Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

This is a pretty neat early adaptation of the classic tale of Ali Baba. It's clear that this was never scripted specifically for film. Like many silent-era productions, its roots lie heavily in theatrical stage performance. Everything about the film suggests it would have worked just as well-if not better-as a live theater play, and it may well have originated that way before being filmed.

That said, there's one truly mind-boggling stunt: when the chief of the thieves decapitates the man Ali Baba had told about the treasure. It's impressively executed for the era and genuinely shocking. Another remarkable aspect is the hand-colorization. The time, effort, and attention to detail that must have gone into coloring each frame is astounding, and it adds a unique charm to the film.

The Kino Video DVD says this Pathé Frères film was made in 1905 and IMDb says 1902. Regardless, this is a pretty amazing film for that time--having a hand colored print, good sets for the time and a pretty long narrative during a day when one or two minutes was the norm for films. So, technically it's a wonderful film but can't quite reach the fabulous quality of the films of French rival,Georges Méliès (the absolute master of special effects and plots of this time). But for an "almost as good as" film, it's awfully good for its time. However, there are two big problems. One is with the Kino print. For some dumb reason, the company chose to put several Pathé films on this DVD (THE MOVIES BEGIN: VOLUME THREE) that STILL used the original French inter-title cards--and there was no English captioning whatsover!! I have a pretty basic knowledge of French, so I was able to follow along okay and the film is done with very few of these cards anyway. Second, even with proper cards, a lot of the action just seems very vague and confusing. With less confusion, this film probably would have merited a 9--though it is STILL quite a spectacular film.