Le meraviglie di Aladino

Pairing Henry levin (who made the best "journey to the center of the earth " that had ever been ) and Mario Bava (whose best fantasy and horror movies such as "i tre volti della paura" have remained memorable ) promised great things ;but these promises remained on hold.

It cannot hold a candle to "the thief of Baghdad " (1940) from which it borrowed the automaton (a murderous sexy girl) ;firts of all,Donald O' Connor is at least twice Alladin's age ;a cosmopolitan cast does not help :To support the American actor , Italians (De Sica as the genius in the bottle) ,and FRench comedians (Noelle Adam ,Michèle Mercier ,future Angélique )

Magis is absent all along the way ,but the film is not devoid of sadism : the soldier handed to the blood-thirsty automaton,people ending for lunch to the lions ;and what have the Amazons, who come from Greek mythology, got to do in "one and a thousand nights"?Why not Hercules or the mummy when they are at it?

The screenplay is muddled and desultory .

The wise adults would pass this up and watch the 1940 work or Pasolini's 1974 version,the latter not suitable for the children audience.

I first saw this in the early 90s. Revisited it recently. This film hasn't aged well. It has some good comedy, decent effects, hell lottuva babes n a funny faced Sultan (Aldo Fabrizi). It even has Terence Hill in a tiny role n the intimidating wrestler Milton Reid (Dr. No and The Spy Who Loved Me).

adventures, Arabian Nights, game with a fairy tale, Vittoro de Sica as charming genie and childish joy . nothing new, nothing special. but a nice work. for the spirit of a time. for nostalgic memories. for a young Terence Hill as prince. for the love story. for bad guys. all at perfect place. like a summer afternoon in park. games, laughter, ironies, pleasure as only rule. a comedy like an old picture. the dust of time, the figures of few people, the air of a beautiful past, the image of childhood. so, it is not a bad or good film. it is. like a sign of a form of art. or passing years. like a circle of dust and voices. like need of a form, not very complicated, to escape from present. imagination of director is part of your vision about lost heroes and strange adventures. so, it is not a great error to see it.

I had the remarkable experience of seeing this in a theatre. A local dollar movie got a copy of it about the time Disney's Aladdin came out and sh0wed it for matinees one weekend. Strangely, they didn't also get the LENS they needed for the widescreen presentation so it was all crunched horizontally and everybody was half as wide or twice as tall as normal. Add that to the fact that the movie itself is kind of dopey and absurd, with lots of good actors wasting their efforts, and the INSANE use of Vittorio De Sica playing the genie as a guy standing around in a choir robe, in footage shot elsewhere probably in about half an hour, and just matted into a cloud in the corner of the screen, and I'd classify this as one of the most frightening Mario Bava movie I've ever seen.

This movie has a high '60s camp factor. The Arabian Nights theme of movies certainly opens itself up to it, with its navel-jewel-wearing harem girls and all. You can tell the dubbing's not up to par (and it seems like Donald O'Connor was the only one speaking English on the set). But it does entertain as much as any goofy Italian movie can.