Omar Khayyam

And this time, this is not a Cecil B De Mille's movie, not TEN COMMANDMENTS, not SAMSON AND DELILAH but another One Thousand and One Nights tale without Maria Montez or her heir Maureen O'Hara or Yvonne De Carlo but Debra Paget, and with Cornel Wilde instead of Tony Curtis or Jeff Chandler. This is a tremendous film, full of this magis exotic, Arabian - or may I say Persian - charm, this enchanting Victor Young music, this amazing production design and settings. I saw this movie on the French TV when I waas a child a sunday afternoon, during the early seventies. It is a rare Paramount major film, so rare. Bill Dieterle was really a good director, who unfortunnately finished his carrer in Italy, like Andre De Toth, Jacques Tourneur, Hugo Fregonese, Douglas Sirk, Rudy Maté.

The 11th century mathematician-poet Omar Khayyam who lived in Baghdad wrote quatrains in Persian which are still quoted. The exact details of his life are unknown, so Hollywood wrote a biography on the tabula rasa of his life. Cornel Wilde plays the often-drunk Omar Khayyam who longs for his sweetheart who the Sultan keeps in his harem as his third wife. Omar Khayyam works in the Sultan's court as a mathematician who is drawing up a new calendar. When the Sultan dies, Omar Khayyam stumbles upon a plot to kill off the Sultan's successor. The poet then goes off to foil the plot. He crosses swords with the Assassin sect whose members are deluded by their leader into thinking that they are in paradise when they actually are in a hashish-induced zombie-like state. In fact, the word "assassin" means "hashish-eaters".

Cornel Wilde who plays Omar Khayyam is unable to be a debonair swashbuckler because he has to play a tortured poet. Michael Rennie as the sinister Hasani is wonderful. His aquiline features suit his Arab role. The rest of the cast is unremarkable. "Omar Khayyam" has all the Arabian Nights cliches - harems, slaves, sultans, thieves and intrigues. It is a type of movie which will not be made again because, these days, the Middle East brings up visions of fanatical terrorists, not innocuous fables of highly intellectual Arabs amidst the magnificence of ancient Baghdad.

(Reviewed by Sundar Narayan)

"Omar Khayyam" is in many ways a typical 50s Hollywood oriental sword and sandal epic but with a few twists and tremendous (unmet) potential. The actual story of three friends (Hassan, Omar and Nizam) goes back hundreds of years and is pretty engaging. The historical personalities of Omar and Hassan al-Sabbah are quite interesting characters. There is potentially a great film here.

The actual production is not great but it has some nice things: Michael Rennie gives a great performance as Hassani. It is one of his best things, right up there with the alien in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It also has Raymond Massey and the great Abraham Sofaer, a distinctive character actor, as Tutush, the Sultan's brother. It has a fine score by Victor Young and some neat matte paintings of Alamut. Some of the lines are great: "I know of some other heads that should be sealed with wax and honey." But in the end it is too formulaic of a Hollywood spectacular. Cornel Wilde is too stolid. Such a rich historical backdrop and fascinating subject matter is worthy of a better film.

Other reviewers said it best; this is your typical 1950s period pic actioner with lots of adventure and some sword play. I never pictured Omar Khayyam as much of an infiltrator, but the movie, being a movie from the 50s, takes liberty with Khayyam's life, and spices things up for the audience. Think about it. If you were a young man needing to take his girl on a date in 1957, would you want to see some existential docu-drama about the Persian poet's life and works? No, more like you'd want to see something that had action, romance, adventure, and heroics over bad guys to cap off the evening.

Well, this movie delivers. It's not an outstanding movie, but it's a good simple basic film that, to be honest, was a little ahead of its time in terms of addressing the turmoil in the middle east. Allusions to caliphates, the "one true religion", secret hideouts in the mountains certainly ring bells with events since our own September 11th, 2001. But, fortunately our hero, Omar Khayyam played by Cornel Wilde, uses his learned ways and scholarly teachings to fight a familiar foe we know today, whose roots are seated in past pride.

The story is right out of Hollwood 101, and everyone here is from central casting. The performances are a little wooden, and SFX are easily spotted but do their job, and overall the production values are fairly solid. Omar Khayyam doesn't give us too much of his poetry as he's too busy saving the kingdom of those he serves, but we are treated to a few lines of his poetic brilliance before the movie ends.

It's worth seeing once, and perhaps again on a rainy weekend afternoon. It's that kind of a movie. Watch it, enjoy it for what it is, but don't take it too seriously.

Overall a decent watch.

Enjoy.

Leaving aside whether this film has some accuracy on the Persian poet and matemathician's life or not (history doesn't know much about him), I agree with a review here that states a better movie could have been made with this story.

The picture is very slow in its first part -almost boring- and it gets more interesting when the plot to kill the Sultan by the Assassins appears and some action with it. The settings are acceptable -no more than that- if we consider this a 1957 product and so are the costumes and the musical score by Victor Young.

But I think the major flaw in this movie is Cornel Wilde's casting as the main character. Wilde was never a more than average actor and here he is unable to support the weight of a film in which he is the center. He lacks charisma, strength and presence as Kayyahm and renders a dull performance. The rest of the cast is standard with the exception of Michael Rennie who plays a great villain worthy of a much better effort.

Perhaps if the movie had focused on the second part only -that is the the Assassins sinister plans and the fight against them- and included a much more suitable actor in the main role, we would be talking about a really enjoyable epic adventure film.