Simbad, O Tirano do Deserto

Many years ago, I saw some stills in magazines back in the 1960s from this movie but was never able to find it. I wasn't even convinced it was an actual movie. Then it turned up on the Italian Cinema Channel and later in English. Making the search harder was the fact, it was shown with about 10 different titles, which made it harder to track down. However, it is an actual movie. Carla Calo (Carol Brown), usually plays a bad person but here she has lots of make-up and plays Gordon Mitchell's love interest and looks great. Bella Cortez always looks delightful. Watch it and you might be surprised. I have posted some new stills in the Gallery. There is a good copy available on Y/T. Larry Anderson.

Omar (Gordon Mitchell) intends to be the winner of a tournament to the death between the 8 leaders of the desert tribes. His most despised opponent is Sinbad (Dan Harrison, dubbed 'Alibaba' in the English version). Sinbad is in love with the beautiful princess Fatima (Bella Cortez), and when they both fall into the hands of Omar, he promises to Sinbad: "You are going to die a slow and agonizing death in personal combat, and Fatima is going to watch you die!" However, that has to wait until the tournament, and a lot could happen until then...

For a cheap oriental adventure, typical genre work of a little known director (Emimmo Salvi), this is surprisingly watchable. Surely the English version suffers a bit from the cuts, the Italian version was more than 10 minutes longer. But the camera work makes the fight scenes or the horse-cart race at the tournament look pretty good and Gordon Mitchell has a menacing, strong presence (he worked with the same director again in '3 Bullets For Ringo'). Nothing special, but acceptable.

Imagine a cheap peplum yarn with the loincloths replaced by colourful glittery clothes and what you have is ALI BABA AND THE SEVEN SARACENS, an often hilarious and entertaining far eastern adventure yarn, Italian-style, which follows as familiar a plot as there is. The good guys get captured, escape, are captured again and escape to triumph. Lots of action punctuates the story whilst characters change allegiance and friendships grow. From the very beginning you know that the bad guys are going to get what they deserve and the good guys are going to live happily ever after, but there's enough going on here to make you forget about the storyline.

It's clear that there wasn't a lot of money around to make this production, so director Emimmo Salvi cuts corners by filming in a quarry somewhere in Italy and on some really cheap sets on occasion. In fact most of the action takes place in one location, a castle and its huge courtyard, so don't expect any lush eastern backdrops as the title might suggest. The different setting is never exploited at all; change the characters and costumes and this might as well be a peplum film, the story is so straightforward and simple. There are even gladiator fights and chariots, so one surmises that the far eastern angle was tacked on to make it a bit more intriguing than your standard peplum film.

The never heard-of Rod Flash stars as Ali Baba, and is about as wooden and uninteresting as you could get in a peplum film; personally I prefer my Italian hero to be a strongman (unless it's Cameron Mitchell) so Flash makes little or no impression. His thunder is stolen by Gordon Mitchell, who gives a fantastically over-the-top performance of scenery chewing as Omar, the evil bad guy. Mitchell delivers his cruel dialogue with relish and really seems to be having the ball, instantly adding to the entertainment value of the film. Also hanging around and looking voluptuous is Bella Cortez, a peplum mainstay and as beautiful as ever here. Amusing supporting characters include a guy with one of the most hilarious depictions of a nervous tic in screen history, and a wisecracking comic-relief dwarf who spends the entire running time crawling around in air vents like some miniature Bruce Willis.

Although the story is less than impressive, the action scenes are fluent and entertaining. Their simplicity gives them a raw power which I liked and you always know that somebody is going to fight in the next five minutes, so things never become boring. The finale involves a huge uprising against Mitchell and his soldiers which ends with a fantastically gory gag, much to the viewers enjoyment. On top of this, there's an over-the-top music score which goes out of its way to be exciting and plenty of bad dubbing to be enjoyed (!). All in all a fun way to spend eighty minutes with a cheesy Italian adventure yarn.

in the version i saw, ali baba and the seven saracens, the actors did not so much "act" as they walked around and shouted lines in the ear of the person standing next to them --- lines such as "swine dog, if i ever see your face again i will kill you. now go away and fetch me my dinner" and "no, really, nothing is wrong. AAAAA!!! AAAA!!! no, its nothing. AAAA!!! AAA!!! AAA!!! i tell you its nothing. AAAA!!!"

however it may not be the fault of the actors, considering the english dubbing is worse than any japanese horror flick.

ali baba falls in love with a girl who saves his life. he soon gets captured (read: gets knocked out by getting hit in the head by a pole) which stalls his chances to overthrow omar, a clint eastwood type who broods a lot, yells a lot, and likes to walk around topless. off the the dungeon goes ali baba.

meanwhile omar discovers that in order to become accepted by the magi and become faja (your guess is as good as mine) he must fight the saracens when "the moon blocks the light of the sun."

before i continue i must mention the orchestration which seems to go by the rule "fill any silence with a horn and a cymbal" and on occasion you can actually hear the dialogue clearly.

okay. while fatima, the girl ali baba loves, is taken to a dungeon over-seen by a shawl-encrusted nymph with a whip, ali baba befriends a midget who is impressed by ali's manliness. the midget, named "jookie", crawls through the air vents (!!!) and comes upon the dungeon where fatima is. he interrupts their conversation about eunichs (!!!) to tell them of an escape plan at midnight and by "midnight" he means "noon" since all the action takes place during the day. then comes the escape which leaves poor jookie tear-ridden.

there is a swordfight. fatima leads ali baba behind a decorative pillar and kisses him. omar emerges and smacks a few people around while flashing his nipples at the camera. wow. this is in the first 45 minutes!

as for rating the film i must say i was entertained quite a bit by the lack of talent all around. the ms3k value is high so watching with a group of people with that in mind might be a good idea.

Ali Baba and the seven Saracens is one of the Italian made flicks with no budget and god-awful dubbing. So why bother? Two words; Bella Cortes. Huzzah, what a babe! She puts most other women in these sword and sandal flicks to shame. Plus shes kind and sweet and the only actor in this who doesn't feel the need to shout every line of dialog.

The plot, if you can find one, concerns Ali Baba ( or it might be Sinbad) seeking to get the Golden Throne away from Omar the tyrant. Actually Gordon Mitchell play Omar pretty well, its just no motivation is ever given for his brutality. For that matter Ali Baba never seems very heroic either. Still there are some fun scenes, Jukki the midget is a different hero and the whipping of the harem girls and the half-crazed but good-hearted Eunnich is fun. The music here is very close to the themes heard in "The BLue Rose" with Steve Reeves. Same composer? This is probably more fun to watch with a group so you can boo and hiss at the appropriate times. The big plus here is Bella Cortez as Fatima, wow! For that alone, its worth a look.