SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

dbdumonteil This very conventional oriental tale takes many characters from "the thousand and one nights " who ,with the exception of Ali Baba whose cave ,should we believe him,is used for the last time ,are not given a single chance to shine (to show their skills): Aladdin talks about his lamp,but this magical thing is no help for the oppressed; Simbad is not a sailor and has no monster to fight against;had Sheherazade been so devoid of imagination,she would not have hold her master's attention for thousand and one nights . Neela even hints at Delilah ,a biblical character ,who does not appear ,all the same.This story is too derivative ,and there are many directors who did more exciting movies with "the thousand and one nights" inexhaustible material.

kevin olzak 1952's "Thief of Damascus" was a Columbia potboiler from producer Sam Katzman, scripted tongue in cheek with quotable lines aplenty. Evil conqueror Khalid (John Sutton) demands the arrest of his best general, Abu Amdar (Paul Henreid), simply for negotiating a treaty of surrender from the Sultan of Damascus, without his consent. With sword fights carefully sped up for the benefit of Henreid's stuntman, we get almost every character associated with the Arabian Nights- Robert Clary as Aladdin (minus lamp), Philip Van Zandt as Ali Baba, Jeff Donnell as the fetching Sheherazade, and Lon Chaney as Sinbad. Add Elena Verdugo as Neela and Helen Gilbert as Princess Zafir, all the girls provide quite a visual treat in color, but in all fairness, Howard Hughes didn't scrimp on the pulchritude when he cast so many beautiful wannabe starlets in his own "Son of Sinbad," casting Vincent Price as Omar Khayyam! (he later confided that it was indeed a very happy set). Speaking of Sinbad, 45 year old Lon Chaney looks both strong and healthy, hugely enjoying his comic sparring with Robert Clary, later on HOGAN'S HEROES, and it's nice to see him again alongside luscious Elena Verdugo, his old co-star from "House of Frankenstein" and "The Frozen Ghost" (her hair almost as long as Patricia Morison's). 'Miss Jeff Donnell,' as she was billed opposite Boris Karloff in her second film, 1942's "The Boogie Man Will Get You," was a longtime mainstay at Columbia, appearing in "The Power of the Whistler," "The Phantom Thief" (Boston Blackie), and "The Unknown" (I LOVE A MYSTERY); still only 29, she's as sexy a Sheherazade as any man could ask for. Too bad Khalid failed to ask.

bkoganbing Both Universal and Columbia had Arabian Nights sets on their lots built for a couple of big budget epics they had done in the Forties, Universal for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Columbia for A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Because of those sets and the cost to construct them, the movie-going public was treated every year to at least one exotic Middle East tale of adventure.The cycle at Columbia was starting to run down though with Thief of Damascus. Someone over at Columbia got the bright idea to take as many of the fabled characters from the Arabian Nights and put them into one film.The plot such as it is involves Paul Henreid as the number one general of John Sutton as Khalid the Conqueror making a way too generous treaty with the sultan of Damascus. Since they don't call him the Conqueror for nothing, Sutton decides to take charge in the usual fashion.Before the end of the film, Aladdin, Sinbad, Scherezade, and Ali Baba and those forty thieves make their appearance and bring about a general righting of wrongs.This was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but sad to say the satire fell kind of flat. Besides Henreid and Sutton others who could barely keep a straight face are Elena Verdugo, Lon Chaney, Jr., Robert Clary, Philip Van Zandt, Helen Gilbert, and Jeff Donnell as a puffy cheeked Scherezade who looks like she has the mumps.The idea was interesting, but it fell short of the mark.

boblipton Before Roger Corman there were the B movie departments. At Warner Brothers they had Bryan Foy, at Paramount they had the Dollar Bills and at Columbia, which was a B movie Studio for 90% of their productions anyway, they had Sam Katzman.This means, for this flick, occasional A movie intellectual support Paul Henreid, looking as depressed as he did in NOW VOYAGER or CASABLANCA, as an action hero, horror lead Lon Chaney Jr. in support for marquee value.... and the rest of the movie, for some reason, strikes me as having been cast out of a Brooklyn burlesque house: girls from the stage, extras from the audience. Director Will Jason came out of short subjects and directs the whole thing with not too serious an air. The set design looks like the designer went into the prop storehouse, had everyone grab everything they could carry and heaped it all together.The net effect is ridiculous rather than funny, depressing rather than dramatic. Unless you want to see the hordes of the Middle East riding over landscape like American cowboys -- I've no idea who was directing the second unit, but it's clearly cowboys in those pointed helmets, wielding scimitars -- give this one a miss.