Thursday, June 28, 2012

Movie review - "Flame of Araby" (1951) **

Everyone's favourite Arab princess, Maureen O'Hara, is looking for love after her father carks it. She finds herself attracted to deep voiced, hunky Bedouin chief Jeff Chandler. The plot is complicated and a bit dim, but basically involves O'Hara trying to persuade Chandler to win a horse race so she'll be set free, so there's some swimming in an oasis, lots of 50s Universal urst, hammy acting, and no revolution or uprising. Indeed, there's a disappointing lack of action.

Chandler looks great with a terrific voice but he's not much of an actor and it shows here. O'Hara does her red haired spoilt spirited princess thing well - it's funny to see her so inappropriately Arabian. The support cast is top notch including Maxwell Reed, Lon Chaney Jnr, Susan Cabot and Buddy Baer.

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