Movie review - "The Golden Arrow" (1962) **

 The axing of his TV show saw Tab Hunter make his inevitable way to Italy, like so many faded stars of his era. He never got his groove back but he stayed in leads for the next decade.

This has great production values and gorgeous colour. The story is in fits and starts, never quite gets its tone - part fantasy, part Robin Hood. There's some comic genies, one would've done. Rosanna Podessta is pretty as the girl the rest of the cast is indistinguished.

It looks fantastic. Hunter is alright but not quite comfortable in this world. It's weird - Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson suited it more. In his defence he's dubbed. But also he was looking like an ageing juvenile now.

Movie review - " Omar Khayyam" (1957) **

 Universal pumped out a bunch of Easterns in the 40s and 50s with stars like Tony Curtis and Maria Montez. Columbia made some too including One Thousand and One Nights which like this starred Cornel Wilde.

This one is from Paramount and it's a sluggish piece - William Dieterle was towards the end of his Hollywood career, and I sense he had ambitious above the station of this material, which should be a junky fast paced action film that joyously distorted history. This one tiredly distorted history. I don't recall a film that discussed military tactics so much. Like, wh cares?

Dieterle was famed for his Warners biopics and maybe that approach would have worked here but they've gone the action/romance route.

Wilde plays the title role who impresses ruler Raymond Massey with some poems but also his military strategy.

John Derek is fourth billed in a thankless role as Massey's son. You could cut him out of the film.

A much better part is Michael Rennie's villain - based on a real dude, head of the order of assassins... and a film focusing around that would've been more fun. Debra Paget is The Girl. 

Cornel Wilde's career had interesting parallels with John Derek incidentally - both starred in Easterns, both under contract to Columbia and Fox, Wilde turned down the part Derek played in Ten Commandments, both did swashbucklers, both turned director.

Dull.

Movie review - "The Adventures of Haji Baba" (1955) ***

 Allied Artists got CinemaScope for this and The Warriors with Errol Flynn. This is the more fun - it was produced by Walter Wagner, returning to Easterns which gave him such success with Arabian Nights. This was a hit too - maybe the most profitable film starring John Derek? He's not bad in the lead, a barber (?) who goes off to seek his fortune. He crosses with an escaped princess - Elaine Stewart, who I'm not that familiar with, but is terrific, long limbed and full of fun. Also fun are the all girl tribe of bandits.

The other roles feel slightly undercast but it has nice colour, a Nat King Cole theme song, plenty of action, with torture and dancing girls. Don Weis directed.

Movie review - "Sudan" (1945) *** (re-watching)

 I'd be curious to know the development of this script. It starts out like a more stock Jon Hall-Maria Montez romance, with Montez as a queen sold into slavery by evil George Zucco. She is rescued by Jon Hall and Andy Devine, and I assume Devine was standing in for Sabu.

But then along comes Turhan Bey, who rescues Montex from some attackers... and Bey and Montex have this romance (It's implied they have sex).  Then Montez, Hall and Devine go back to the palace, Zucco leads a coup... and it's Hall who is tortured, and escapes and helps rescue Montez. And they get Bey.

There's a genuine love triangle because Hall loves Montez... but Bey is heroic too. And at the end Bey goes off with Montez - and she seems quite happy about it. Yet Hall gets a lot of sympathy (and second billing).  Bey is a bit wet to be an action hero - that careful enunciation is better suited for lounges.

Zucco offers expert villainy the sets and photography are fantastic. There's some impressive spectacle. Some dances and action.

Movie review - "Arabian Nights" (1942) *** (re-viewing)

 A cheerful knock off of Thief of Bagdad - plenty of colour and movement, beautiful photography. Maria Montez plays the one sort of role she could play - a haughty danger. The script gleefully pillages old myths and stories: Montez plays Scherenadze, there's comic support characters Aladdin and Sinbad, plus Jon Hall as a secret prince and Sabu helping out. There's a fair bit of torture - Turnhan Bey appears as a cad who is tortured, and some other bloke is on the rack too.

Some action, dancing girls, a big fight. It set the template for the later Universal Easterns with Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson..

John Rawlins directed. He's not very famous but he does a dcent job. The studio techs are probably more to be praised.

Movie review - "The Lion Man" (1936) **

Cheapie which was I think the first leading role for Jon Hall. That's how he was billed in the version I saw but I think that was a re-release after Hall became famous. Hall was billed as "Charles Loucheur".

It's stuff about a man who goes to live in a desert with his kid. He is killed (quite sad to see the boy embracing his dad's corpse) and he is raised by another Arab. It's similar to stuff Hall/Loucheur later made with Maria Montez: there's a white woman, a native woman hot for him.

I saw a poor copy of it - the photography was lousy. The handling is awkward and clunky. Hall is amiable - handsome, virile, all that. He doesn't appear until 30 minutes in (it's a one hour movie) but holds the screen.

I had read this was based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs story but apparently it wasn't and Burroughs sued them to try and get the name changed because he thought people would think it was based on Tarzan and the Lion or The Lad and the Lion. See here. Eventually they came to a settlement where they agreed that it was based on the story see here.

Ride of the Valkyries is used on the soundtrack. Presumably music stock.

Movie review - "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1973) ***

Seventies fantasy films that aren't sci fi don't have the high reputation of say the 50s and 60s ones but this is grand fun - family entertainment in the best sense. Jon Phillip Law isn't terribly charismatic as Sinbad - he could do a bland-off with Kerwin Matthews. He ads a beard and an accent but it doesn't help.

However Caroline Munro is fun as the slave girl with a shapely figure and perennial pout and Tom Baker was born to play the villain in this sort of movie (presumably he liked the fact so many of his scenes were shot in one room, conjuring spells and sending evil things off to do his bidding... but he does join in the action at the end.) Martin Shaw is Sinbad's BFF.

I wish Munro had been given more to do - after an introduction which seems to promise she'll be prominent, she drops out of the action - and less screen time had been devoted to Takis Emmanuel who is meant to be wacky cowardly comic relief but doesn't quite pull it off, at least not to me.

Strong production value, fun effects and like most of these Harryhausen movies they cleverly stack the action at the end so the last third is almost pure action. Memorable stuff too including a fight with multi-armed Kali.

Movie review - "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958) *** (re-watching)

It's not hard to see how this captured the hearts and minds of baby boomers who saw it as children - I think if you didn't see it then you'll be less impressed but it has plenty of charm, gorgeous colour and the Harryhausen effects are great fun.

Kerwin Matthews is a little bland as the hero but he's fine. Kathryn Grant is a cutey as his love interest - she gets to be more involved, going along on the trip, although it's because she's shrunk. Torin Thatcher is a glowering magician - he's not very nice!

The film starts off like a sequel - Sinbad is with his love, he's engaged, he's respected. Then he gets sidetracked with monsters. The film doesn't really get going for me until Grant is shrunk and the stakes shoot up.  The stuff hanging around the palace was dull but once the expedition started this was solid.

It has a serious, adult tone at times - several of Sinbad's men are killed, they mutiny, people are roasted on a spit, you're constantly expecting Thatcher to betray Sinbad, the men kill a bird by roasting it and are killed by the bird's mother.

There's always something happening - Cyclops, a sword fight with a skeleton, a boy genie, an egg with a creature inside, fights between creatures, caverns, dragons, magic lamps, huge crossbows. It's a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Aladdin" (2019) **1/2

Another live action remake which the public loved. It's heavy and bloated with some underwhelming actors but benefits from the strong original story, and good performances from Will Smith and Naomi Scott (Jasmine). There are bright colours and it's weird to see the Genie in a romance. It doesn't feel very Guy Ritchie.

Movie review - "Thief of Bahgdad" (1961) **

Steve Reeves puts his clothes on for this version of the popular tale which benefits from location filming in Tunisia. There's color and movement but the script is wonky - it takes too long to get started and was confusing with erratic dubbing. The cast are of decent quality - Reeves isn't very expressive but the support cast I mean.

I feel the fantasy elements were introduced too late - it's like they're all in the second half.

Movie review - "Night in Paradise" (1946) *

This was a hard slog. True, I didn't see a very good print but I got the gist of the story, which was long, boring and dull. Also confusing. 

I wasn't sure what time period this was set in. I'd heard about Aesop and Croesus, but the film had a la la land time and place, not in a good way.

The story is convoluted - Aesop turns up in disguise, there's Merle Oberon as a princess, Aesop turns handsome... it's like Beauty and the Beast in reverse. I wasn't sure what was going on or what the stakes were. It goes on forever. There's not enough Gale Sondegaard villainy. There's too much bland Merle Oberon and blander Turhan Bey - if you like them you'll enjoy this more. I missed Maria Montez and Jon Hall. Those films had action and excitement - also Sabu brought a lot to the party. Not so here.

Ugh. Yuck.

Movie review - "Arabian Adventure" (1979) **1/2

I had vague memories of watching this has a child at the drive in - a film with flying carpets, genies, little kids and so on... for a time I wasn't sure it existed, but figured out this was it.

Its curiously not well know while other Kevin Connor-John Dark collaborations are... It was also a long time out of circulation. Which is weird because the piece obviously has value as a family perennial.

Handsome production values. The guy who plays the kid is good. Chris Lee has a fine old time as an evil vazir.. Mickey Rooney pops up in a wordless cameo which is fun; Peter Cushing also has a small role. There's also two familiar American-actors-in-English-films-of-the-70s, John Ratzenberger and Shane Rimmer.

The romantic leads are Olivier Tobias and Emma Samms who are individually fine but there's too much of an age gap between them. They needed to age him down or age her up.

The story is also wonky -they didn't play close enough attention to those 40s and 50s Easterns. Samms just hangs around instead of participating in the action and there's too many scenes of Lee watching the action on an old Arabian style version of a TV. It's a wonky story.

Still it looks good and kids should like it.

Movie review - "Slave Girl" (1947) **1/2

Late 40s Yvonne de Carlo film from Universal which I thought would be more fun than it was especially after I heard the film was reshot to add more comedy including adding a talking camel. The talking camel inserts feel really clunky and dumb and the film lacks a certain spark.

I mean, it's got things I like - it's set on the Barbary Coast (there was a vogue for films set during the Barbary War during the late 1940s), there are dancing girls and Yvonne de Carlo, Andy Devine does some comic relief, it's in colour, it's an "Eastern".

But there's also things that don't work - Broderick Crawford tries to do comic relief, de Carlo's performance lacks a little spark, male lead George Brent it too old and lumbering for all his legendary off screen charm.

Maybe my view was hurt by the fact the print wasn't very good so I didn't get the full impact of the photography. But it is all over the place. Never quite gets its groove.

Movie review - "Veils of Bagdad" (1953) **

One of a series of Easterns that Universal made in the early 1950s. The best remembered ones starred Rock Hudson or Tony Curtis; this one has Victor Mature, who I am a bit of a fan of, but he doesn't have the energy or humour of the younger Curtis and Hudson. It isn't as though Mature is miscast (for a Universal Studios version of Bagdad, that is) - he plays a soldier who has been around a bit, seen something of life. But he's not as committed as in other movies.

Maybe it didn't help his female co star is Mari Blanchard - who is beautiful and all that, but lacks something, a spark or individuality. Maureen O'Hara was meant to co star and I wish she'd done so - either her or Yvonne de Carlo.

George Sherman's direction is lethargic. Overly moody - not very fun. Lots of close ups. I can't put my finger on it but this film missed for me. See The Prince Who Was a Thief instead.

The support cast is strong - villains include Guy Rolfe and Leon Askin, Nick Cravat, James Arness and Glenn Strange and Robert Blake have support roles.

Movie review - "The Desert Hawk" (1950) **

Jeff Chandler provides some narration for this swashbuckling "Eastern" from Universal and it's the sort of movie which he'd normally star in - maybe he was busy that month. Instead, Universal give the title role to Richard Greene, who plays an Arabian Robin Hood type figure who robs people in the desert.. but it's to fight a tyranical leader etc etc.

The story consists of well established swashbuckling tropes - a beautiful princess (Yvonne de Carlo) who marries the hero without realising, a hero with an alter ego and some wisecracking comic relief friends, duels at the climax, native girls, torture, slave markets.

It took place in a (to me at least) very unspecific time so I couldn't hook into any myth going - although characters are named Aladdin, Sinbad, Scherenadze, etc. It's a romantic, fetishized depiction of Arabic and Islamic culture but is a hell of a lot more positive than anything Hollywood's turned out in the last twenty years or so.

I struggled to get too enthusiastic about the stars. De Carlo is pretty and spirited with a great figure but a little anonymous - I got her mixed up with some of the support girls. Greene was always very much a second tier swashbuckler - he should be good but he lacks the verve of say a Rock Hudson who has a small support role. And as for De Carlo - I would've preferred Maureen O'Hara. The whole movie feels like assembled ingredients rather than a cohesive whole. But it is bright and unpretentious.

Movie review – “Princess of the Nile” (1954) **

Twentieth Century Fox didn’t go in much for Eastern swashbucklers, leaving that to Universal and Columbia, but they had some pretty young things under contract so obviously decided to give it a go. Jeffrey Hunter isn’t terribly Eastern, but then again neither were Rock Hudson or Tony Curtis – more of a problem is the fact he isn’t that charismatic. 

Still, he’s better than Debra Paget, who is pretty, and walks around in a variety of skimpy outfits and does dances and goes for swims etc but simply doesn’t have the presence to carry a leading role – her face is too indistinguishable or something. It blends into the surrounds – something that Maureen O’Hara, Yvone De Carlo or Piper Laurie never suffered. So what should have launched Paget seems to have confirmed her status as strictly pretty-young-thing only. 

Michael Rennie adds some much needed class as the baddy (I can't imagine he was too happy about this assignment though) and there is the usual supporting cast of wacky thieves and dancing girls.

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.

Movie review - "The Golden Blade" (1953) **1/2

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.

Movie review - "Son of Ali Baba" (1952) **

Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie are reunited in another Eastern after the success of The Prince Who Was a Thief but this isn't nearly as much fun. For one thing it doesn't have much of a story - instead of being an underdog Curtis is the pampered, womanising son of Ali Baba training to be a soldier; he falls for Piper Laurie who he thinks is a dancer, then thinks is a slave girl who's escaped, then realises is a princess. Oh and there's an uprising and his father is thrown in gaol. It lacks the clear drive and fun of Prince. Everett Sloan is missed too - there's no older characters with decent roles except the big villain (Ali Baba isn't in it much hardly). And the characters that Curtis and Laurie play aren't as clearly defined.

There are some perks - terrific sets and costumes, enough action, some funny lines (e.g. Laurie "imagine being forced into a harem" Curtis: "I could handle it"), youthful spirits, a promising character in Ali Baba's daughter (Susan Cabot) who likes to swash a buckle as much as her daughter. And Curtis' growing confidence is evident. But there's too many bland young people in support when what we need are character actors - Hugh O'Brien is a dull baddy, Curtis has this bland friend who helps out. And it never quite licks it's story problems.

Movie review - "The Prince Who Was a Thief" (1951) ***

Terrific, joyous fun, full of youthful good spirits. This was Tony Curtis' debut as a star and Universal didn't stint - there seems to be an ample budget, plenty of starlets and extras, delightful production design and colourful photography. The story is solid, unoriginal and strong (from Theodore Dreiser!!) - a royal baby is about to be killed but the assassin (Everett Sloan) can't go through with it so raises him as his own to be a thief.

Curtis makes his debt bare chested and swimming, as if the filmmakers wanted to ensure he got off to a start that played to his strengths. But there's more to him than a healthy torso - he's got looks and a lot of charm. The Bronx accent isn't too distracting here - I think because it's set in such a fantasy Arabia (it jarred for me more in Kansas Raiders).  Even better than he is Piper Laurie, wonderful value as a feisty red head, a sort of teen Maureen O'Hara, who is a nimble thief, cute as hell, and dead keen on Curtis.

The screenwriters have joyously raided the Koran, and Arabic histories and legends for names and incidents. I'm sure it's all distorted horribly but at least they made some vague stab at authenticity. Lots of action, silly dialogue, dancing girls, colour and youthful good spirits.