If like me you prefer adventure movies that entertain and that don't have to engage the brain then this is probably right up your sand dune. Absolutely no message and defiantly old fashioned (because it was made in 1951?) full of corn and clichés but to the light hearted also full of fun and frolics. Most of today's audience will also notice there's no cgi cartoonery that has to be in every film made nowadays.
Swashbuckling Legionnaire Burt Lancaster gets out of jail on the understanding he will delay by 5 days the naughty Riff's attack on their stronghold at Tarfa, picking 9 men fairly good and true to help. He finds an "easy" way to accomplish this: by abducting a sultan's pretty and pretty feisty daughter with the strange gravelly voice and thus getting the Riff's to chase all over the place. Although Lancaster initially seemed to me to be missing Nick Cravat he turned in some fine non-acrobatic comedic moments – as the supposed father to 2 ugly daughters, dodging Princess Mahla's bullets, and one of my favourite split seconds from any film ever made is when he lustily roars out "Murderers!" to the aghast wedding party. During the chase a corny variation on Beau Geste is used, Abbott & Costello are referenced, and the tribal division sown in Road To Morrocco is continued to good effect. Because of this film I've always had a little trouble adjusting if I've seen Gerald Mohr without a turban. But what the red blooded Mike was supposed to see in Mahla was beyond me though as she wasn't a very friendly lady - even at the end if she'd ever said I Love You to Lancaster I'd take it to mean Take That!
So, it's nothing heavy and has absolutely no significance at all – but every few years it's a pleasant time passer for me, 97 minutes of witty and romantic middlebrow entertainment. By the way that's not something I'd put about The Hobbit, having recently watched that for the first and last time.
Swashbuckling Legionnaire Burt Lancaster gets out of jail on the understanding he will delay by 5 days the naughty Riff's attack on their stronghold at Tarfa, picking 9 men fairly good and true to help. He finds an "easy" way to accomplish this: by abducting a sultan's pretty and pretty feisty daughter with the strange gravelly voice and thus getting the Riff's to chase all over the place. Although Lancaster initially seemed to me to be missing Nick Cravat he turned in some fine non-acrobatic comedic moments – as the supposed father to 2 ugly daughters, dodging Princess Mahla's bullets, and one of my favourite split seconds from any film ever made is when he lustily roars out "Murderers!" to the aghast wedding party. During the chase a corny variation on Beau Geste is used, Abbott & Costello are referenced, and the tribal division sown in Road To Morrocco is continued to good effect. Because of this film I've always had a little trouble adjusting if I've seen Gerald Mohr without a turban. But what the red blooded Mike was supposed to see in Mahla was beyond me though as she wasn't a very friendly lady - even at the end if she'd ever said I Love You to Lancaster I'd take it to mean Take That!
So, it's nothing heavy and has absolutely no significance at all – but every few years it's a pleasant time passer for me, 97 minutes of witty and romantic middlebrow entertainment. By the way that's not something I'd put about The Hobbit, having recently watched that for the first and last time.