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"An Arabian Fantasy in Technicolor." From the beginning the screen is an illuminated manuscript, the painted eye on the prow soon enough becomes the emblem for The Archers. The blind beggar with the scraggly mutt has a tale to tell, thus King Ahmad (John Justin) cursed by the usurping Grand Vizier (Conrad Veidt) to set in motion the prophecy of the liberator with "the arrow of justice." The sprightly scalawag (Sabu) breaks the deposed ruler out of prison, though a spot in Sinbad's ship cannot compete with the beauty of the Princess (June Duprez), she of "Babylonian eyes and eyebrows like the crescent moon of Ramadan." Her father is the addled Sultan (Miles Malleson), in his Palace of a Thousand Toys rather like Renoir's aristocrat amid his mechanisms in La Règle du jeu. (He meets his match in his latest gadget, a wind-up horse that can gallop across the sky.) From Bagdad to the ends of the world and back, a complete encyclopedia of splendors. "And now, my little braggart, you can be a thief and a hero all in one." Producer Alexander Korda means to dazzle and does so by marshaling all of the medium's resources, many hands mold the vision. Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell and Tim Whelan are the credited directors, authorship is also divided among the uncredited ones (including Zoltan Korda and William Cameron Menzies) plus art directors and special effects teams. The splendid matte paintings are noted by Olivier in Henry V, miniature canyons and flying carpets with visible wires contribute to the guileless illusionism. (Pasolini in his later retelling also wants his tricks to be seen.) Rex Ingram as the towering, roaring Djinn deserves his own movie, and there's the embrace of the Silver Maid (cf. Russell's Salome's Last Dance) and the escape on the spider's temple recalled in North by Northwest. "An adventure at last!" Ray Harryhausen goes on to keep its magic alive. Cinematography by Georges Périnal.
--- Fernando F. Croce |