American Cinematographer - October 1994 - 86

"realism," and this anachronistic tidbit had

been pretty well discarded. Ali
it reflects a romantic tradition

Baba uses it because
-

return to

sim¬

pler form, a theatrical throwback to a type of drama
in which the appearance of a song mirrored feeling
and relationship. So too, the drama of this film dem¬
onstrates other theatrical

conventions, such

col¬

orful and stagey

dialogue ("Yea" and "nay" are
spoken seriously here), archetypal characters, and
melodramatic conflicts. These conventions hardly
represented reality in 1943, but of course that was
the

point.
A

budget of $554,000 was allotted for the
project, including $7,300 for the original
screenplay. The script was written by Edmund L.
Hartmann (b. 1911) who had previously penned a
number of other Universal properties, including
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. He melded
historical elements of the Middle East with his pri¬
mary source book, A Thousand and One Nights, keep¬
ing in line with the wishes of producers Robert
new

Arthur and Paul Malvern, both fixtures in B-movie

Above: The

the estate of

these three Universal films, Arabian Nights
(1942), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944) and
Sudan (1945), became not just wholesome, Thief-like
Arabic adventures, but sand-and-sex fantasies -

Prince Cassim.

melodramas that went

ever,

dhows (river

boats) of Caliph
Hassan await at

The boats

are

ready to take
the fleeing
Caliph to Basra,

beyond the childlike ap¬
proach embraced by Thief and forged a more
"adult" slant in their stories, while unashamedly
cashing in, of course, on Thief's appeal. Some of
deemed to be successful elements of

but instead he

what

is murdered

Thief would be copied for the Universal films - the
dynamic costumes, the youth¬
performers. The filmmakers
would also exploit the glories of Technicolor, which
was thought to be a valuable commodity for this
type of fantasy despite the added expense of time
and money. Universal and executive producer Jack
J. Gross wanted these same ingredients.
But they also wanted something different.
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves owes as much to the
1926 Sigmund Romberg musical The Desert Song as
it does to Valentino, Arabian Nights, or even
Alexander Korda. Much of the film revels in a lightopera tone - both dramatically and musically.
Certainly the "Riding Song of the Forty Thieves,"
a sort of baritone
fight march sung by a chorus of
41, flows right out of this kind of theater; the "Riff
Song" from Desert Song is nearly identical in spirit
and tempo to the "Riding Song," and it serves the
same
general purpose. The male chorus typified op¬

Mongols
directed

by the

traitorous
Cassim. On the
hill

are

"Incan

ruins" from
Green Hell.
Below

right:
"Bagdad"on

the Universal

backlot. The
is using
unique
Broadway
crew

the

Crane, which

swings in all
directions and
is controlled
from the

camera

cab. Extras

playing
"Mongols" and
"citizens of

Bagdad" await
their cues; in
the foreground,
art director

Richard H.
Reidel consults
with prop man
"Blackie"
Rosenkrantz.

were

bravura music, the
ful and attractive

production. Hartmann's May 25, 1943 version be¬
came the
original "white" shooting script.
Like all the color Universals of the early to
mid-Forties, this film opens without the familiar
plexiglass globe of the Universal logo. It had been
filmed only in black & white and its inclusion in
these films would require a whole new setup which
the budget-conscious Universal executives did not
need for the relatively few Technicolor films on
their schedule. The opening credits of Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves do hark back to an introductory
device familiar from the early Thirties - that of
actually showing the principal actors with their

eretta; it had become a kind of musical shorthand
that dramatized affection among men and height¬
ened the force of male groups. Yet in 1943, non¬
musical films like this one didn't include male cho¬

Though choruses were used occasionally in
the Thirties in such films as Captain Blood and Mu¬

ruses.

tiny

American

the Bounty, by the

Cinematographer

war years

films took

October 1994

American Cinematographer - October 1994

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