BY HANK REINEKE
Sir Christopher Lee left us in 2015. In doing so he left even his most rabid fans
to spend a good portion of their lives trying to track down all of the films he
appeared in since 1946. This Kino Lorber
Studio Classics Blu-ray release of director Kevin Connor’s Arabian Adventure (1979) will be a welcome one to his many devotees,
especially as it sports a transfer superior to the old Televista DVD issued in
2007. This new transfer is colorful and
bright, with very few issues of scratches or speckling and with just enough
authentic film grain.
Though a near life-long fan of Christopher Lee’s work, I
somehow managed to miss this film when on U.S. release in 1979. I vaguely recall a feature cover story on the
film in a very early issue of Fangoria
magazine but, perhaps since Arabian
Adventure was marketed as a “family film,†my then too-cool nineteen year
old self chose to skip it. Or maybe my
friends weren’t interested in seeing it; or maybe it didn’t play at a theater
near me. I simply don’t recall the
circumstances. Lee historians Robert W. Pohle
and Douglas C. Hart (The Films of
Christopher Lee) suggest that the failure of this Arabian Nights-styled
fable at the U.S. box office was due to it having been released during the
Iranian hostage crisis. Perhaps. Or maybe
it was too whimsical and anachronistic a film to usher out the 1970s, a decade of
often seamy, violent, and envelope-pushing cinematic tropes.
The film was largely photographed at Pinewood Studios,
the fabled home base of the James Bond series. Eagle eyed viewers will catch glimpses of some familiar Pinewood faces,
character actors who have contributed to the 007 franchise in small but
meaningful ways: veterans Shane Rimmer (You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever,
The Spy Who Loved Me) and Milton Reid (of The Spy Who Loved Me and several Amicus Productions). There’s even a youthful appearance of a future
ally of agent 007, Art Malik (billed here under his actual first name Athar), “Kamran
Shah†from The Living Daylights.
Of the aforementioned three, Reid has the most memorable
role as a hulking, intemperate genie tasked in the guarding of the “Sacred Rose
of Elil.†Otherwise, the other aforementioned
actors share roles barely above cameos. Another connection of this film to the Bond series is the bright and
colorful cinematography courtesy of veteran Director of Photography Alan Hume. Hume would go on to be EON’s DOP of the 80s,
handling principal photography on three successive Roger Moore-era adventures (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a
Kill).
The film also boasts two “Special Guest Appearances†featuring
a pair of on-screen personas far more familiar to casual movie-going audiences. The genial Peter Cushing makes two brief
appearances in the film, but is sadly underused here, relegated only to a small
role and one semi-extended scene as Wazir Al Wuzara, the deposed ruler of
Jaddur. More disappointingly to fans of
his work in the Hammer Horror film franchise is that Cushing and his frequent on-screen
nemesis Lee do not share a single scene.
If it’s any consolation to Cushing’s fans, at least the
beloved actor gets a few lines of dialogue. The same cannot be said of the film’s second special guest, Mickey
Rooney. The diminutive, aged Rooney has
an unusual and wordless role as the Steam-Punk marionette master to a trio of
fearsome, fire-breathing, gilded gold steel-plated gargantuan dragons. It’s an amusing scene, but his presence here
amounts – again – to little more than a cameo.
(Above: studio "cheesecake" glamour photo of Emma Samms.)
On the plus side, the combined efforts of Production
Designer Elliot Scott and Art Director Jack Maxsted are remarkably ambitious considering
the film’s relatively modest budget. The
interior of Caliph Alquazar’s spatial palace is softly but colorfully swathed
in hanging draperies of yellow, lavender, and gold pastel. There’s also a beautiful and lengthy foot
pool adorned with inlaid tile, as well as towering, ornate and gilded columns
and decorative semi-circular porticos. The dinghy marketplace of Jaddur’s central village is suitably dressed
with dusty, worn canopies where fruit and trinket sellers ply their trade
amidst the streets of dirt and straw and crumbling infrastructure. The dangerous and mysterious thoroughfares
are suitably populated by the usual gaggle of beggars, merchants, and nefarious
turban-topped marauders who brandish swords in the service of Alquazar. A rousing score by composer Ken Thorne is
also one of the film’s greatest assets.
The film, while moderately entertaining, is a bit
over-long and might have been improved with some brisk-editing. Editor Barry Peters worked mostly on British
television but had some pedigree as a feature editor on such fantasy films of
the 1970s as At the Earth’s Core and The People That Time Forgot. As Arabian Adventure was certainly targeted
for a “family†audience demographic, no one should have expected a nuanced,
literate screenplay, with well-drawn characters. But the treatment by television writer Brian
Hayles (a frequent contributor to the BBC’s fabled Doctor Who series), suffers from too many thinly developed,
one-dimensional – and quite frankly, uninteresting- principal players. Perhaps Hayles, who passed away too soon at
age 47 - shortly after delivering the screenplay of Arabian Adventure - might have provided a proper script polish had he
lived, but producer John Dark and director Kevin Connor seem to have gone with
what they had.
As mentioned earlier, there’s a terrible misuse of the
assembled stage talent. Christopher Lee
is, properly, top-billed here, and he engages in some delicious scenery-chewing
as the evil Caliph Alquazar. By his own
admission, the actor explained in one interview that he modeled his performance
after that of Conrad Veidt, an idol of Lee’s who gave an unforgettable turn as
the evil Jaffar in The Thief of Bagdad
(1940). Lee’s Alquazar is the most
interesting of all the characters, but villains often are. Making her feature film debut as Princess
Zuleira, is British actress Emma Samms, who must have been all of sixteen years
old when she made this film. She’s
pretty to look at, but as her face is obscured by a half-veil through a good
portion of the film, who could really tell? There are also very few believable on screen romantic sparks between the
Princess and her sword-carrying adventurer-suitor Prince Hasan (Oliver
Tobias). Child actor Puneet Sira
(Majeed) and a pet monkey also walk through the film for seemingly little
reason other than that his presence helps provide a few easy (and
disappointingly un-dramatic) escapes.
The photographic effects throughout Arabian Adventure – while not earth shattering – aren’t as terrible
as many make them out to be. They are
just curiously inconsistent in quality. For
starters, there are perhaps too many aerial panoramic shots of the kingdom of
Jaddur’s cityscapes. The kingdom is so
obviously manufactured from small models that these swooping crane shots serve
only to momentarily remove viewers from the adventure.
With this film being something of a blend of The Thief of Bagdad and Tales of the Arabian Nights, there is no
shortage of flying carpet sequences. During certain segments, some of the flying carpet effects are pretty
remarkable; unfortunately such sequences are more often than not juxtaposed
with other moments sporting far more amateurish effects. These deficiencies were all too apparent on
my television at home, so I can imagine they appeared even less remarkable in
1979 on an over-size movie screen.
There are also far too many instances of noticeably obvious
and anachronistic back-projections and clunky special effects employed. A few years earlier, such methods might have
been less noticed. In 1979, with such
productions as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
already in cinema’s rearview mirror, Arabian
Adventure seems an affectionate, last gasp example of old-school
filmmaking. I personally can forgive all
these trespasses as I love the work of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing; I can
appreciate the film’s bright moments, and there are many. Others less generous or nostalgic in their
estimation may not.
The Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-Ray of Arabian Adventure features a 1920x1080p
1.85:1 transfer. The set features eight
chapter selections, English subtitles, and an optional audio commentary by
director Kevin Connor. The film’s
original theatrical trailer is also included, as well as several other trailers
from the Studio Classics library.
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