Mon 3 Nov 2014
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: FLAME OF ARABY (1951).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[9] Comments
FLAME OF ARABY. Universal International, 1951. Maureen O’Hara, Jeff Chandler, Maxwell Reed, Lon Chaney Jr., Buddy Baer, Richard Egan, Royal Dano, Susan Cabot. Director: Charles Lamont.
Imagine you’re pitching a movie project about a Bedouin tribesman in an obsessive pursuit of a wild black stallion. And that Bedouin happens to fall in love with a Tunisian princess threatened by her malevolent cousin.
Now, ask yourself: whom would you want to see cast for the two leading roles?
Perhaps you’d consider choosing a Brooklyn-born Jewish actor less than a decade out of U.S. military service and a redheaded Irish actress perhaps best known to the public for her starring role in Miracle on 34th Street. Then you’d think to yourself: nah, that couldn’t work. That wouldn’t work.
But you’d be wrong.
In Flame of Araby, an entertaining work of pure escapism, Jeff Chandler stars as Tamerlane, a Bedouin chief in hot pursuit of a wild black stallion in the North African desert. His pursuit is initially interrupted when he is forced to save the Tunisian Princess Tanya (Maureen O’Hara), from a horse stampede. The push and pull, loathing and attraction, between these two characters propel this adventure story forward.
Joining these two major Hollywood stars on their wild gallop through an Arabesque fantasy world are Lon Chaney Jr. and Buddy Baer, who portray two Barbarossa brothers in competition for Princess Tanya’s hand in matrimony. Chaney definitely plays it to the hilt, making Borka Barbarossa a memorable, although not particularly evil, big screen villain. He seems to be having fun with this character, making him just a delight to watch.
Now I’m not going to say that Flame of Araby is somehow a neglected classic or a gem hiding in plain sight. In many ways, it’s quite dated and doesn’t stand up to the test of time all that well. The costumes occasionally appear more silly than stylish. And some of the dialogue, including the overabundant usage of the term “wench,” while not particularly offensive, only detracts from the narrative and visual flow of the production.
Still, there’s something to be said for a time when Hollywood studios were turning out innocently fun adventure tales that successfully transported the viewer to foreign, exotic locales, desert lands that never truly existed outside the imagination of poets and artists from long ago.
November 3rd, 2014 at 9:00 pm
All of these talented people were in on the joke. And Jonathan’s review captures the spirit of the time in which Flame was produced. Wish it were still like that. The action is not violent and the sex, though real, is in everyone’s head. A treasure, of sorts.
November 3rd, 2014 at 10:16 pm
I agree with Jonathan and Barry on this one. It’s just an old fashioned fun movie of a type they really don’t make now. O’Hara did several of these with Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Cornell Wilde, Paul Henreid, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Payne. These were always in Technicolor and Technicolor was invented for O’Hara.
Chandler I thought fared a little better in YANKEE PASHA as a mountain man who travels to the middle east to rescue Virginia Mayo who was kidnapped and sold into a harem. That may just be because the latter was based on the bestselling Edison Marshall novel.
Still he makes a dashing Arab prince for a Jewish Apache from Brooklyn.
Universal churned out almost as many of these Arabian Nights fantasies as horror films and the vogue for these at least lingered into the mid fifties from most of the studios.
It’s always interesting to watch these and admire the sheer talent, skill, and even art that went into these.
November 3rd, 2014 at 10:25 pm
“Technicolor was invented for O’Hara.”
Truer words? Never spoken.
November 3rd, 2014 at 11:15 pm
David,
At first seeing “YANKEE PASHA” confused me, then I realized that was the title of the Marshall novel and the film is “YANKEE BUCCANEER”
I am trying to think of how many films there are in which Jeff Chandler portrayed an Apache. Off the top of my head: BROKEN ARROW, TAZA: SON OF COCHISE, BATTLE AT APACHE PASS. Others I am neglecting?
November 4th, 2014 at 12:56 am
David,
Edison Marshall’s Yankee Pasha was a fun read but not filmed with much attention to Mr. Marshall’s scenario. Rhonda Fleming played the beauteous Roxanne opposite Chandler’s Jason Starbuck.
November 4th, 2014 at 1:24 am
This is the type of film that kept me going to the movie theaters every Saturday as a kid growing up in the 1950’s. 25 cents for a double feature and 25 cents for the popcorn.
In the past year I’ve visited the movie theaters once. I saw FURY because I’m fascinated by tanks. (What death traps!). It cost me $10.00 to get in and the popcorn cost $7.50. It was so salty I had could barely eat it. Plus the guys around me kept checking their cell phones for messages.
It will be another year, or longer, before I bother going again.
November 4th, 2014 at 2:34 am
I think that the sign of a good movie theater nowadays is a strictly enforced “no cell phone” policy
November 4th, 2014 at 9:59 am
The tradition, of course, stretches at least as far back as THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, featuring the awesomely Iraqi leads Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Anna May Wong…I remember this one, too…
November 4th, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Jonathan,
The film is indeed titled YANKEE PASHA. Easy to confuse with YANKEE BUCCANEER, a 1952 pirate film with Chandler.