Zarak

Zarak Khan is the son of a chief who is caught embracing one of his father's wives, Salma. Zarak's father sentences both to torture and death but they are saved by an imam. The exiled Zarak becomes a bandit chief and an enemy of the British Empire.

It's a watchable orientalist romp, despite the muddled script, sometimes plodding pace, especially in the first half, and it has some good action sequences such as the bridge scene. Far from a great film, however it's diverting enough, especially with Anita Ekberg and her outfits or lack of it, and a good performance by Michael Wilding as the British officer looking to capture Zarak Khan (the great Victor Mature). There's a 007 connection here - Terence Young is the director, screenplay by Richard Maibaum, co-produced by Albert broccoli and actress Eunice Grayson feature.

Future James Bond directing icon Terence Young made the Arabic Adventure ZARAK so full of bright 1950's technicolor, it's only when the matte paintings of lush background sunsets and deserts are too obvious is it apparent this is basically yet another low-budget British potboiler... but those matte paintings are painted beautifully...

And with the kind of setup for what would seem a pre LAWRENCE OF ARABIA epic, where a powerful Arab leader father banishes his son Cain-style into the endless sandy wilderness for having an affair with his prettiest of many wives, Anita Ekberg, American import Victor Mature's title character is really a charming anti-heroic bandit straight from any American-shot b-Western...

He's pitted against gentleman major Michael Wilding (with resiliently violent sidekick Patrick McGoohan)... but their scenes are separated into two story-lines: Mature and younger brothers Eddie Byrne and Bonar Colleano raid British posts Robin Hood-style as Wilding, basically the newly appointed "Sheriff in town," has a lovely wife to fully embrace and, in that, one of the first Bond Girl Villains, brunette Eunice Gayson, is far more important than Mature's belly-dancing blonde moll Ekberg...

Gayson's one pivotal scene being attacked and then protected by the avenging Mature has potential for a charming-scoundrel love story that's unfortunately never delved into... a shame since these two have the best chemistry herein but, despite the flaws, there's enough adventurous suspense to make ZARAK a terrific-looking programmer worth the Cinemascope experience, at least once.

It's interesting sitting down to write a review on a film you have only seen once - some forty five years ago! Just ten years old, perhaps on account of the striking name (ZARAK - how onomatopoeic? - better look that one up!) I have remembered the film clearly...perhaps Anita Ekberg was an early awakening for me?

Victor Mature done up like bin Laden on a bad day, played the title role with gusto, the middle eastern outlaw, on the run from terribly British Michael Wilding as Major Ingram. He derring-do's with the best of them! This type of desert adventure was all the rage in the 50's, another biggie of its day as I recall, Tyrone Power in KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES!...but I digress!

Probably most men in the audience (and I was inarguably male, even at that stage) will doubtless remember Ms Ekberg as Zarak's forbidden love Salma, rather inconveniently one of his father's wives. Unless I am mistaken, I seem to recall Zarak pacing around his exotic garden while Ms Ekberg, barely legally silked-up, was sashaying around him teasingly, singing "Climb up the Garden Wall," God, I'd like to see that again!

So yeah, take it from a ten year old, this was a film that went off!

This desert-set adventure flick exemplifies the subtle difference between Hokum and Camp: recently, I had watched its star, Victor Mature, in THE VEILS OF BAGDAD (1953) – spirited, tongue-in-cheek and generally exuding an air of unpretentious low-budget professionalism, it falls firmly into the former category; ZARAK, on the other hand, tries to be serious (with its religious/political undertones and calling into question familial/patriotic loyalties at times of stress) but is so relentlessly high-strung as to emerge a fount of virtually uninterrupted (but clearly unintended) hilarity!

These are too numerous to cite and most have, in any case already subsided in my memory, but I can't fail to mention Mature's irrepressible resourcefulness – though very obviously doubled at times – when aroused (including high-kicking his opponents and vigorously hacking away at a rope-bridge on which his arch-nemesis Michael Wilding is hanging for dear life), stoicism in the face of torture and impending death and, particularly, his wallowing in self-pity (and hysterically funny subsequent haunting) after unwittingly bludgeoning to death the current Mullah of the mosque – who had actually interceded for Mature during a public flogging and does the same, much to the latter's evident chagrin, for the British Major at the aforementioned bridge sequence! That is not to say ZARAK is a bad film in the strict sense of the word: for one thing, there's plenty of action throughout (some of it actually borrowed from the classic Alexander Korda production of THE FOUR FEATHERS [1939]!) – but, to be sure, the narrative is inordinately muddled for this type of film (not only in delineating the plot or the hero's motivations, but also by having such a prominent character as that of Bernard Miles vanish altogether halfway through)!

This was the second of six British-made actioners featuring Hollywood hunk Mature, filmed virtually back-to-back and after which his career would slowly grind to a stand-still; for the record, the others – none of which I've watched – were SAFARI (1956), INTERPOL (1957; also with co-star Anita Ekberg), THE LONG HAUL (1957), NO TIME TO DIE (1958) and the somewhat similar THE BANDIT OF ZHOBE (1959; actually directed by the co-story writer of this one, John Gilling). Sexy in scantily-clad attire, Ekberg even gets to perform a sultry exotic dance but is otherwise underused here; Wilding is as ineffectual playing the stiff-upper-lipped cavalry officer after Mature as the latter is wooden in Afghan tinge and garb(!), Miles appears as the star's one-eyed comic relief sidekick (at one point drooling over the heroine's writhing and to which he's vainly attempting to draw his brooding partner's attention), while Finlay Currie is – what else? – the earnest but ill-fated Holy Man. Apart from these, the supporting cast includes: Bonar Colleano (as one of Zarak's treacherous younger siblings), Frederick Valk (in his last role as his tyrannical father), Eunice Gayson (best-known for first eliciting the celebrated trademark response of "Bond, James Bond" – in DR. NO [1962], of course – is here Wilding's ingenuous bride) and Patrick McGoohan (youthful but already imposing in what is presumably his first sizeable part in a film as Wilding's aide). The behind-the-scenes credits are similarly notable – several of whom would soon prove instrumental in cementing the 007 image into the public consciousness.

They don't make 'em like this anymore, and more's the pity. It's hokey, contrived, politically incorrect, and laced with clichés, but it blissfully transports one back to that innocent, popcorn-scented time in the balcony of the local Bijou when Technicolor images flickering across a silver screen could sweep one into a magical world of harem girls and charging horsemen.

Structurally, the film is a bit of a mess, stitching together a forbidden romance between star-crossed lovers, a stiff-upper-lip adventure about civilized British soldiers subduing pagan hordes, and a personal drama about the growing respect between two enemy combatants. While the plot is a mishmash, however, it's never dull, it moves along at a merry clip, and it fills the CinemaScope screen with lively, colorful, filmed-in-Morocco images.

Michael Wilding and Patrick McGoohan are properly British, Anita Ekberg never looked more glamorous, and Victor Mature was born to play just this sort of thing. Lean back, set your brain at "Idle," and enjoy!

(Incidentally, Victor Mature is flogged twice in this movie. The one which occurs in the first reel is especially vivid and it ranks 52nd on a list published in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")