Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902) User Reviews

Awfully disjoint but amazing for 1902 (or 1905)

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 15 September 2006]

The Kino Video DVD says this Pathé Frères film was made in 1905 and IMDb says 1902. Regardless, this is a pretty amazing film for that time--having a hand colored print, good sets for the time and a pretty long narrative during a day when one or two minutes was the norm for films. So, technically it's a wonderful film but can't quite reach the fabulous quality of the films of French rival,Georges Méliès (the absolute master of special effects and plots of this time). But for an "almost as good as" film, it's awfully good for its time. However, there are two big problems. One is with the Kino print. For some dumb reason, the company chose to put several Pathé films on this DVD (THE MOVIES BEGIN: VOLUME THREE) that STILL used the original French inter-title cards--and there was no English captioning whatsover!! I have a pretty basic knowledge of French, so I was able to follow along okay and the film is done with very few of these cards anyway. Second, even with proper cards, a lot of the action just seems very vague and confusing. With less confusion, this film probably would have merited a 9--though it is STILL quite a spectacular film.

Colourful adaptation of the medieval tale

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 15 September 2013]

"Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs" is one of the earlier works of French movie pioneer Ferdinand Zecca and mostly worth watching for the impressive use of hand colors. The story or direction is nothing special really and was done better quite a couple times before 1902. Also, it's unclear whether this film was really 1902 or 1905. For further confusion, there's also another version of the tale from 1907, directed by Zecca's Pathé Frères colleague Segundo de Chomón.

Anyway, I'd really only recommend this short film to those with a special interest in the very early years of cinema. You can see that the colors were used with careful consideration, such as blue for the boys and pink for the girls. It's really what makes the film and guarantees for a beautiful, almost mind-blowing, finale.