A Thousand and One Nights
                                                                                                    
Director: Alfrec E. Green
Year: 1945
Rating: 4.5
If you are an old movie fan, one of the pleasures is when you watch the opening credits scroll by to see who is in the film. Will there be any of your favorite supporting actors or an actor who has recently come to your attention. Or perhaps an actor that is a red flag for you. I have certain actors that immediately make me turn off the film and go in search of another. I am not even really sure why, but I just don't feel like spending 90-minutes with them. Pat O'Brien is one, Katherine Hepburn as well, Van Heflin for sure, Jose Ferrer sends me running out of the room, Van Johnson is like Nyquil, Spencer Tracy is a tough one - he co-stars with so many great actors, but he is like an annoying stone in my shoe. George Brent always elicits a groan out of me. Joan Crawford creeps me out. Well, as I watched these credits roll by, I added another - Phil Silvers. OK as Sgt Bilko, he had his moments but in a film as a major player, he is like food poisoning.



Not even sure why I continued except I have had this sitting on my hard drive for months. And in compensation there is Adele Jergens and Evelyn Keyes - though to my disappointment no Maria Montez. I thought she was required for any of those Technicolor Arabic fantasy films. Jergens has become a mild favorite of late having run into her in a number of films. A stunning blond with quite the figure that fills out nicely. She is better as a bad girl though than as an innocent Princess. The male heartthrob is Cornel Wilde before his adventure starring days. It makes for a limp soup all in all.



The harem squad was probably the best thing about it - a cavalcade of beautiful extras - Shelly Winters in there somewhere. Columbia Studios could pick them. Aladdin (Wilde) is a singer in the marketplace with his sneak thief buddy Abdullah (Silvers with his trademark glasses). Silvers plays Silvers with the constant quips, even introducing gin rummy. It only takes a minute before you want to kick him out of the film. The Sultan's daughter comes into the market in a carriage and everyone is ordered to look down - but of course our hero slips in, declares his love and kisses her - long before Me Too clearly. Not sure why I am bothering to give details. The story is insipid, the flowery dialogue needed to be whipped like a British schoolboy - the only good thing is that when he finds the magic lamp, the Genie is played by Keyes who has a crush on him. But he only has eyes for the Princess. Dennis Hoey is the Sultan - some may know him as Lestrade in the Holmes series and Rex Ingram who played the Genie in The Thief of Bagdad plays the giant protecting the lamp in this one. In the end Silvers does a Sinatra imitation to Bobby Sox harem girls. Just a sad attempt at a comic version of this tale.