Joyously silly Eastern starring everyone's favourite Arab princess, red-headed Piper Laurie, who is one in a long line of female aristocrats who dress up as a boy and falls for handsome Rock Hudson, one in long line of poor but honest country men avenging their father's death. Rock looks a little odd when we first meet him in Arab head-dress but fortunately the filmmakers get him out of it as soon as possible. They also don't extend the thing of Rock thinking Piper is a guy so you can't read too much Rock Hudson stuff into it.
The plot borrows liberally from Arthurian tales - while Rock is avenging dad and Piper avenges her father from being knocked off by the perennial evil adviser, there's also an all-powerful sword which can cut up anything and gets stuck in a stone. There's even a jousting competition. It's done with energy, flair and lots of fabulous 50s Universal photography and colour. Oh, and a decent support cast too including George Macready. Rock is square jawed and charismatic and Piper very pretty. There's a weird dream dance sequence in the middle which was presumably inserted to pad out the short running time - or maybe such things were just popular.
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