Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1907) User Reviews

Has a great final shot that I thought was worth seeing

[bob the moo · 21 April 2007]

A very early version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves this French film is interesting for its colouring but also for its solid narrative as yet again Pathé delivers a story that spreads over several scenes and requires attention. The sets are mostly good although it was the technical aspect of the filming that impressed me most. The colouring was the most obvious because it was very well done and really did a great job of bringing out an Arabian feel that the film benefited from.

More impressive though was the elaborate shot at the very end of the film where women are built into the set, which is animated and also coloured. It is very impressive and made the short a lot more worth while than it was for the story alone. Worth seeing for the technical side in a historical context.

Quite Colorful, But Otherwise Rather Uninspired

[Snow Leopard · 25 October 2002]

This old version of the legend of Ali Baba is quite colorful (featuring the old laborious hand-tinting technique), and it has a couple of good special visual effects, but it is otherwise rather uninspired. The way that it presents the story is somewhat choppy, the characters are never developed very far, and the scenario doesn't really do very much with the high points of the story.

This same production team had previously made a film version of the legend of Aladdin, and that movie works much better than does their "Ali Baba". The story of "Ali Baba" is also interesting enough that it could be made into a good short movie, but at least in this one there is some unrealized potential.

It's still probably still worth watching for its historical interest, for those who enjoy finding and watching these very old movies. Its color alone makes it interesting for its time, but it's not really one of the best efforts of the era.

great early arabian nights fantasy

[karl-68 · 30 June 2002]

nice movie from pathe freres hand colored and very familiar with george melies work,not so full of special effects but the whole arabian atmosphere of the movie is a worth to look to this film,one early slasher scene when the thieves head is chopped off with a sword.

Beware of imitations

[kekseksa · 9 July 2018]

The 8-minute version in colour that everybody seems to be watching is in fact the 1902 version. The 1907 version was also in colour and is, fairly obviously, much the same story but we dot have it and it was twice as long as this 1902 film. It is unlikely, if ever it does re-emerge, that a film of 1907 is going to look that similar to a film made in 1902. Five years at this period was a long time....

Nice Version of the Ali Baba Story, and Easy to Follow

[Tornado_Sam · 18 November 2017]

To be honest, I wasn't really familiar with the Ali Baba story when I watched this film. But surprisingly enough, I managed to follow this one nearly all the way through. The end was confusing for me but from the beginning to the execution scene I pretty much understood what was happening. Considering this is a SILENT MOVIE, you must applaud this for the fact it's pretty clear to see what's happening. And, it's 1902 (but was re-issued in 1907 with subtitles) so that shows that Ferdinand Zecca knew how to make a movie that was easy to follow. For the time this is simply amazing.

The film is 8 minutes long, a very long movie for 1902. What really makes it stand out is the color. By the 1900s there was indeed color in film, but not the type we see today. For color films, you had to paint every single cotton-picking image, frame after frame after frame after frame after frame. It was a lot of work and it's good a hand-colored copy survives.

Other than that this film is pretty stagy, which is something that wasn't really changed until years later. For it's time this is very well done and it shows that at the time more people than just Georges Méliès were trying new ideas.