As Aventuras de Hajji Baba

At least, in France, this adventure film from One Thousand and One Nights tales was very famous, and I understand why after watching it. Full of charm because of the photograpjy, production design, music score and above all Nat King Cole's song. No matter the story, the plot, focus only on the overall film, not details. The best material from director Don Weis, forget the rest. Anyway this director was especially a TV director, more than a big screen film maker. Even if his real influence was not important for this film, it is still a good adventure film and it is very important to consider it in terms of other movies of this kind, as good - but different though - as the Universal ones from the forties and fifties, starring Maria Montez and Jon Hall or Yvonne De Carlo or Maureen O'Hara.

Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke as the savage leader of a band of scantily clad, horse back riding amazon warriors.

One very mean princess.

A trick horse.

Arab barbers.

Harem girls.

Camels, donkeys and lots of horses.

Desert sands, rugged mountains, oasis.

Colorful wardrobes of many brilliant colors.

All of this set to the wonderful and haunting lyrics of Nat King Cole.

The Adventures of Hajji Baba is remotely based on the book by a British writer James Morier who was actually raised in a harem and later served as an English diplomat at the court of the sultan of Iran in the first part of the 19th century. The book called The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan enjoyed quite a success at the time of its release in 1824 not only in England but also in Iran, the fact that encouraged the author to write a sequel called The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan in England where our hero is sent to learn its customs and way of life. This film version hasn't borrowed much from the book except perhaps the name of the main character – Hajji Baba (played by John Derek) and his profession – the barber whose banal, but sweet story we follow as he runs of with a beautiful but very capricious princess Fawzia (Elaine Stewart) who tries to escape from marriage to a man she isn't really crazy about which is imposed by her authoritative father Khalif (Donald Randolph) who is not particularly inclined to consider his daughter's opinion regarding choosing her lifetime partner especially when his power and monetary interests are at stake. But the main Hajji Baba's interest in helping the fugitive princess lies not in her attractive physical appearances but in a ring with a priceless emerald in it, which she happens to possess and which Hajji happens to covet. But gradually a struggle ensues inside of our hero's heart as about the change in the flow of his preferences to the girl instead of the emerald, which are also fed by the attraction the princess feels each time stronger towards the irresistible barber.

While all this internal fight is going on, our heroes come through numerous adventures most excitingly dangerous of them being caught by a band of beautiful women-outlaws several of whom were once Fawzia's personal servants who managed to escape mainly from princess' ill temper and promptly turned into bandits.

Overall Adventures of Hajji Baba is an ultimate what can be called sex and sand adventure comedy with a lot of beautiful women and sand in it all filmed in larger than life Cinemascope, which somehow covers the films poor story and is significantly helped by a pleasant title song performed by Nat King Cole which can be heard several times throughout the film - `Hajji, Hajji, Hajji, Hajji, Hajji Baba, Hajji Baba.' 7/10

The technical quality of this example of exotica is superb. This is probably the best looking exotica movie produced by Hollywood in the 50s, far more lavish looking than Rock Hudson's The Golden Blade. The attack of the Amazons in the desert is astonishing with the women standing on their racing horses and strangling male soldiers with a garrot.

A classic "B" movie from the 50's, this film features numerous women dressed up like a Vargas painting. I don't remember much about the movie other than a slave girl gets tied down to a table and the soles of her feet are lightly cropped, that Haji encounters a band of Amazon-style women warriors, and that Elaine Stewart's character is captured and bound to a frame until Haji comes to her rescue. No nudity, no harsh language, nothing offensive, just the usual damsels in distress. Since the film was made in the fifties, you can bet that those scanty costumes are sewn onto flesh-colored bodysuits. Still, the slave girl cropping is a bit risque for the time and may be worth seeing.