A Thousand and One Nights

“Oh, if only I had a gun… No, wait, they haven’t been invented yet!”. Phil Silvers brings a distinctly pantomime effect to this retelling of the Sinbad meets Arabian Nights story. To keep up the swash and the buckle, we have the dashingly mischievous “Aladdin” (Cornel Wilde) who falls in love with the ultimate in forbidden fruit, the princess “Armina” (Adele Jergens). She is the daughter of the caliph Dennis Hoey who also doubles up as his own dastardly twin with designs on both the throne and his neice. “Aladdin” and his sidekick “Abdullah” (Silvers) have a wheeze going on that sees the former entertain the crowds whilst his pal surreptitiously relieves them of their valuables. When he spots his forbidden love and faces years in the dungeon, they abscond into the mountains where he finds a lamp. Of course he rubs it, and out pops “Babs” (Evelyn Keyes) to hear and to obey. Sure, she accommodates his wishes to impress at the court, but she also has taken a little bit of a shine to her new master and she is not averse to a little mischief of her own to get her man. Fans of Silvers and his screwball, bespectacled, humour might enjoy this but I’m more a fan of the Korda-style telling of these stories (indeed Rex Ingram appears in the same red costume here from “The Thief of Bagdad” from 1940) and I found the comedic antics and the breaks for obviously dubbed musical numbers spoiled the adventure element. That really only comes to the fore in the last ten minutes and isn’t up to very much. Wilde’s in his element and Keyes in clearly enjoying her role here, but if there is such a thing as a fantasy purist, that is me - and this just fell between too many stools. It does look great, though, and there are a few clever visual effects, but original is usually best and this is neither.