... can't stop this turkey stinking up the screen. It's difficult - make that almost impossible - to imagine that Jacques Becker had just made the exquisite Touchez pas au grisbi immediately before moving on to this piece of cheese. Almost nothing about it works and the only minor point of interest is that leading lady Samia Gamal had starred in an Egyptian version of the same story twelve years earlier in 1942. What Becker and Fernandel were thinking of remains a mystery given that both were tops in their respective fields. Insipid, anaemic, uninspired, lacklustre, lifeless are words that spring to mind in connection with this entry though on the other hand if those adjectives light your fire you'll love it.
Review of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
