Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1944/ 87 min.
Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall
Cinematography by George Robinson
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Thanks to George Robinson’s Technicolor photography and Vera West’s kaleidoscopic costumes, death and destruction look pretty as a picture in 1944’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Director Arthur Lubin’s action fantasy is no patch on the Fleischer brothers’ Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves but this Universal Pictures release is a cheerfully unassuming time-killer.
This Arabian Nights fable about a caliph’s son who grows up to lead a band of robbers contains a few nuggets of actual history; the movie’s bloodthirsty villain, Hulagu Khan, was indeed the grandson of the infamous Genghis. Hulagu was a thug who didn’t fall far from the tree; he conquered Baghdad and then decimated it, sending the then storybook city into a spiral.
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1944/ 87 min.
Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall
Cinematography by George Robinson
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Thanks to George Robinson’s Technicolor photography and Vera West’s kaleidoscopic costumes, death and destruction look pretty as a picture in 1944’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Director Arthur Lubin’s action fantasy is no patch on the Fleischer brothers’ Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves but this Universal Pictures release is a cheerfully unassuming time-killer.
This Arabian Nights fable about a caliph’s son who grows up to lead a band of robbers contains a few nuggets of actual history; the movie’s bloodthirsty villain, Hulagu Khan, was indeed the grandson of the infamous Genghis. Hulagu was a thug who didn’t fall far from the tree; he conquered Baghdad and then decimated it, sending the then storybook city into a spiral.
- 8/8/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Cobra Woman
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1944/ 1:33 / 71 min.
Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu
Directed by Robert Siodmak
In the early 40’s Universal Pictures was still best known for its shadowy black and white horror shows. That all changed in 1944 when the studio produced the kind of candy-colored dreamland not seen since Dorothy woke up to Oz. The movie was Robert Siodmak’s Cobra Woman starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and studio stalwart Lon Chaney Jr., last seen putting the bite on Louise Allbritton in Siodmak’s Son of Dracula. There aren’t any vampires in this florid South Sea adventure but this is Universal, after all – villagers are dying and the bite marks on their throats suggest Siodmak’s latest wouldn’t stray too far from the studio’s comfort zone.
Montez plays two roles, a moony island girl named Tollea and her twin sister Naja who rules far-off...
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1944/ 1:33 / 71 min.
Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu
Directed by Robert Siodmak
In the early 40’s Universal Pictures was still best known for its shadowy black and white horror shows. That all changed in 1944 when the studio produced the kind of candy-colored dreamland not seen since Dorothy woke up to Oz. The movie was Robert Siodmak’s Cobra Woman starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and studio stalwart Lon Chaney Jr., last seen putting the bite on Louise Allbritton in Siodmak’s Son of Dracula. There aren’t any vampires in this florid South Sea adventure but this is Universal, after all – villagers are dying and the bite marks on their throats suggest Siodmak’s latest wouldn’t stray too far from the studio’s comfort zone.
Montez plays two roles, a moony island girl named Tollea and her twin sister Naja who rules far-off...
- 12/31/2019
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
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“The Four Feathers” (The Criterion Collection)
On DVD and Blu-Ray
By Raymond Benson
Based on A.E.W. Mason’s classic 1902 adventure novel, The Four Feathers had been made three times before this definitive version of a “British Empire Adventure Film” was released in 1939. Produced by Hungarian-born but UK-based Alexander Korda, one of the great filmmakers of British cinema, and directed by his brother Zoltan Korda, The Four Feathers represents the best of what England had to offer during its day, as well as the epitome of the kind of yarns spun by Kipling and his ilk.
In vivid Technicolor and sporting a cast of hundreds of ethnic extras, the picture captures the grand Victorian era of the British military and takes place mostly in Africa some ten years or so after the fall of Khartoum. The story is simple (albeit somewhat improbable):...
“The Four Feathers” (The Criterion Collection)
On DVD and Blu-Ray
By Raymond Benson
Based on A.E.W. Mason’s classic 1902 adventure novel, The Four Feathers had been made three times before this definitive version of a “British Empire Adventure Film” was released in 1939. Produced by Hungarian-born but UK-based Alexander Korda, one of the great filmmakers of British cinema, and directed by his brother Zoltan Korda, The Four Feathers represents the best of what England had to offer during its day, as well as the epitome of the kind of yarns spun by Kipling and his ilk.
In vivid Technicolor and sporting a cast of hundreds of ethnic extras, the picture captures the grand Victorian era of the British military and takes place mostly in Africa some ten years or so after the fall of Khartoum. The story is simple (albeit somewhat improbable):...
- 10/12/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 28 May 1940
"Gone With the Wind" is being shown this week at three West End cinemas and at the Gaiety, Manchester. It will be retained at the Gaiety for at least three months, and is unlikely to be seen elsewhere outside London till mid-autumn.
Its length (three hours and forty minutes with an interval) has become a byword and a prolific source of witticisms. Before the first foot of film was exposed it had a highly articulate "pre-sold" audience of best-seller readers, millions strong, who insisted on the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book. So it had to be long; the wonder is how Sidney Howard and David O. Selznick between them contrived so neatly to condense the thousand-page novel into a manageable scenario.
But abnormal length (as Disney has proved) need not in itself be a handicap. The major drawback...
"Gone With the Wind" is being shown this week at three West End cinemas and at the Gaiety, Manchester. It will be retained at the Gaiety for at least three months, and is unlikely to be seen elsewhere outside London till mid-autumn.
Its length (three hours and forty minutes with an interval) has become a byword and a prolific source of witticisms. Before the first foot of film was exposed it had a highly articulate "pre-sold" audience of best-seller readers, millions strong, who insisted on the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book. So it had to be long; the wonder is how Sidney Howard and David O. Selznick between them contrived so neatly to condense the thousand-page novel into a manageable scenario.
But abnormal length (as Disney has proved) need not in itself be a handicap. The major drawback...
- 5/28/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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