The thief of Bagdad (1940): an entertaining adventure

As I promised, I'm reviewing the first of a dozen of adventure movies. This is the first because of actor John Justin. Really. I've never heard of him before (have you?) and I think he was just gorgeous and a fine actor. Seems that after this movie he never had much success in films, with the Second World War going on and all, but anyway his true passion was the theater. He was English, but his father was Argentinian. He lived some years in this neighbor country and even learned how to fly a plane when he was 12. I'm planing to see more films from him, like David Lean's The Sound Barrier and The Untamed with Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead. But that's another story. 

Princess: Who are you? 
Ahmad: Your slave.
Princess: Where have you come from?
Ahmad: From the other side of time, to find you.
Princess: How long have you been searching?
Ahmad: Since time began.
Princess: Now that you've found me, how long will you stay?
Ahmad: To the end of time. For me, there can be no more beauty in the world, than yours. 
Princess: For me, there can be no more pleasure in the world, than to please you.

British The Thief of Bagdad (aka An Arabian Fantasy in Technicolor) is the adventure of King Ahmad (John Justin) and thief Abu (Indian actor Sabu) trying to rescue the Princess from Jaffar (Conrad Veit), the Grand Vizier who took his throne. Evil Jaffar is really baaad. With his evil powers he:

a) makes Prince Ahmad blind

b) transforms thief Abu in a dog

c) kidnaps the Princess (June Duprez)

d) kills the Princess' father

He looks just like Disney's Jaffar. And the Princess' father too, playing with toys and fooling around flying in a...toy horse. Oh, well, not to mention Ahmad and his friend Abu, stealing melons in the market and eating them on the tents roofs. At the end they meet a Genius and Abu finds a flying carpet. Yes, the way the characters look and the design of some scenes from Disney's Aladdin are clearly copied from here, even when both films are inspired in the tales from One Thousand and One Nights. 

Alexander Korda, the director, used very well the Technicolor. I like when movies invite me to a new world using colorful sets and I don't really mind if they don't look very real. This film has special effects that work, even when some of them look very outdated (the flying Genius for example). The main actors are fine in their roles: Justin being troubled because the kidnapping of his love and Sabu being a positive and cheerful rascal. He has some funny lines and helps the film to move.

Conrad Veit is great as Jaffar, assuming the way the villain is presented in this film: a bad guy who really wants the love of the Princess without using his magic powers and fails. June Duprez is fine as the Princess, but don't expect a very energetic character because the script just asked her to be pretty, fall in love at first sight and wait for her rescue (although in one scene she attempts to kill herself by jumping from a ship on the high sea). 

But what I liked the most is that Ahmad and Abu have to face many different vicissitudes, like escaping from prison, trying to survive with the limitations Jaffar has temporarily imposed to them, sailing in a little boat and being surprised by a storm created by the evil wizard, meeting fantastic creatures and people etc etc. It also contains a cool scene of Abu fighting with a huge spider. The scenes are not very extended, so the movie moves fast, showing you a kaleidoscope of exciting situations. 

My only problem with this film is the way it's told, using flashbacks during the first half of the movie. At some points you don't know what is really happening and what is a memory. But when you get used to this, it doesn't really mind: The thief of Bagdad is that entertaining. Roger Evert called it "one of the greatest of fantasy films, on a level with The Wizard of Oz" (I wouldn't go that far though).

 You can see the complete movie in one file on Youtube : Click here!

Adventure movies or what I'll be watching in the next few days

So today I went to the last session of the Movie Genres seminar I was attending on Saturdays. The genre we reviewed today was previously chosen by vote and even when the competition was fierce, my option, ADVENTURE, won. Yay! I really wanted to know more about this genre since I just liked it because I love Errol Flynn's movies.

It was really cool to discover new exciting titles that I'm planing to watch and review very soon. Here are some of them:

→ Tarzan the Ape Man (1932; W.S. Van Dyke)
Of course I knew about this one, but it never caught my attention. Anyway, knowing that Johnny Weissmuller was Olympic medal winner swimmer and that even Clark Gable was one of the options to play Tarzan, was all I needed to really wanting to see it. Plus the scene we saw was very exciting, with crocodiles AND hippos trying to eat Maureen O'Sullivan and her people. I'll try to watch the 6 starring Johnny and Maureen.

→ The Thief of Bagdad (1924 and 1940)
I really never heard of this one before. Douglas Fairbanks stars in the one from the twenties playing a thief (that's all I know about it), but the one from the 40's was directed by Alexander Korda and Indian actor Sabu plays the thief Abu and John Justin (never heard of him before but he was gorgeous) plays the Prince that has to rescue the princess from Jaffar. Oh, there's a genius too and a flying carpet. Disney's Aladdin anyone?

→ Moby Dick (1956)
The famous book by Herman Melville, directed by John Huston and starring Gregory Peck. The end.

→ Les tribulations d‘un chinois en Chine (1965)
Based on a book by Jules Verne and directed by Philippe de Broca this is really an adventure comedy set on the Himalayas and the clip we saw was hilarious because of the dialogs and the situations.

→ Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
This is the one that I liked the less, but I'm gonna watch it because:
a) Ray Harryhausen's motion picture effects (they look really outdated in this one but it seems that his work was brilliant and everybody admire him and even in Pixar's Monster Inc. a restaurant is called like him as an homage)
b) John Wayne's son, Patrick, plays Sinbad and Tyrone Power's daughter, Taryn, plays the daughter of an old alchemist, thank you very much.

→The man who would be king (1975)
Three names: Sean Connery, Michael Caine, John Huston. The director wanted to do this movie like all his life, and even wanted Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart to play the leads. Anyway, it's based in a book by Rudyard Kipling, and it's about two English soldiers in an ancient place where Connery is taken as a divinity. Disney's Road to El Dorado?

→White Hunter, Black Heart (1990; Clint Eastwood)
I'm watching this one just because it tells the story behind John Huston wanting to shoot a movie in Africa ("The African Queen"). It seems that what he really wanted was to hunt elephants.There are characters that are supposed to be Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn, so I really want to see how that came out, even when the film ends before they start shooting "The African Queen".

Of course more movies were named today. I already saw some of them, like "The African Queen" or "Around the world in 60 days" and I won't see Bernard Herzog's movies like "Aguirre The Wrath of God" or "Fitzcarraldo" because they give me the creeps.