Crew
Director – Arthur Lubin, Screenplay – Edmund L. Hartman, Producer – Paul Malvern, Photography – W. Howard Greene & George Robinson, Music – Edward Ward, Special Photography – John P. Fulton, Makeup – Jack Pierce, Art Direction – John B. Goodman & Richard H. Riedel. Production Company – Universal.
Cast
Jon Hall (Ali Baba), Maria Montez (Amara), Turhan Bey (Jamiel), Andy Devine (Abdullah), Kurt Katch (Hulagu Khan), Frank Puglia (Prince Cassim), Fortunato Bonanova (Baba), Moroni Olsen (The Caliph), Scotty Beckett (Ali as a Child), Yvette Duguay (Amara as a Child)
Plot
Baghdad is under invasion by Mongol hordes. The Caliph is forced to flee. Before he does, his young son Ali swears a blood oath with his friend Amara that he will always return for her. Ali is then witness as his father is betrayed by Amara’s father Prince Cassim and killed by the Mongols. Fleeing, he discovers the cave of the forty thieves and how it is unlocked by the magic word “Open Sesame.” However, the thieves return and discover Ali. When he reveals who he is, they agree to let him lead them to rob the Mongols, naming him Ali Baba. Ten years later. The thieves get wind of a caravan containing the bride-to-be of the Mongol leader Hulagu Khan. Ali goes in undercover and encounters the bride, not realising that she is the now-grown Amara. However, this proves to be a trap set for the thieves. With neither realising who they are, attraction grows between Ali and Amara, even as he plots to overthrow her intended husband and take revenge against her father.
The Thief of Bagdad (1940), the second film bearing that title, is an absolute classic. It was made in colour at a time when most films were made in black-and-white and creates a marvellous fantasy version of Arabia filled with flying carpets, genies and evil sorcerous viziers. It is a work that still stands up today. Although it wasn’t the first film of its type, it created the Hollywood Arabian Nights fantasy.
In the aftermath of the 1940 The Thief of Bagdad, there were a number of Hollywood spectacles seeking to copy the film’s success. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of these – indeed, leading man Jon Hall became a star of sorts in the genre, appearing also in Arabian Nights (1943) and Sudan (1945), along with other assorted historically-set swashbucklers of this period. Other entries in this Arabian Nights fad include Kismet (1944), A Thousand and One Nights (1945), Sinbad the Sailor (1947), Bagdad (1949), Flame of Araby (1951), The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951), Son of Ali Baba (1952), The Thief of Damascus (1952), The Golden Blade (1953), Siren of Bagdad (1953), The Veils of Bagdad (1963), Kismet (1955), Son of Sinbad (1955) and The Wonders of Aladdin (1961), even the comedies Babes in Bagdad (1952) and Bowery to Bagdad (1955). However, in most of these cases the pure fantasy of The Thief of Bagdad was replaced by prosaic swashbuckling adventures with a heavy dollop of romance taking place against cardboard studio-bound sets and Arabic characters that were almost entirely played by Caucasians (one dissenter here is the Turkish-born Turhan Bey).
The story of Ali Baba is a popular one that appears in the original Arabian Nights (circa 9th-10th Centuries), although it is a tale that was only added by French translator Antoine Galland’s in his twelve-volume Les Mille et une Nuits (One Thousand and One Nights) (1704-17). It has however become one of the most famous stories of the Arabian Nights. The film has changed much of the story. In the original, Ali Baba is a simple woodcutter, not a prince heir, who discovers the thieves’ cave and its password. In the original, Cassim is Ali Baba’s greedy older brother who is killed by the thieves after Ali Baba tells him the secret of the cave. And rather than adopt him as their leader as in the film, the bandits actually set out to kill Ali Baba in the original. One part of the story that is retained by the film is where the thieves hatch a scheme where they sneak in in barrels of oil – in the original it is part of a scheme to kill Ali Baba, whereas here it is repurposed as a scheme devised by Ali Baba to unseat the Mongol usurper. There have been a number of other Ali Baba films, including twenty made in India. A more faithful version of the Ali Baba story was told in the tv mini-series Arabian Nights (2000).
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is another of the aformentioned cardboard Hollywood spectacles. It is the sort of film where the Forty Thieves even get their own theme song as they all head off to go robbing. They are probably also the most jolly and agreeable bunch of bandits in the history of banditry who just hand over rule of their group to a kid on the grounds that his crusade against the Mongol usurpers who killed his father adds up to being more bounty for them to rob. There is a predictability to every single thing that happens. We’re talking about a plot that stretches credibility to snapping point – like where the thieves abduct Princess Amara and Jon Hall romances her without ever asking her name, or Hall ever seeming to connect up to the fact that she is the daughter of his sworn enemy.
The direction is stolid Technicolor spectacle. Bagdad is represented by the same obvious matte painted backdrop. The action is stock swashbuckling conducted with no imagination or verve. The historicity may be somewhat dubious – did the Mongols (under Genghis Khan) ever advance so far west as to conquer Baghdad and set up a satrapy ruler in their name? (Yes, apparently in 1258, and Helagu Khan was even a real person). The script also strips any fantasy elements out of the Ali Baba – as was the case with most of these 1940s Arabian Nights stories – and all we get is a cave door with a magic password because the original story demands that, but this sits there in a peculiar vacuum where there is never any explanation for it.
Top-billed is Maria Montez, a Dominican immigrant who found a fame in swashbuckler/adventure films like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and others including Arabian Nights, Cobra Woman (1944), Siren of Atlantis (1948) and reuniting with Jon Hall in Sudan. The only acting mode she seems to display right throughout the film here is appearing imperious and diva-like.
Arthur Lubin (1898-1985) was a prolific director who made some seventy films between the 1930s and 1950s. His other films of genre note include:- the transplanted brain film Black Friday (1940); the Abbott and Costello film Hold That Ghost (1941); the Claude Rains Phantom of the Opera (1943); the fantasy Night in Paradise (1946); the talking mule film Francis (1950) and sequels Francis Goes to the Races (1951), Francis Goes to West Point (1952), Francis Covers the Big Town (1953), Francis Joins the WACS (1954), Francis in the Navy (1955) and Francis in the Haunted House (1956); the comedy It Grows on Trees (1952) about trees that grow money; The Thief of Bagdad (1961); and The Incredible Mr Limpet (1964) about a man who turns into a porpoise.
Trailer here