Director: Charles Lamont
Year: 1951
Rating: 6.0
It could never happen today, but once again this red-headed lass from Ireland
is placed into the role of an Arabian Princess. Nothing could be more absurd
but back then I wonder if anyone - audience member or critic - really made
mention of it. This is another Technicolor dream with Maureen O'Hara just
sparkling like a diamond on the screen and outfitted like a fashion plate
on the runways of Fifth Avenue. Every new dress puts the last one to shame.
Director Charles Lamont (directed a bunch of the Abbot and Costello and Ma
Kettle films) had directed her in Bagdad a few years previously and had adorned
her just as sumptuously - definitely more so than Ma Kettle! He uses Technicolor
like love potion - everything looks grand.
Jeff Chandler as the Bedouin is about as convincing as O'Hara as the Princess
of Tunisia - even though his role as Cochise in Broken Arrow the previous
year had made him a star. He goes through the film looking taciturn, quite
rugged and tall - at one point a dancing girl swirls around him and you realize
that she comes up to his waist - not sure if she was the size of a bottle
of coke or that he was very tall. It almost seems natural that a Princess
used to servants and luxury would be willing to give it up to live in a tent
- ok, not that natural. Quite horrible actually.
In this silly pill of a film, Tamerlane (Chandler) and his two friends are
trying to track down and capture a legendary wild black stallion named Shahzada
when he runs into Princess Tanya. Disdain flies back and forth like barbed
arrows before she leaves. Back in Tunis her father has just died and his
cousin has given her hand into marriage to the two Corsicans (privateers),
the Barbarossa Brothers (Lon Chaney Jr and Buddy Baer) to decide which is
the lucky winner. Not sure if these two were suppose to be the famous Barbarossa
Brothers who were privateers with one of them eventually becoming an Admiral
in the Ottoman Navy who won them great victories. If so, these were their
early days with their red beards and bad manners and willingness to kill.
The only way the Princess can escape their clutches is to beat them in a
horse race with Shahzada. Which is actually the strength of this film - there
is a passel of horse riding through rough terrain at high speeds - the horses
are beautiful and whoever was doing the riding was tops. I love watching
that stuff even though I have never been on a horse in my life and intend
to keep it that way. This is kind of a Western without being a Western.
