Postwar RKO produced some classic film noirs, but this - their second postwar Technicolor feature - was more like the nonsense they churned out after Howard Hughes bought the studio. It cost nearly two & a half million dollars but looks and sounds like a Sam Katzman quickie, populated by well-known Arabian types like Walter Slezak, Anthony Quinn, Alan Napier, George Tobias, Mike Maxurki and Sheldon Leonard; with a gallumphing score by Roy Webb.
Fairbanks Jr sails the seven seas under immobile painted clouds without ever leaving the studio, and prances about in his father's footsteps in front of sets so stylised they look Germanic; but being a talkie too much is discussed rather than shown.
Maureen O'Hara, meanwhile, (who only made it "because I couldn't afford a suspension - not with a daughter, a husband, and a household to support") wearing a harem girl outfit with big padded shoulders is more than usually incongruous as "the sweetest sweetheart of the Emir of Daibul".
Fairbanks Jr sails the seven seas under immobile painted clouds without ever leaving the studio, and prances about in his father's footsteps in front of sets so stylised they look Germanic; but being a talkie too much is discussed rather than shown.
Maureen O'Hara, meanwhile, (who only made it "because I couldn't afford a suspension - not with a daughter, a husband, and a household to support") wearing a harem girl outfit with big padded shoulders is more than usually incongruous as "the sweetest sweetheart of the Emir of Daibul".