Aladins Wunderlampe

The Soviet film industry was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a hotbed for fantastic stories of witchcraft, magic, and monsters. Aladdin's Magic Lamp is a typical example of the genre, and while it's no classic, it certainly has much in its favour. Take, for example, the marvelous opening sequence, as a black-robed magician conjures a spell under the stars and proceeds to enter Baghdad by midnight. The widescreen photography is gorgeous (though the colours on Ruscico's DVD tend to flutter), the genie in the bottle impressive, and the lead actors well cast, especially Battleship Potemkin's Andrei Fajt as the aforementioned sorcerer and the beautiful Dodo Chogovadze as the spoiled princess who falls for a working class hero. There's also decent comic relief from Otar Koberidze as the princess's easily manipulated father. Fans of fantastic cinema will want to seek this one out.