Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944)

Director:

Arthur Lubin

Writer:

Edmund L. Hartmann (original screenplay)

Release Date:

14 January 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Fantasy | Romance

Tagline:

Wild nights of sheer delights! Burning days of bold adventure!

Plot:

Ali Baba, son of the Kalif of Bagdad is brought up by the 40 Thieves after his father is killed by the soldiers of Hugalu Khan...

Plot Keywords:

Fight | Beggar | Male Female Relationship | He Man | Flight

Cast

Maria Montez	...	Amara
Jon Hall	...	Ali Baba
Turhan Bey	...	Jamiel
Andy Devine	...	Abdullah
Kurt Katch	...	Hulagu Khan
Frank Puglia	...	Prince Cassim
Fortunio Bonanova	...	Old Baba
Moroni Olsen	...	Caliph Hassan
Ramsay Ames	...	Nalu
Chris-Pin Martin	...	Fat Thief
Scotty Beckett	...	Ali Baba as a Child
Yvette Duguay	...	Amara as a Girl
Noel Cravat	...	Mongol Captain
Jimmy Conlin	...	Little Thief
Harry Cording	...	Mahmoud

Runtime:

87 min | Argentina:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (nf) | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #9665)

Filming Locations:

Coral Pink Sand Dunes - Sand Dunes Road, Kanab, Utah, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

The movie does not follow the plot of the original story except in the scene where the forty thieves are stuffed in jars and then brought to the palace as a gift for the villain, Hulagu Khan.

Quotes:

Abdullah: For a man's country or his stomach he might bid his life; even for his horse. Never, never for a woman.

Movie Connections:

Version of "Shirley Temple's Storybook: Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (#1.14)" (1958)

Soundtrack:

Song of the Forty Thieves

The Technicolor is Pretty Spiffy

I'm mostly commenting just to double the number of comments on this film. The film has a nice brisk pace and attractive leads. It's mostly a fun light-hearted piece of escapist entertainment, with the only problems being that the sets, costumes, and Andy Devine all keep reminding us that it is a Hollywood film being staged for the cameras. The sets often look horribly fake, the costumes look brand new and freshly dry-cleaned, in order to look good in Technicolor one supposes. The back projections are just awful, and absurdly fake.

There's one scene when the 40 thieves are riding off furiously in a cloud of dust, as seen from a distance. Then we get a close up of the three leaders, each in turn, wearing bright clean clothes, and apparently sitting on coin-operated horses in front of some grainy back projection. It's unintentionally funny. And Andy Devine is the least convincing Arab thief ever. He's supposed to be comic relief, akin to Friar Tuck in many versions of Robin Hood. However, his line readings are awful, with his voice cracking most of the time, apparently in an attempt at humor. It's as if he strolled on to the wrong set, grabbed a freshly laundered costume and misguidedly decided to join in.

If you watch Ali Baba today, it can be viewed as a commentary on the US presence in Iraq. An outside invader (here the Mongols) has sacked and overtaken Baghdad. A popular insurrection boils in the countryside, but is dismissed by the invaders as merely the work of thieves and troublemakers. The occupier goes in for torture and bullying of the opposition, etc. The film does date from the middle of WWII, so it is unsurprising if some references to war and then-current events seeps through.

If you want to see a better film on this theme, I'd recommend Douglass Fairbanks in The Thief of Baghdad. (I haven't seen the 1940 Sabu re-make yet). Or for those more adventurous in their cinematic tastes, Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed is an amazing silhouette animation film from 1926, which is stunningly beautiful.