1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
REEL GOOD ARABS, September 13, 2010
This review is from: Omar Khayyam [VHS] (VHS Tape)
THE LIFE, LOVES AND ADVENTURES OF OMAR KHAYYAM (1957) Directed by
William Dieterle. Script by Barre Lyndon. Score by Victor Young. Make
up by Charles Gemora and Frank and Wally Westmore. Stunts by Dale Van
Sickel. Special effects by John Fulton.
Starring Cornel Wilde (as Omar Khayyam), Debra Paget, John Derek (as
The Sultan Malik Shah l) Raymond Massey (as The Sultan Alp Arslan),
Sebastian Cabot (as Nizam al-Mulk), Joan Taylor, Morris Ankrum, Abraham
Sofaer (as Tutish), Edward Platt, Henry Brandon, Paul Picerni, John
Abbott, Anthony Caruso, John Merton, Dale Van Sickel and Michael Rennie
as Hassani Sabbah.
Part of the 21st century Islamic/liberal propaganda against the United
States is the hoary Arabian Nights fairy tale embodied in the
pernicious book REEL BAD ARABS: HOW HOLLYWOOD VILIFIES A PEOPLE by Jack
Shaheen that somehow American film and Hollywood has made a career out
of vilifying Arabs---by which is meant Muslims. This created an excuse
for modern Hollywood to produce an endless slew of
pro-terrorist/Anti-American films while refraining from making any
Anti-Terrorist/Pro-American films since, after all, they did not want
to be racist.
However the main problem with the idea that Hollywood had some agenda
to vilify Muslims is that it can only be justified if one wipes out the
entire history of American film from THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY in 1903 to
1994 and start with TRUE LIES. Because otherwise the
Islamic/Liberal/Shaheen version of Muslims in American film is very
much a BIG LIE of the type Goebbels and Lunacharsky used to trade in.
Exhibit A. This story of mathematician, scientist and poet Omar
Khayyam along with a great deal of Islamic/Persian history never before
or since dramatized is practically a cotton candy technicolor postcard
to things Muslim. While not a swashbuckler in the Sinbad tradition,
Khayyam is presented as an Einstein level super genius so great and
wonderful that even the villains do not kill him when they really
should have because he is so valuable. The film presents the Seljuk
Empire when it was at its peak with two of its greatest rulers and one
of its greatest statemen. The film does not specify it but the battle
won in the center of the film by Massey's Sultan (alas offscreen) is
the cataclysmic battle of Manzikert(August 26, 1071) which eventually
led to the destruction of the Byzantine Empire and the establishment of
the Ottoman Empire as well as being one of the triggers for the
Crusades. However rather than pointing out the ramifications of this
battle, the picture is just ducky with it portraying it as a glorious
victory. Which it was for Muslims but not for anyone else.
The film does touch upon some of the less pleasant aspects of Muslim
life. A bit with a severed head which is jarring but quickly glossed
over and the appalling treatment of women is shown but is handled with
the seriousness of a mother-in-law joke only begining with a flowery
phrase like "As the Prophet said, woman are like........fill in the
blank." Add chuckle. But all of this is presented with gorgeous harlem
girls flouncing about, colorful costumes and spectacular sets that it
is not intended to be something for audience concern. Isn't it just so
pretty? And that Cornel Wilde.....isn't he dreamy?
This fear of saying anything negative at all about the culture the
film is set in robs it of much of its possible punch and historical
resonnance. It also may have bought the picture more trouble than it
bargained for. The film's villains are the prototypical Islamic
Terrorist group known to history as the Hashshashins from which is
derived the word Asssassin. As stated, the Assassins were history's
first Muslim Terrorist group and the similarities to the Islamic Front
known in the West as Al Qaeda(To avoid using the politically incorrect
word Islamic) are inescapable and would and do, to an extent, make for
an interesting comparison, giving this 50s film a modern bite it
certainly never intended.
However Jack Shaheen nonsense aside, the film takes great pains to
deislamicize what was documented to have been a highly Islamic
organization. Instead, in a long sequence with Wilde and Platt, the
viewer is shown the indoctrination of the Assassins which clearly makes
them stand ins for the Communist Party. This is still a clever and one
of the best moments of the film but, besides being historically
inaccurate, shows the extent that Hollywood would go to make nice to
Muslims.
However this may have been the film's undoing since the Communists in
Hollywood like being vilified even less than Muslim Terrorists and may
have resulted in the film being sabotaged behind the scenes. The film,
already highly ambitious, needed a certain degree of care in direction
and script and probably should have been longer than it was.
Dieterle---an old hand at biofilms from the 30s and Lyndon a highly
skilled and literate writer were--at first glance--the perfect men to
make something very special but, instead, the film never quite becomes
what it should have and wanted to be. There are several truly great
bits. The film is certainly watchable and interesting.
But.
It also feels as if someone was deliberately undercutting the film.
The script is rushed and truncated. Besides, the Battle of Manzikert
and the Assassins, the film never makes clear the importance of the
Sebestian Cabot character considered to be one of the greatest viziers
in Persian history. The film also flubs the revealtion of the mystery
villain and the same's death. A raving defiant speech ala Hitler was
clearly called for before the end but never comes. The film's budget
seems to have been cut during production so, while one moment the film
looks like a million bucks, the next, especially during the battle
scenes, it could have been given a run for its money by Monogram.
The big destruction of the Assassin's great fortress Alamut seems to
have been intended to make a comparison between Khayyam and Robert
Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb but, instead of the apocalypse which
the film should have presented and special effects genius John Fulton
was more than capable of, it comes across as merely acceptable. There
is not even a shot of a mushroom cloud over the wreckage.
The cast is generally good made up of familiar and highly skilled
character actors. Indeed Platt comes close to stealing the picture as
the main villain's second in command. Khayyam is basically a sedentary
character who spends the picture reforming the calender or being
succesful with chemistry which unfortunately does not give the
otherwise boisterous Wilde much chance to buckle his swash but he is
fine in the part as is Massey and Rennie in probably his second best
performance after Klaatu. Paget is gorgeous and Ankrum and Sofaer are
superb. John Derek is generally appalling however especially when he is
required to be forceful or handle a sword.
Of all the major Golden Age studios, Paramount was always the most
consistently disapointing and this, their attempt to get on the 50s
history epic gravy train by aping the Universal Maria Montez Arabian
Nights pictures of the 40s, is pretty much business as usual. That
said. The film is mostly good, always interesting, well acted, original
and frequently intelligent in its historical material and certainly
worth a look. It just never gets to where it wanted to go.
Recommended. With reservations.
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