‘Put me down, you image of a hippopotamus.’
A caliph’s baby son escapes when his father is slain in a palace uprising. Unaware of his true identity, the child grows up to oppose the new regime, who are crushing the people with violence, intimidation and unreasonable taxation. Collecting a band of loyal followers, he casts himself as mysterious bandit the Scarlet Falcon. Planning a full revolution, he targets a caravan of weapons meant for the palace…
lt’s time to play the spot the cliché in this tired ‘Arabian Knights’ knock-off from Columbia Studios and infamous skinflint producer Sam Katzman. Unconvincing studio sets doubling as the mystical expanse of the desert? Check. A wicked caliph living inside a matte painting palace with a harem of studio starlets? Check. An evil, dark-bearded vizier imposing ridiculous taxes on a starving populace? Check. A feisty low-born flower of the desert matching wits with a handsome, strong jawed sword-wielding hero? Check.
‘Honestly, I’m going to buy some furniture soon…’
The story opens with the usual treachery in the throne room with the good ruler murdered by a flying dagger at the instructions of court official Raymond Burr, taking a break from providing muscle in film noirs and just a few projects away from his hook up with the Big G for the U.S. release of ‘Godzilla’ (1954). Unfortunately for him, the caliph’s infant son escapes on a cheap special effect, specifically a flying carpet that’s the only nod to magic in the entire film.
Fast forward a couple of decades and he’s grown into cult movie legend John Agar, who’s a physician by day but a desperado by night, running around in a scarlet bedsheet. His sidekick here is familiar face George Tobias, whose firebrand sister is played by Patricia Medina. She tries hard to help the rebel cause but, given the vintage of the film, it’s little surprise that her efforts only succeed when she dons a gauzy costume and dances seductively for the caliph. Apart from that, all she really manages to do is fall off her horse so she can be rescued by the never more wooden Agar and join him in some lame romantic banter.
So far, so forgettable you might think. But the film is remembered. Unsurprisingly, it’s not got all that much to do with what’s actually on the screen. No, it’s the participation of famous comedienne Lucille Ball that elevates the film to cult status. She’d started in films as early as 1929 but her career had never really taken off. Sure, there’d been leading roles in semi-decent noir ‘The Dark Corner’ (1946) and opposite Boris Karloff in murder-mystery ‘Lured’ (1947) and she was working regularly, but her big break never came. Signing a contract with Columbia Pictures in the late 1940s proved to be a big mistake as she constantly clashed with studio head man Harry Cohn. She spent most of her energy over the next few years arguing for better roles in better pictures. With one film left on the deal, Cohn had Katzman put together this project for the sole reason of punishing her for what he saw as her unreasonable behaviour! To everyone’s surprise, she simply accepted the part without a fuss and got on with it. In truth, she was pregnant and desperate to move into television after giving birth. It was a career decision that turned her into a household name almost overnight and made her one of the biggest stars in U.S. entertainment of her generation.
‘At least after this, I’ll be out of my contract. Touch wood.’
Here, Ball is saddled with the role of the evil caliph’s scheming sister, who gets the hots for Agar before she discovers his real identity. It’s a thankless, half-baked part but Ball goes through the motions willingly enough, delivering her lines with a withering, dry sarcasm that she’d probably much rather have directed towards Cohn and his front office. Elsewhere, Medina seems to be the only one who realises this is all supposed to be fun and her attempts to inject some life into the weary proceedings are probably the only reason to watch, apart from the curiosity value. The film is also presented in a garish ‘new process’ called Cine-Color, which looks terribly cheap and accentuates the ‘pink’ end of the visual spectrum!
It’s an inoffensive enough way to spend 80 minutes but it is sad to see director Lew Landers reduced to such a generic project when he’d been the man behind the megaphone (as Louis Friedlander) on Lugosi-Karloff classic ‘The Raven’ (1935). He’d also delivered some interesting low-budget pictures in the horror arena in the early 1940s. However, any spark of invention or creativity is only notable by its complete absence here.
Swashbuckling on a tiny budget without any of the required dash, style or dynamism. Not perhaps as bad as its reputation would suggest but very feeble stuff nonetheless.
Mark David Welsh 