Always liked that movie. You know, Jimmy “Scotty” Doohan has a supporting role and he’s almost unrecognizable.
I am currently watching the other Mostel/Wilder movie on the Roku app Otherworlds TV, “Rhinoceros”. Interesting stage play turned into a movie, when the location change4d from Paris to New York.
My sister read the description, and we passed on dvr-ing it. But she asked if The Revenant was a re-make of it. And it wasn’t, but both movies were based on the same real person, so the story’s the same.
Gremlins 2 1990 on Peacock
Most of the original cast reunited for the sequel.
Gremlins 2 is OK. There are some good moments. But I enjoy the original more. It has a different, more grounded vibe in Suburbia.
I don’t understand using a high Tech office building. It distracts from the Gremlin story. There is a sillier, slapstick feeling in Gremlins 2. Especially when the Gremlins were given human form and personalities.
I’d caution against watching with a very young child. Some scenes are extremely guesome. For example, pushing a Gremlin through a paper shredder. They show pieces dropping into the trash can.
Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim
Not recommended.
Disappointingly boring. I had hopes this would be good, but it just isn’t. There is some great animation and all the voice acting is fine, but the movie itself does not have an interesting script or any interesting characters.
Skip it.
I re-watched the Alex Korda 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad recenty. Although I’ve known of the film practically my entire life, and had frequently seen stills from it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, it wasn’t until I bought a copy of the Criterion DVD that I actually watched the whole thing. This is my second time watching it all the way through.
The first thing that grabs you is the startling color. This was back when full Technicolor was new, and they went out of their way to make sure that the colors were bold, dramatically contrasted, and bright. They hired Color Consultants to make sure the colors were eye-poppingly brilliant. Compare any of these late 1930s-early 1940s movies with color films from th 1960s, when color was easy to come by. The later films had muddy and understated color.
This was the first big British color fantasy extravaganza, and they had to figure out how to make the special effects convincing in Technicolor, so this was a very influential film. And in more ways than one.
First I want to state that I very much prefer the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks original version of Thief of Bagdad. It was silent , and it was in black and white (although frequently tinted), but it had a much better plot and story arc.
There are a lot of people and websites that say “the 1940 version has the same plot , but they split the role of the thief and the suitor” . Don’t believe it. The plots of the two are completely different. They are each their own film. It goes far beyond having the thief different from the guy who woos the princess.
Sources seem to disagree about who’s responsible for the story and script for the 1924 version. Wikipedia credits the writing to Abdullah Achmed, Lotta Woods, and James T. O’Donohue. I have no idea who gave any credit to O’Donohue – his own Wikipedia page doesn’t credit him as a writer, not even an uncredited one. Achmed was a writer of “Orientalist” fiction, mainly for the pulps. He wrote novelization of the film (which is pretty good, and drips with period trimmings), but there’s nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with the script. Similarly, Lotta Woods was a children’s author who wrote a kiddie lit novelization of the film. So where did the story come from? I’m surprised Wikipedia leaves this out. The title card credits it to Elton Thomas. Elton Thomas wrote several of Fairbanks’ silent films. Because “Elton Thomas” was Douglas Fairbanks. His full name was Douglas Elton Thomas Fairbanks. He appears to have cobbled the story together from bits and pieces of the Arabian Nights and folklore and his imagination. It’s got a Flying Carpet an a Plying Horse and a Cloak of Invisibility and the Magic Rope trick, but no Magic Lamp or Genie. And no major role for the Sultan, and no Wicked Vizier trying to usurp the throne and marry the Princess.
The story has a definite arc – Ahmed (Fairbanks) starts out as an unrepentant (and very successful) thief, but when he is robbing the Royal Palace, he sees the Princess and instantly falls in love with her. He tries to kidnap her, disguising himself as a rich suitor, but refuses to go through with it. When the princess sends her suitors away to quest for the rarest gift, he follows as a four suitor, overcomes all sorts of obstacles, defeats the Mongol prince and his army, and lives happily ever after. His story arc takes him from selfish thief to benevolent ruler.
The 1940 version has a completely different script by Hungarian novelist Lajos Biro, with input from Miles Malleson, who also played the Sultan. Perhaps it’s not surprising that he gave his character a much bigger part.
In this version, it begins with a flashback story told in Basra by a young and handsome blind beggar with a surprisingly intelligent dog. He was, he said, originally the King of Bagdad, Ahmad. His power-hungry vizier, Jaffap, persuades him to disguise himself and get a candid look at life in the city. But he has the disguised king arrested and thrown in jail.
It’s worth pointing out that in the Real World, Jaffar really was vizier to Haoun al-Rashid, the 9th century ruler of Bagdad. In the 1001 Nights, both Hariun and Jaffar show up more than once as characters, and they do disguise themselves as commoners to see life in the city. But Jaffar is presented as an honest and loyal vizier in these stories, who would never stoop to such a coup d’etat.
Jaffar is also a powerful sorceror in the film (but not in the 1001 Nights). He makes a magical toy flying horse that he offers to the toy-obsessed Sultan in exchange for the Princess’ hand in marriage. The somewhat dim and absent-minded Sultan agrees. But the Princess, who has fallen in love with Ahmad (who broke into the palace to see her, with help from the thief Abu), tries to escape. Jaffar catches them, blinds Ahmad, and turns Abu into a dog.
Jaffar takes the princess away on a ship, and offers to restore Ahmad’s sight if she will embrace him. She agrees, but she still doesn’t love him.
There are many adventures by Ahmad and Abu as they try to get back to Baghdad and rescue the princess. They succeed eventually, but there’s no resemblance to the 18924 version. There are occasional similarities, like breaking into the garden to see the Princess, or the scene where Abu has to climb up an idol and remove the Third Eye in its forehead, because it’s a sort of crystal ball (which duplicates a scene from the 1924 version, although with infinitely better effects). Interestingly, William Cameron Menzies was production designer for both films.
But the plot of this film is almost a complete fabrication, and its elements continued to haunt “Arabian Nights” films every since:
Down-on-his-luck hero
Companion thief/animal Abu
Beautiful Princess locked away in seclusion
Dim-witted, absent-minded Sultan, often obsessed with toys
Evil Vizier who wants the throne and the princess; he’s also a wizard
Genie in a lamp or bottle
We see most of these also in
1001 Arabian Nights (1959 - UPA) - with "Mr. Magoo
The Thief of Bagdad(Il Ladro di Bagdad 1961) – with Steve Reeves!
The Thief of Bagdad (1978 TV movie)
Aladdin (1992- Disney)
The Thief and the Cobbler (1993 - 2024, various releases)
Aladdin (2019 - Disney)
The Mr. Magoo one is retelling of Aladdin, but the Vizier is a magician in this one, too, and he’s after the girl. Disney’s version steals most from the 1940 film, right down to the names Apu (Abu) and Jafar and the Sultan’s love of toys. But I think it also borrows from the Magoo version, which gives the vizier animal companions.
A lot of these version got really good villain actors to play the vizier – Conrad Veight in 1940, Hans Conreid in 1959, Terence Stamp in 1978, Jonathan Freeman in 1992.
But what gets me is that this “typical” Arabian fantasy has a plot that’s really no older than 1940, and which has become a pretty standard plot for Arabian fantasies. And has little or nothing to do with the Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night that was nominally its inspiration.
Out of boredom I rewatched Die Hard yesterday. It’s okay as an action film, but one thing that annoys me to no end is the use of the walkie talkies. I know it’s picking nits, but anyone familiar with that type of communicating device knows that that’s not how they work.
No, no. Those were special Hans Gruber Tech Walkies. They work that way. 'Cause because.
I loved this movie as a kid, but I only ever saw it in B&W. I’ve only seen clips from the Fairbanks version, so I can’t compare, but since a lot of the Arabian night fantasies have been created and modified over the centuries I have no problem with the movie making changes. Rex Ingram always scared the crap out of me – more than Conrad Veidt!
Neither the Fairbanks version nor the Alex Korda one (and its many imitators “made changes” – they made up the stories out of whole cloth, only using little bits and pieces of actual Arabian folklore every now and then.
I’ve watched a couple old favorites, kind of related. My favorite movie of all time, The Warriors (1979) and then The Wanderers (1979). Two different type of gang movies that came out in the same year.
The Warriors is just the balls. I’ve seen it probably a hundred times. I’m currently having fun creating AI fan-fiction (there’s a rumble with The Dominators afoot).
The Wanderers is more nostalgic. Most of the “gang action” is fairly innocuous amongst the high school boys - until the Ducky Boys start fucking things up.
The Wanderers is available on YouTube, by the way, if you’re interested.
Hijack, but if you like The Warriors, I recommend seeing the last few episodes of What We Do In The Shadows. One episode was a parody.
Oh, cool. Thanks for the recommendation. That’s a show that, on paper, should be one of my go-to’s, but I’ve just never really attempted that one.
(I see it’s on Hulu - that’s a big reason I haven’t watched it … don’t have Hulu)
Re: The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
I recall hearing that a contract stipulation for using Technicolor was that the movie had to credit a Technicolor employee, usually Natalie Kalmus. “Dr.Kalmus’ first wife, Natalie Kalmus, was also a company executive and had a reputation for always being on set and interfering with the director….” - Herbert T. Kalmus - Biography - IMDb
You have stated this opinion several times on the board and each time I pretend it doesn’t bother me (even though it is clearly wrong). What does bother me is that I don’t think you have ever – at least in my time on the board - acknowledged the contribution of Anna May Wong to the film. Quite simply (IIRC), she is the best thing in it and the film is much less entertaining after the first third or fourth of the running time because of her absence.
Lastly, IMDB credits composer Miklós Rózsa as one of the 1940 film’s writers. As I have found no reference to his doing any work on the story, I believe it is incorrect.
The Wanderers (directed by Philip Kaufman, who had just re-made Invasion of the Body Snatchers and would soon co-write Raiders of the Lost Ark) is one of the few films to feature the enormous and interesting Erland van lidthe de jeude. This was the movie for which he shaved his head (since he was playing a “Fordham Baldy”). He went on to play Grossberger in the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film Stir Crazy, still bald. Eventually Erland got fed up with playing Big Bald Geeks and stopped appearing in movies. He appeared in The Running Man, where he didn’t have to shave his head, and they finally let him sing in his own voice (they dubbed him in Stir Crazy – something about him not being in the right union)
I performed on stage with him twice in college. H was BIG. He was the ideal guy to play Miles Gloriosus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Oh, now, I have to see it! I’m a huge Anna May Wong fan. She was gorgeous and a wonderful actor.
Many thanks!
Nobody fucks with the Wongs.
(couldn’t resist)
FWIW, there is a new album based on The Warriors co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He would like to turn it into a Broadway show (and of course a movie decades later).