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Kismet

  • 1944
  • Approved
  • 1h 40m
IMDb RATING
6.0/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
Marlene Dietrich and Ronald Colman in Kismet (1944)
In ancient Baghdad, Hafiz the King of Beggars dreams of untold riches and of marrying his daughter to a real prince.
Play trailer2:55
1 Video
78 Photos
AdventureFantasy

In ancient Baghdad, Hafiz the King of Beggars dreams of untold riches and of marrying his daughter to a real prince.In ancient Baghdad, Hafiz the King of Beggars dreams of untold riches and of marrying his daughter to a real prince.In ancient Baghdad, Hafiz the King of Beggars dreams of untold riches and of marrying his daughter to a real prince.

  • Director
    • William Dieterle
  • Writers
    • John Meehan
    • Edward Knoblock
  • Stars
    • Ronald Colman
    • Marlene Dietrich
    • James Craig
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.0/10
    1.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • William Dieterle
    • Writers
      • John Meehan
      • Edward Knoblock
    • Stars
      • Ronald Colman
      • Marlene Dietrich
      • James Craig
    • 30User reviews
    • 7Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 4 Oscars
      • 1 win & 4 nominations total

    Videos1

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:55
    Official Trailer

    Photos78

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    Top cast81

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    Ronald Colman
    Ronald Colman
    • Hafiz
    Marlene Dietrich
    Marlene Dietrich
    • Jamilla
    James Craig
    James Craig
    • Caliph
    Edward Arnold
    Edward Arnold
    • The Grand Vizier
    Hugh Herbert
    Hugh Herbert
    • Feisal
    Joy Page
    Joy Page
    • Marsinah
    • (as Joy Ann Page)
    Florence Bates
    Florence Bates
    • Karsha
    Harry Davenport
    Harry Davenport
    • Agha
    Hobart Cavanaugh
    Hobart Cavanaugh
    • Moolah
    Robert Warwick
    Robert Warwick
    • Alfife
    Eddie Abdo
    • Aide to Mansur
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Jimmy Ames
    Jimmy Ames
    • Major Domo
    • (uncredited)
    Morris Ankrum
    Morris Ankrum
    • The Caliph's Messenger
    • (uncredited)
    Leslie Anthony
    • Handmaiden
    • (uncredited)
    Lynn Arlen
    • Handmaiden
    • (uncredited)
    Noble Blake
    • Nubian Slave
    • (uncredited)
    Carla Boehm
    • Handmaiden
    • (uncredited)
    Dick Botiller
    Dick Botiller
    • Aide to Mansur
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • William Dieterle
    • Writers
      • John Meehan
      • Edward Knoblock
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews30

    6.01.3K
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    Featured reviews

    7Bunuel1976

    KISMET (William Dieterle, 1944) ***

    More Arabian Nights stuff, this time emanating from the studio where the lion roared: according to the Internet Movie Database, there are twenty (count 'em) films that go by the name of KISMET and, although the Vincente Minnelli-Howard Keel musical version is the best-known of the lot, this earlier straight adaptation starring Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich is perhaps the best-regarded. For the record, I do have the former on VHS but won't have time to catch it just now and, of all the rest, I'm mostly interested in the 1930 German version (there was another one made in Hollywood the same year) which, like the film under review, was directed by William Dieterle! Speaking of which, I don't quite understand the reasoning of Warner Brothers (who have inherited DVD distribution rights to the MGM film library) behind recently releasing the 1955 version on this format on its own (so to speak, since it actually forms part of a Musical Collection) rather than coupled with the earlier version.

    Aged 53, Ronald Colman still cuts a strikingly handsome figure (even when dressed as a beggar) and his silvery hairline is amusingly obscured by the most unseemly of turbans for all but one scene in the film's latter stages. Equally splendid-looking is his 43-year old German co-star who, in the film's most celebrated sequence that was, ironically, later cut for TV screenings because of its 'erotic' content(!), has her legs painted in gold for a veiled dance number before the court of evil Grand Vizier Edward Arnold and Colman (who dubs himself the King of Beggars by day but moonlights as a sovereign of a far-away land). Given the maturing age of the two leads, it's no wonder that two younger actors were recruited in the persons of James Craig (as the Caliph of Bagdad who likes to go incognito through the streets of his kingdom as a gardener's son) and the late Joy Page (Colman's secreted daughter); she had made a memorable screen debut in CASABLANCA (1942) and died earlier this year aged 83.

    The cast is rounded up by Florence Bates (as Colman's nagging in-law), Harry Davenport (as Craig's wily adviser) and Hugh Herbert (as one of Colman's would-be comic-relief sidekicks). As was to be expected from Hollywood's premier studio, no expense was spared in bringing this opulent costumer to the screen – including shooting in eye-filling Technicolor amidst impressively-constructed sets – and this effort was rewarded by garnering the film four Academy Award nominations in that year's ceremony…although, as had been the case (and would be again) with similar Oriental ventures, the nominees all went home empty-handed!
    6moonspinner55

    Old Bagdad via 1940s Hollywood...

    Third movie version of popular story involving beggar/magician in Bagdad who impersonates a prince. Meanwhile, the beggar's daughter falls for a camel-boy who's really a prince in disguise! Somehow, Marlene Dietrich gets shoehorned in playing sheltered royalty who rebels by doing a hot dance routine which must've been pretty risqué for 1944 (she's slathered in gold paint). MGM adventure does a nice job rewriting the original play by Edward Knoblock, featuring a colorful production and welcome comedic elements. It's jaunty fun with a fairly fast pace, hindered only by Ronald Coleman's miscasting in the lead (and his surprising lack of chemistry opposite Dietrich). Nominated for four Oscars, including Charles Rosher for his cinematography. Remade as a musical in 1955. **1/2 from ****
    6richardchatten

    The 41 Year Old Marlene Dietrich

    'Kismet' marked Marlene Dietrich's final concession to Hollywood frivolity before getting into uniform for the sake of war work in Europe by appearing in Metro's version of the sort of Technicolor nonsense Maria Montez was currently making for Universal; albeit with a much starrier cast.

    An Arabian Nights fantasy of the type being made back in Germany when William Dieterle was there directing silents (including a couple featuring Dietrich) with remarkably similar production design. Despite Ronald Colman's usual quiet authority in the lead, its most memorable feature has to be Dietrich performing - in the only one of her four scenes lasting longer than a minute - an exotic 'dance' with - as Elkan Allan once described it - "that fabulous body painted gold", owing more to editing than choreography and anticipating Shirley Eaton in 'Goldfinger' by twenty years.
    7didi-5

    beautiful colour photography

    Often overshadowed these days by the musical version which came a decade later, this film by William Dieterle has the distinction of being one of the best examples of a 1940s Technicolor film there is. And with colour, no one shone out from the screen more than Marlene Dietrich. Here she is as Jamilla, garlanded in gold and looking positively luminous - her appearance in this movie alone would justify watching it.

    Ronald Colman, that debonair English actor, plays the role of the beggar, Hafiz (which would be memorably played by Howard Keel in the musical). He's a little starchy and looks prematurely middle-aged, but he was always a very good actor, and here is no exception. James Craig is colourless as the Caliph but Edward Arnold and Hugh Herbert add humour as the Grand Vizier and Feisal.

    The strength of this 'Kismet' though it definitely how it looks. It is how the films of the golden era were at their peak, and this version doesn't get shown on TV anywhere near enough.
    7theowinthrop

    Colman as Hafiz in old Baghdad

    This is not a bad movie, but it is not an important one. Made in the last decade of Ronald Colman's active career as a movie star, KISMET seems to be an odd choice for him. Normally he was playing English gentlemen types - Rudolph Rassendyll in THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, or Robert Conway in LOST HORIZON or Dick Helgar in THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. If he played Americans, they were the Supreme Court Candidate in THE TALK OF THE TOWN or the title character Boston Brahman in THE LATE GEORGE APLEY. Here he was playing the philosophical thief Hafiz of 11th Century Baghdad. An odd choice indeed.

    To begin with, as he is playing an Arab, there was nothing physically "semitic" about Colman to suggest a citizen of Baghdad. However, the producers must have thought of him as a good example of a cultured type (Hafiz sprouts proverbs and examples of Middle Eastern wisdom), so he fit half the requirement. Still, it might have been better to have used someone who might have looked more like a citizen of the "fertile crescent". Robert Donat would have made a better choice.

    Secondly, if they had to do a story about ancient Islam at it's zenith of glory and power, why did they choose KISMET? It is an old play by Edward Knobloch which was written about 1910 and became the favorite starring part for the then great stage character actor Otis Skinner.* In fact, Skinner did a film version of the play in the silent period. But while not the worst example of a well made piece of hokum, it remains hokum. Skinner was quite well identified with the central role, but he died in 1942. It may be that Paramount felt they could get away with this just because he was no longer around.

    *Skinner's career, like so many of his contemporary stars like Richard Mansfield and Henry Irving can only be judged by snips and brief glimpses of their work - if they made an early silent film or even sound film (George M. Cohan in THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT comes to mind) we can see something of what they were like. Irving actually made surviving gramophone recordings of Shakespearean parts. In Skinner's case, most people who recall him at all today probably do so because Charlie Ruggles played him in the movie OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY which was based on a book by Skinner's daughter Cornelia Otis Skinner. If you can find the 1961 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the article on "Make-up" had a page of photographs of Otis Skinner in a dozen roles, including Hajjj (the actual name of Hafiz's character - the real "Hafiz" is the greatest of Persia's poets).

    Still the studio went to great lengths - they made it a color film (a rarity for Colman, by the way). They gave the two other best parts to the capable Edward Arnold as the evil Vizier, and to Marlene Dietrich as the Vizier's sexy (and bored) wife. This film reunited James Craig and Arnold (formerly together in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER) with Craig as the Caliph. Except for romancing Joy Page as Colman's daughter, Craig really has little to do here. He's a target for Arnold's ambitious murder plans. Old Harry Davenport is the wise old Chancellor - a comparative figure of good to the evil Arnold.

    It's serviceable and no more. You watch KISMET and you won't be bored, but you will not be enthralled by it. Colman does try to bring some additional juice to Hafiz. When threatened with banishment he seems genuinely surprised, hurt, and horrified - like being told he will now be a fish out of water, although he can live anywhere else in the empire. There are also some humorous moments, such as the threatened plan to punish Colman (in this film he is threatened with punishment several times) by cutting off his hands - he was captured as a thief. His anticipated looks at this imprisoned, chained down fists are surprisingly amusing. But the screenplay keeps going from mock philosophy to comedy to romance to melodrama. The ride is made as smooth as possible, but it seems like it's on old fashioned back roads.

    So, I will say the film can be watched - but stick to THE LATE GEORGE APLEY or RANDOM HARVEST or A DOUBLE LIFE or CHAMPAIGN FOR CAESAR to get a better glimpse at Colman's acting strengths. He was just treading water here.

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    Related interests

    Still frame
    Adventure
    Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
    Fantasy

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      An uncredited Frank Morgan is the Narrator who introduces the characters and plot at the beginning of the film.
    • Goofs
      Ronald Colman's character eats with his left hand, which is taboo in Arabic culture.
    • Quotes

      Karsha: [Referring to Hafiz's daughter, Marsinah] You think she's going to wither away waiting for your fairy tales to come true?

      Hafiz: She's waiting for her fate in all its splendor.

      Karsha: The fate for a beggar's daughter is a camel boy.

      Hafiz: Silence, misery!

    • Connections
      Featured in That's Dancing! (1985)
    • Soundtracks
      Tell Me, Tell Me, Evening Star
      (1944) (uncredited)

      Music by Harold Arlen

      Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

      Partially sung by Marlene Dietrich

      Sung by Joy Page (dubbed by Doreen Tryden)

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    FAQ17

    • How long is Kismet?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 1944 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Oriental Dream
    • Filming locations
      • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production company
      • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $3,000,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 40m(100 min)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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