Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam is no biopic or documentary on the life and works of the poet, astronomer and mathematician but a fine adventure romance flick of the 50s shot in beautiful Technicolor. So if you are in the mood for some classic shot of the 40s and 50s (Arabian Nights, The Thief of Bagdad, Son of Ali Baba and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad to name a few), Omar Khayyam may just provide the right shot of adventure and nostalgia. I watched this one per chance for the first time these days and the movie send me right back to that glorious and simple times of Hollywood adventure movies in Technicolor. For sure not one of the best of that era, but a solid and fun one.

Omar Khayyam, medieval poet and scholar and quite the scientist as it turns out in this film, stars Cornel Wilde in the title role. Khayyam is a guy content to do his scholarly thing, but there's a whole lot of treachery going in Persia and it's coming from people close to him.

The legend of Omar Khayyam has him involved with two others, a rich merchant Hisreini who becomes leader of the assassin cult and Nizam who is prime minister to the Shah, played respectively by Michael Rennie and Sebastian Cabot. Rennie who is as always cultured and refined, is the 12th century Osama Bin-Laden of the piece. His is probably the best performance of the film.

By the way Omar Khayyam gives one an opportunity to see both the men who Cecil B. DeMille considered for the role of Joshua in The Ten Commandments in the same film. John Derek who is the crown prince played Joshua and Wilde was the one originally offered the part.

The film was done at Paramount which was a bit unusual itself because the Arabian knights type films were an in house staple of Universal Studios.

Probably Cornel got the part after Tyrone Power who was freelancing then turned it down. It was that way all Wilde's life, getting sloppy seconds from either Power or Errol Flynn.

The film is all right, but should have had Wilde doing a bit more swordplay. He was in real life a champion at fencing.

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.

"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.