BY FRED BLOSSER
“The
Adventures of Hajji Baba,†a 1954 Walter Wanger production for Allied Artists
Pictures and 20th Century Fox, has been issued by Twilight Time in a Blu-ray
limited edition of 3,000 units. At the
time of its theatrical release, the film was a commercially successful entry in
the popular 1950s formula of swashbuckling romances about the legendary Middle
East of Sinbad, Ali Baba, and the Arabian Nights. In today’s post-9/11 world, when the American
public is more aware of the region’s grim reality, the Arabian Nights genre
survives, just barely, in rare efforts like “Disney’s Aladdin†and the “Prince
of Persia†video-game franchise.
In
the 1954 movie, Hajji Baba (John Derek), a young Persian barber, sets out to
make his fortune in the wider world. Meanwhile, across town in the Caliph’s palace, spoiled Princess Fawzia
(Elaine Stewart) wants to marry an ambitious neighboring prince, Nur-el-Din
(Paul Picerni). Her father objects,
having heard about Nur-el-Din’s cruel temper. “Think of all the wives he’s had, and how he’s treated them,†he warns. “No one can hold him.†Undeterred, the
headstrong Fawzia disguises herself as a boy and sneaks out to meet the
prince’s emissary at a nearby oasis. There, she encounters Hajji, whom she mistakes for the courier. She offers him a valuable emerald ring for
help in evading her father’s pursuit.
As
the two proceed together across the desert, they’re captured by a gang of lady
bandits led by the red-haired Banah (Amanda Blake), and eventually they realize
that they’ve fallen in love with each other. Escaping from Banah, the pair fall into the hands of Nur-el-Din, who
exercises his prior claim on Fawzia’s affections. Surrounded and outnumbered by the prince’s
armed retinue, and believing that it’s Fawzia’s preference anyway, Hajji
relinquishes the princess to Nur-el-Din in exchange for the ring that had been
promised to him earlier. Irked, Fawzia
rides off with the prince, who secretly orders two of his soldiers to ride
back, kill Hajji, and retrieve the ring . . .
Critics
of the time were inclined to dismiss Arabian Nights escapism of this sort, as
modern reviewers do every time a new Dwayne Johnson or Mark Wahlberg action
picture debuts. In his New York times
review, Bosley Crowther suggested that the movie needed “someone in it like Bob
Hope to kid and lampoon the ostentation of its lush Oriental gewgawry.†But most middle-class audiences were less
exacting, and looked only for “The Adventures of Hajji Baba†to provide a
couple of hours’ relaxation from the grind of work and school. The kids could enjoy the widescreen swordplay
and horseback chases, Mom might think tingly thoughts about John Derek, and Pop
could ogle Amanda Blake, Elaine Stewart, and the numerous other starlets in the
cast in their skimpy harem girl costumes. That was about as racy as Hollywood products got in those days. Compared with the boxy, black-and-white image
that moviegoers were used to watching at home on TV, the film’s sumptuous
CinemaScope, Color by De Luxe photography was sensational stuff.
The
2.55:1 widescreen aspect and rich color are beautifully transferred on the
Twilight Time Blu-ray, a welcome upgrade from the pan-and-scan print of the
film that airs now and then on cable’s Fox Movie Channel. Modern viewers may be put off that the Arab
and Farsi characters are played by actors whose accents are more Parsippany,
New Jersey than Persia, but that was standard practice for the day, and even
today’s Millennials will have to admit, if they’re honest, that the
old-fashioned romance between Hajji and the willful Fawzia isn’t much more
contrived than the plot of the average confection today on the Hallmark Movie
Channel, or for that matter the tortuous complications on “reality†TV’s “The
Bachelor.†Fans of ‘50s lounge music are
likely to be amused by the title tune that wends its way through the soundtrack
-- music by Dimitri Tiomkin, lyrics by Ned Washington, arrangement by Nelson
Riddle, and vocal by Nat “King†Cole. The music and effects are isolated on an alternate audio track on the
Twilight Time disc. Other extras are the
original theatrical trailer, SDH subtitles, and an informative insert-booklet
by the reliable Julie Kirgo. The Blu-ray
is available HERE.