Non-Disney Princesses: Glory from Gulliver's Travels; Odette from The Swan Princess; Thumbelina from Don Bluth's film version of the story; YumYum from The Thief and the Cobbler; Anastasia; and Kayley from Quest for Camelot. So overall, I really love this rare animated film.