Sinbad Against the 7 Saracens

Ali Baba and the seven Saracens is one of the Italian made flicks with no budget and god-awful dubbing. So why bother? Two words; Bella Cortes. Huzzah, what a babe! She puts most other women in these sword and sandal flicks to shame. Plus shes kind and sweet and the only actor in this who doesn't feel the need to shout every line of dialog.

The plot, if you can find one, concerns Ali Baba ( or it might be Sinbad) seeking to get the Golden Throne away from Omar the tyrant. Actually Gordon Mitchell play Omar pretty well, its just no motivation is ever given for his brutality. For that matter Ali Baba never seems very heroic either. Still there are some fun scenes, Jukki the midget is a different hero and the whipping of the harem girls and the half-crazed but good-hearted Eunnich is fun. The music here is very close to the themes heard in "The BLue Rose" with Steve Reeves. Same composer? This is probably more fun to watch with a group so you can boo and hiss at the appropriate times. The big plus here is Bella Cortez as Fatima, wow! For that alone, its worth a look.

Costumes, props, sets and locations are nice, so are the horses and a couple of battle scenes are great but that is just about it. No one in the film caught my attention, the story didn't grab me so I was bored with it. The film wasn't even campy or even unintentionally funny enough to poke fun at.

There is a heroic(?) dwarf crawling around in a tunnel this is suppose to give a little comedy relief but I didn't find him funny at all.

I'll speak of the male's costumes again - I loved them. In particular I loved the guys in black with the red hats. The females were is okay looking dresses, only one or two of them I found barely pretty.

Costumes, props and sets are really the only thing I liked about the film.

2/10

Like with a number of Italian movies American-International Pictures picked up in the 1960s, "Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens" bypassed North American theaters and was released directly to television. That was a good decision, but I think a better one would have been to have looked for a better movie to pick up. Those viewers expecting a retelling of the Arabian Nights hero (either loose or more accurate) will be disappointed, since the story has absolutely nothing to do with the Ali Baba hero - or Sinbad for that matter. It's instead another sword and sandal story about an evil tyrant and rebels trying to overthrow him. Despite the familiar story, it could have still worked, but the movie for the most part is simply dull and uninvolving. There's almost no real action in the first third of the movie, and while there's a bit more in the remaining portion, it's almost all choreographed and directed with no passion at all. Another problem is that the character of Ali Baba/Sinbad gets put on the back burner for long periods of time. I guess the production values are okay, but I would have sacrificed some of that for some real excitement and action.

For reasons I can't explain the original Italian film has the hero as Sinbad. When it was dubbed in English for infliction on the American and the rest of the English speaking world it was turned into Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens. You'll have to ask the Italians why.

But the hero is neither a guy consorting with thieves nor a braggart sailor. Instead Dan Harrison under either name is a local celebrity who finds a usurper in Gordon Mitchell having taken over the government over Bagdad. Away with him, except that he's got a really curvaceous niece in Bella Cortez. Got to win her over at the same time.

One thing the film did have going for it is a midget actor named Tony Di Mitri who Harrison's sidekick. Turns out his size comes in mighty handy because he's the only guy who can get in and out of some tight places in order to open the gate for the rebel troops. DiMitri provides some comic relief.

But not enough to save the film.

Imagine a cheap peplum yarn with the loincloths replaced by colourful glittery clothes and what you have is ALI BABA AND THE SEVEN SARACENS, an often hilarious and entertaining far eastern adventure yarn, Italian-style, which follows as familiar a plot as there is. The good guys get captured, escape, are captured again and escape to triumph. Lots of action punctuates the story whilst characters change allegiance and friendships grow. From the very beginning you know that the bad guys are going to get what they deserve and the good guys are going to live happily ever after, but there's enough going on here to make you forget about the storyline.

It's clear that there wasn't a lot of money around to make this production, so director Emimmo Salvi cuts corners by filming in a quarry somewhere in Italy and on some really cheap sets on occasion. In fact most of the action takes place in one location, a castle and its huge courtyard, so don't expect any lush eastern backdrops as the title might suggest. The different setting is never exploited at all; change the characters and costumes and this might as well be a peplum film, the story is so straightforward and simple. There are even gladiator fights and chariots, so one surmises that the far eastern angle was tacked on to make it a bit more intriguing than your standard peplum film.

The never heard-of Rod Flash stars as Ali Baba, and is about as wooden and uninteresting as you could get in a peplum film; personally I prefer my Italian hero to be a strongman (unless it's Cameron Mitchell) so Flash makes little or no impression. His thunder is stolen by Gordon Mitchell, who gives a fantastically over-the-top performance of scenery chewing as Omar, the evil bad guy. Mitchell delivers his cruel dialogue with relish and really seems to be having the ball, instantly adding to the entertainment value of the film. Also hanging around and looking voluptuous is Bella Cortez, a peplum mainstay and as beautiful as ever here. Amusing supporting characters include a guy with one of the most hilarious depictions of a nervous tic in screen history, and a wisecracking comic-relief dwarf who spends the entire running time crawling around in air vents like some miniature Bruce Willis.

Although the story is less than impressive, the action scenes are fluent and entertaining. Their simplicity gives them a raw power which I liked and you always know that somebody is going to fight in the next five minutes, so things never become boring. The finale involves a huge uprising against Mitchell and his soldiers which ends with a fantastically gory gag, much to the viewers enjoyment. On top of this, there's an over-the-top music score which goes out of its way to be exciting and plenty of bad dubbing to be enjoyed (!). All in all a fun way to spend eighty minutes with a cheesy Italian adventure yarn.