Kismet

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.

William Dieterle directing, music by Harold Arlen (there's even a tiny bit of the Witch's Guard music at one point!), opulent sets and gorgeous costumes, Ronald Colman -- what more could anyone ask?

The film was very carefully crafted. Even the bit players -- especially Henry Davenport and Florence Bates -- were perfect. From the beginning, you are immersed in a magical world, an Iraq that died long ago, the Islam of Arabian Nights and Haroun el-Raschid, a romantic culture with its own philosophies and mysteries. Karsha foretelling the future with a sand reading, the muezzin and his apprentice singing the call to prayer, or the public bathing place that the rascals hide in, give the film a sense not only of unity and atmosphere but of meticulous attention to detail.

Dietrich's character was not Greek but Macedonian (like Alexander the Great, another blonde). I could have stood for more authenticity in her dance (especially after the Kraft girls who preceded her -- their Deva Dasi style dance *was* pretty authentic) and that gold paint was a little much. Still, the idea was that Jamilla was wild, and did unconventional things.

I do see where it could have been better. Craig in particular sounds jarringly "modern". But you forget that after a while. Modern films don't present this kind of idealism. We have to have everything brought down to sordid reality. A thing like this is good for you after too much "realism" gunk.

To be bothered by he fact that all the principals of this movies were Western is to miss the point. This is a document of a given time and place (Hollywood in 1944). Ronald Coleman was born to play the part of the poetic beggar prince. Who could be better to declaim the bits of Omar Khayam in the script. It's a little like his take on Francois Villon in "If I Were King". Marlene Dietrich is magnificent as a Macedonian princess in the Grand Vizier's harem. She does a beautiful and seductive dance. Edward Arnold supplies real menace as the heavy just as he did in "Meet John Doe". The whole premise of a movie like this is naive and unhistorical but the production was so ambitious and sumptuous that it transcends that shortcoming.

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.

'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.