I have a lot of Michael Powell movies left to watch. The British director is most famous for his collaborations with Emeric Pressburger, and those collaborations are in turn most famous for one of Martin Scorsese's favorite films (actually, correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is his favorite film). I've seen that film a number of times, and I actually own it, but I haven't seen many other films directed by the pair, who have a number of Criterion titles.
The Thief of Bagdad is a children's movie, the kind of big budget, effects-laden spectacle that people pretend didn't exist before the 1980s. The plot is extremely similar to Disney's Aladdin, since they are both taken from Arabian Nights, but here the thief is not also the princess's love interest who becomes the king, but is instead merely a friend to a banished king who must reclaim his throne from the evil Jafar (pronounced differently here).
There's really not that much to this movie; if you like adventure films from the 30s and 40s, you'll probably like this. If not, well, it's fun to see the special effects - which pre-computers were both more clever and less convincing - but beyond that, this seems like a case where Powell's name helped this gain the Criterion label more than anything else.
No comments:
Post a Comment