Ali Baba Goes to Town
Final film of Douglas Fairbanks.,The story is set in tenth-century Baghdad but reference is made to the sultan's being the ruler of Arabia. Baghdad is in Iraq or, as it would have been known then, Mesopotamia.,Sultan: I hope you'll enjoy what we've got - if you don't mind taking pot luck?
Ali Baba: Can I get a hot dog and a bottle of pop?
Sultan: Hot dog? Pop?
Ali Baba: That's the great national diet in America. I've just come from there.
Sultan: America? Where is that?
Ali Baba: A great open space between New York and Hollywood.,Some prints also include Tony Martin singing, and June Lang dancing, "I've Got My Heart Set on You", making for a running time closer to 81 minutes than 77 minutes in the edited versions.,Featured in The Day of the Locust (1975),Twilight in Turkey
(1937)
Written by Raymond Scott
Performed by Raymond Scott and His Quintet (uncredited)
Danced by The Pearl Twins,Most of this film takes place in a dream. Eddie Cantor (Ali Baba) is a hobo travelling to Hollywood where he wants to hang out with the movie stars and collect their autographs. However, he falls out of the train he is travelling on and ends up on a film set for Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. He is given a part as an extra and waits for his moment. However, he has taken some medication which sends him to sleep.........cue the dream......

The film is fun if you like Eddie Cantor and a few of the cast play dual roles. It pokes fun at legislation that is of its time and this dates it. Also, the songs performed by Cantor aren't particularly memorable and the dancing is nothing memorable either. What does entertain in this film are the novelty numbers and so a mention must go to Jeni le Gon and the Peters Sisters who elevate the film into the worthwhile category.

Gypsy Rose Lee plays a part in this film as the evil Sultana and she is memorable as a baddie. She is mean and must have incorporated dominatrix aspects into her burlesque striptease routines. John Carradine has a very strange outfit in the dream sequence - a sort of inspiration for the New Romantic movement of the early 1980s and a modern-day champion for gender neutrality. He wears a large pearl necklace with matching earrings and what comes across as a clown/joker outfit with angled shoulder pads. He reminded me of Steve Strange in David Bowie's video for "Ashes to Ashes." Carradine's outfit is something that Steve Strange would have worn many years later as he influenced the fashion world and formed his band Visage - "Fade to Grey" is a classic. If you ask me, it's a ridiculous look.,