Ali Baba Goes to Town

If I could give this film two different ratings, I would. If I were watching this in 1937 I'd rate it highly because the script is really quite clever. But, for someone watching this today, if they don't have a decent knowledge base about the politics and life of the Great Depression, many of the jokes will go right over their heads. So, my 1937 rating is a 7. My 2011 rating is a 5. As another reviewer here put it very well, "Eddie Cantor is in Iraq...to bring the New Deal to the old caliphate." That's why understanding jokes about FDR and the Republicans at that time is essential in watching this film. Aside from Cantor, the performances here are rather meek. Tony Martin unimpressively plays a good guy on the side of freedom. Bland Roland Young all too calmly plays the sultan. Though her performance is tenuous, it's interesting seeing Gypsy Rose Lee (with all her clothes on) playing a member of the royal family. I watched this on a retrospective TCM was doing about how Arabs have been treated poorly on the silver screen. While I admit that they weren't portrayed positively in this film, my impression is that it wasn't done with any malice at all. The royals and locals here were treated much the same as Bing Crosby treated the royals and locals in "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court"...and they were all White. The average person today probably wouldn't enjoy this film. But Eddie Cantor is a show business legend, and this performance is in his heyday, and is worth watching for that reason. So, I'll give the film its rating for 1937 -- a 7.

In his second "back to the past" dream film (four years after "Roman Scandals"), Eddie Cantor skewered FDR and the New Deal in this satiric look at the Arabian Nights. Cantor and screenwriter Gene Fowler wanted to do a take on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," with the difference that, as much as they poked fun at FDR's policies and oratory, the New Deal policies that Cantor institutes in Baghdad don't backfire quite the same way as the Yankee's did at King Arthur's court. Hobo Aloysius Babson, a film fan and autograph hound, stumbles onto an Arabian Nights film set and gets made an extra. A miscalculation on his medicine sends him into a dream, however, and he finds himself at the court of the Sultan of Baghdad. Giving his name as "Al Babson," they assume he's the son of Ali Baba, and after surviving an assassination attempt made with his stunt knife, he's made an adviser to the king. The film is full of Cantor's trademark humor, singing and dancing, and the obligatory rueful reference to Cantor's family full of daughters. A troupe of African musicians--who speak no language but Cab Calloway's--provides a terrific swing number (unhappily, Cantor performs it in blackface), and Cantor and Tony Martin deliver a catchy number, "Vote for Honest Abe," that works as a campaign song for Sultan Abdullah. The production cost over a million dollars, not a little of which went to create an impressive flying carpet effect. Sadly, two of the crew were killed when the carpet fell on them, and Cantor himself got so knocked about and bruised in the scenes on the carpet that he was elected an honorary member of the Hollywood Stunt Men. The film ends with Al Babson attending a film premiere in which he sees Eddie Cantor (another common Cantor touch), and a host of stars such as Victor McLaglan and Shirley Temple are also seen there (understandably: the premiere was for "Wee Willie Winkie"). All in all, the film is great fun, with fast-paced and topical dialogue and lots of great sight gags (a "W.P.A. Filling Station" for watering local camels). It's very much of its time, so if you're at all familiar with the New Deal era, it will be an entertaining hour and a half.

source: Ali Baba Goes to Town

Moviecut—Ali Baba Goes to Town

Ali Baba Goes to Town

Awful film. It is so inane, even with the talents of Tony Martin, Roland Young and others. Made in 1937, Eddie Cantor finds himself in old Iraq, filled with intrigue and plots, the major plotter being the usual Douglass Dumbrille. It's funny how the Cantor role wishes to introduce democracy to the country with the New Deal Programs. Even Happy Days are Here Again is played. Tony Martin has little to do; besides, the lyrics of the songs he songs are as ridiculous as the movie itself. The best part consists of 3 African-American ladies singing a song twice about the coming of spring. Nice to see the cameo appearances of stars at film's end. Even they probably couldn't wait for this nonsense to end.