Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

This movie is a colourful adventure movie that is greatly entertaining if you like this old technicolor style of Orientalist films. I mainly love it because of two things: fond childhood memories from a time when I even watched it on a black and white TV set in the mid-80s and [name=nm0700084]'s Prince Cassim.

This actor has played small parts in a couple of classic movies and often appeared alongside some of the big names of his days, but it is in this movie and a couple of later productions mainly that he got a chance to show more of his talent and skills. His expressions and his work with his voice are formidable and he is seriously underrated as his range of characters is pretty impressive. Not to speak about how he managed to make this villain character mean and miserable, contemptible and touching at the same time. His Prince Cassim to me has always been the character with the most depth in this film.

That said, the film is of course to be classified as strongly Orientalist and escapist, it never lets you forget that you're watching a piece of Hollywood fiction with main characters that are boringly one-sided (good or bad) and it avoids answering the most interesting question: What Ali would've done with Cassim if he had faced the decision as he was the father of Ali's beloved and future wife who - as a good daughter - still had a soft spot for her dad despite his awful misbehaviour. But all of this is part of the style of this sort of movies at the time and therefore I find it excusable.

On the other hand the interweaving of 13th century history with a tale from the 1001 nights is done in an amazingly apt manner as the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols is in fact attributed to the machinations of a treacherous vizier (along with an incompetent caliph) in some sources, the caliph was actually killed by the Mongols and there was indeed a fugitive who claimed to be a surviving member of the dynasty and subsequently continued the line of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad in Egypt. Therefore there might've been more knowledge at work than one would expect from this type of light entertainment and I'm wondering how they came to mix these ingredients with the Ali Baba story.

All things considered I rate this 8 out of 10 because my 21st century adult self is unable to overlook the issues listed above.

I have a fairly sophisticated taste in cinema classics so I am a bit ashamed to rate this as one of my Favorite films of all time. I must cite first and foremost the sublime and under-rated masterpiece of a score by Edward Ward WHICH DESERVES A CD FOR SURE!!-Kurt Katch as Hulagu Khan is one of the screens most odious villains and the very fast pace all add to it's delight.....FOR ME-Weird, but not once in the entire film does handsome Jon Hall as Ali ever actually kiss Lady Amara, the exotic Maria Montez! Another bonus is the the vision of loveliness that is GORGEOUS Ramsay Ames as the incredibly HOT, sexy and traitorous lady in waiting Nalu who betrays her mistress-I just have to own up that GULP....I love this flick! PS-What a tragedy that Bagdad today is not the happy one that we find at this film's conclusion. SO SAD.

This bright and colourful cannibalisation of several "Arabian Nights" style stories sees Jon Hall play the prince robbed of his birthright by the evil Mongol Khan and his uncle "Prince Cassim", who has fallen in with the 40 Thieves since childhood and is bent on avenging this treachery. Maria Montez provides the glamour (and an accent you could cut with a knife) as the feisty, independently-minded Princess as we embark on some fun adventures. Andy Devine is dreadful as "Abdullah" but Kurt Katch hams up nicely and entertainingly as "The Khan". The film looks great and some of the swashbuckling sword fights well staged, but the acting is wooden, the script more so and the score intrusive (almost as if it were written for a silent film). It's a decent filler performance, but not amongst the best of the genre.

In Baghdad, in the days of the Mongol invasion leaded by the cruel Hugalu Khan (Kurt Katch), the caliph Hassan (Moroni Olsen) is betrayed by Prince Cassim (Frank Puglia) and killed by the Mongols. His son Ali, who had just pledged love to Prince Cassim's daughter Amara, escapes and accidentally finds the magic cave Sesame, the hiding place of forty thieves leaded by Baba (Fortunio Bonanova). Ali is adopted by Baba, who assigns the strong Abdullah (Andy Devine) to protect him. For ten years, the Mongols held Baghdad, and Ali Baba (Jon Hall) becomes the leader of the forty thieves, now beloved by the population for challenging the invaders. When the thieves acknowledge that a caravan is bringing Lady Amara (Maria Montez) to marry the tyrant Hugalu Khan, Ali Baba meets her bathing and does not recognize her. The Mongols capture him and he believes she betrayed him. Amara's servant Jamiel (Turhan Bey) helps Ali Baba, and the thieves rescue him in Baghdad and abduct Amara. In the garden of Prince Cassim's garden, they have recollections of their childhood, but they do not recognize each other. When Ali finds the truth, he fights for his love and for the freedom of Baghdad.

"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" is a delightful naive adventure that brings me back to my childhood, when I loved to see the movie because of the magic cave that opened and closed with the commands: "- Open, Oh Sesame!", or "- Close, Oh Sesame!". The story is simple, with the evil Hugalu Khan in the always invaded Baghdad; the traitor Prince Cassim; the forty bandits that become good guys; the hero Ali Baba and the heroine Amara, and lots of action for children and adults. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Ali Baba e os Quarenta Ladrões" ("Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves")

Only Universal pictures in the forties had the secret of such beautiful films, starring Maria Montez and Jon Hall, even pulled by naive and run fo the mill stories, predictable and nearly always on the same scheme. But who cares? After all, Paramount Pictures also gave us terrific adventures movies in the fifties, directed by the likes of Eddie Ludwig and Lewis R Foster. At Universal they had directors such as Arthur Lubin, John Rawlins, George Waggner, Curt Siodmak. These kinds of films, such as this very on are purely beautiful jewells, full of enchantment, especially for those like me for whom those features remind the childhood. Remember SUDAN, ARABIAN NIGHTS, WHITE SAVAGE, full of exotic charm. You don't find such films any more.