Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944)

Perfectly adorable

Expected more

The first must-see film of the year.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Producer: Paul Malvern. Copyright 31 December 1943 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York release at the Palace: 15 March 1944. U.S. release: 14 January 1944. U.K. release: 13 March 1944. Australian release: 14 August 1944. Sydney release at the State: 9 August 1944. 10 reels. 87 minutes.SYNOPSIS: The patriots of old Bagdad, under the leadership of Ali Baba Junior, throw off the Mongol yoke.COMMENT: Maria Montez was a unique personality. Fortunately, Universal soon realized this. For her 9th film, "Arabian Nights", the studio opened its door to three-step Technicolor for the first time. The experiment was such a success there followed White Savage, Ali Baba, Cobra Woman, Gypsy Wildcat, Sudan and Pirates of Monterey in rapid succession. Ali Baba is one of the best of these — a carefully crafted, expansive production that does full justice to her talents and her appeal. Filmed on a fairly lavish scale, with vast sets and on-location lensing with lots of colorfully costumed extras milling around, "Ali Baba" features plenty of action, directed at a nifty pace with agreeable camera angles and an occasionally (yet very effective) fluid camera style, underscored by loads of Universal-type "B" music. It all adds up to a movie buff's — and especially a Maria Montez buff's — delight. Maria also has the opportunity to do her famous impersonating-her- servant-girl turn as well as her usual royal princess bit. My one and only criticism is that the plot prevents her making an early entrance. We have to wait almost two whole reels!Quite apart from Miss Montez, the superb sets and superlative exquisite color photography make Ali Baba a visual delight. Oddly enough, the cave itself with its obvious paper-mâché opening rocks and its disappointing lack of all the interior opulence we might expect, is the one real let-down. All other sets are as richly dressed as are the opulent costumes, while the attractive presence of Miss Montez herself is made even more entrancing by skillful make-up, costuming and hair styles. And all are rapturously, ravishingly photographed in rich, pastel-toned colors.The support players are not much — Mr. Hall is obviously too mature for his part, and he's a second-rate swashbuckler at that; Frank Puglia and Kurt Katch are hardly the most crafty or charismatic pair of villains; Andy Devine is a most unlikely thief (though at least we are spared his customary over-indulgence in low comedy relief); Turhan Bey makes a lackluster accomplice. But at least they don't detract too much attention from Miss Montez! (It is the juveniles who keep us waiting — though Master Beckett and Miss Duguay are presentable enough. Their footage was re-used in its entirety in the 1965 remake.)Stylishly directed by Universal contract director Arthur Lubin, this tale is now long on action, short on romance.In fact, Edmund L. Hartmann's script makes considerable changes in the original story, turning it into a routine desert adventure. Still, it is a spirited enough tale, directed with dash in vivid color against sumptuous sets, and zestfully played by a grand cast. Maria Montez makes a queenly heroine, Jon Hall a vigorous hero, Kurt Katch a wonderfully sinister villain, while Andy Devine and Chris- Pin Martin provide some mildly amusing comic relief.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is the best of the Montez-Hall movies, ahead of Arabian Nights, which perhaps deserves an 8, Cobra Woman, which deserves a 7, and White Savage, which deserves only slightly over a 6. My 9 rating is perhaps a bit high -- maybe 8.4-8.6 would be more accurate -- but I give it a 9 in protest against the ridiculously low IMDb average.What sets this above all the others is the script; both plot and dialogue are superior. The performances are also livelier, the acting better (both of the leads, Hall and Montez, and of the supporting cast), and the feeling of forward movement in the story much greater.In fact, I rank this film third, all-time, among classic adventure films in which only normal human beings with normal human powers are involved (no genies, dragons, gods, animated skeletons, Jedi knights, etc.), and which are not at least part tongue-in-cheek (like the Indiana Jones films). Only The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro are better in this category. (Though The Black Swan, The Most Dangerous Game and a few others come close.)Kurt Katch turns in a great performance as the evil Hulagu Khan. To the 7-to-13-year-olds who crowded the Saturday matinée in 1944, Katch's Khan would be the classic portrayal of the tyrant. Of course, to adult eyes, Katch's performance is over-acted, but films in this genre have to be judged with their intended audience in mind.Special mention should go to Turhan Bey, and to Frank Puglia as Montez's sycophantic father. The only performance which could be thought a flaw in the film is that of Andy Devine, as the fat "comedy relief" thief. The "cowboy humour" he brings from his other roles seems a bit out of place in a basically high-toned, medieval-flavoured tale about the Muslim and Mongol Middle East. I could have done without him. Still, he was doing what the part called for, so really any blame should be assigned to the writer and director rather than Devine himself. And again, we have to consider the primary audience for the film (though adults can enjoy it, too) was the kids -- and that sort of comedy relief would be what many 40s kids liked.The music, camera work, and Technicolor are all first-rate. The film is polished. When 1940s Universal did one of its rare, big-budget "A"-list movies, it could do it very well.Love, courage, nobility; a despicable Oriental tyrant and a people groaning under his heel; the transformation of thieves into patriots; action, glamour, spectacle, and a rousing climax -- this film is a perfect piece of sheer entertainment. I watched this movie with my kids over and over again when they were young. They loved it. It's a great family movie if you have pre-teen kids who have not yet been jaded by the modern emphasis on loudness and special effects, and can still accept the older styles of acting and storytelling because they have the openness of childhood. If you start them out on Indiana Jones and Star Wars, it may be impossible for them to go back later and really enjoy these older-style adventure movies. Give them this experience while they can still enjoy it.

All in all, one of the best, if not thee best, of the Universal American Arabian Nights fantasies made during the 1940's, with rousing action; glorious early Technicolor and a wonderful music score by the little known, but obviously very talented, Edward Ward that captures the atmosphere of the film superbly. Even Miklos Rozsa himself couldn't have done a better job on it. Scotty Beckett's performance as young Ali throughout fourteen minutes of the first reel (seventeen minutes) of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" is totally mesmerising and wonderful. If only he could have played Ali throughout the whole film. From the start of the second reel, with Jon Hall playing Ali as a grown up, the film seems to change mood abruptly. It's still very good and entertaining, but never regains the heights it achieved in the first reel. In turn, Scotty looks so proud: "I will never fail you or Baghdad, father!", he says, with his head held high. Genuinely afraid (the murder of his father in the ambush and the burning of the boats and his first encounter with the magic stone doors in the mountain wall) and touched by magic and an incredible childlike sense of wonder as he discovers the treasures of the thieves' cave. You are there with him and feel just as he feels. It's an incredible performance for a boy of 12, going on 13.I love watching him in this first reel and he is what you see on the screen and what you see is what you get. He must have been wonderful to know and to have as a friend in those days and it's obvious that after that, as he grew into his teenage years, something terrible must have happened to him. Why? Perhaps he was let down and abandoned and betrayed by those he misguidedly loved and trusted. The same thing happened to the likes of Bobby Driscoll and Darren Burn. A human tragedy of immense proportions in all three cases. Nonetheless, it's still wonderful to see what a fine and unique young boy and child actor Scotty Beckett was, before his world came crashing down around him. Wherever he is now, in some heavenly world of spirit, I hope and pray he has found contentment and happiness. His portrayal of young Ali in this film was, in my opinion, his crowning achievement and it's worth buying the DVD of this film just to see him in it.I highly recommend this film, which has been so beautifully restored from the original Technicolor negatives, that it looks marvellous and both sound and picture are as clear as the proverbial bell and the film looks like it was made yesterday, although it is, in fact, sixty-seven years old, having been made in 1943 and released in 1944. In fact, the image quality is so good that the film has also been released on a Blue Ray disc.

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.