With a very impish way of presenting its adventurous story, this is another film that would have pleased me a great deal...at the age of 10! Now, it's just another one of those silly sword and sandal adventures that are passable time fillers but not much else. It's the story of a newly crowned desert queen (the always striking but emotionally dead Maria Montez) who gets to wear Cleopatra type head dresses as she is manipulated by her father's trusted assistant (George Zucco) who has murdered the king and framed lowly pickpocket Jon Hall who saved the queen when Zucco attempted to banish her.
Colorful but juvenile, this is yet another reunion for Hall, Montez, Turhan Bey and Andy Devine, oh so silly as Hall's sidekick, complete with silly goatee and Buster Brown bob. Better in scope than the other Montez/Hall pairings, this has long views of endless desert vistas, and seems to be a combination of various places periods rolled into one. It's one of the silliest if this genre, not as camp as "Cobra Woman", but mixing the Arabian Knights feeling with that of a biblical epic, it seems to be taking place in some parallel universe. Montez tones her performance way down, often quite silent, and leaving the hamminess to veteran villain Zucco.
Technically, this is excellent, yet it was the very last of the colorful Montez/Hall epics, with "A Night in Paradise" closing off this series the following year with mostly different actors, including Merle Oberon in Montez's place. Andy Devine (if it is possible) becomes even more cartoonish here than in previous films at Universal of the genre. Still, there are some excellent effects, particularly an intense rock slide which takes place as the heroes and villains have a sword fight which leads to the final clinch over, you guessed it, a desert song.
Colorful but juvenile, this is yet another reunion for Hall, Montez, Turhan Bey and Andy Devine, oh so silly as Hall's sidekick, complete with silly goatee and Buster Brown bob. Better in scope than the other Montez/Hall pairings, this has long views of endless desert vistas, and seems to be a combination of various places periods rolled into one. It's one of the silliest if this genre, not as camp as "Cobra Woman", but mixing the Arabian Knights feeling with that of a biblical epic, it seems to be taking place in some parallel universe. Montez tones her performance way down, often quite silent, and leaving the hamminess to veteran villain Zucco.
Technically, this is excellent, yet it was the very last of the colorful Montez/Hall epics, with "A Night in Paradise" closing off this series the following year with mostly different actors, including Merle Oberon in Montez's place. Andy Devine (if it is possible) becomes even more cartoonish here than in previous films at Universal of the genre. Still, there are some excellent effects, particularly an intense rock slide which takes place as the heroes and villains have a sword fight which leads to the final clinch over, you guessed it, a desert song.