Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937)

Director:

David Butler

Writers:

Harry Tugend (screenplay) and
Jack Yellen (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

29 October 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy | Musical

Plot:

A movie company is doing the Arabian Nights when a hobo enters their camp, falls asleep and dreams he's back in Baghdad as advisor to the Sultan...

Plot Keywords:

Dream | Sultan | Taxes | New Deal | Spoof

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Eddie Cantor	...	Ali Baba
Tony Martin	...	Yusuf
Roland Young	...	Sultan
June Lang	...	Princess Miriam
Gypsy Rose Lee	...	Sultana (as Louise Hovick)
Raymond Scott and His Quintet	...	Themselves (as Raymond Scott and his Quintet)
John Carradine	...	Ishak
Virginia Field	...	Dinah
Alan Dinehart	...	Boland
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Prince Musah (as Douglas Dumbrille)
Maurice Cass	...	Omar - The Rug Maker
Warren Hymer	...	Tramp
Stanley Fields	...	Tramp
Paul Hurst	...	Captain
Sam Hayes	...	Radio Announcer

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA High Fidelity Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #3640) | Finland:S

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Newsreel footage of the many stars appearing at the Carthay Circle Theatre premiere of _Wee Willie Winkie_ (1937) is used for the film's finale.

Quotes:

Ali Baba: Wait, I think I've got something! You don't have to be a sultan - you can resign!
Sultan: Resign? Desert my throne? Forsake my people? Allah would never forgive me.
Ali Baba: You don't have to desert your people. You can go on being the head man, but instead of sultan you become a president.
Sultan: A what?
Ali Baba: A president, like they have in America.
Sultan: Well, does he rule the country?
Ali Baba: Does he rule the country? Hunh! Ask the Republicans!

Movie Connections:

Version of Ari-Baba to yonjuppiki no tozoku (1971)

Soundtrack:

Swing Is Here to Sway

Terrific fun, but watch out for that blackface

In his second "back to the past" dream film (four years after "Roman Scandals"), Eddie Cantor skewered FDR and the New Deal in this satiric look at the Arabian Nights. Cantor and screenwriter Gene Fowler wanted to do a take on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," with the difference that, as much as they poked fun at FDR's policies and oratory, the New Deal policies that Cantor institutes in Baghdad don't backfire quite the same way as the Yankee's did at King Arthur's court.

Hobo Aloysius Babson, a film fan and autograph hound, stumbles onto an Arabian Nights film set and gets made an extra. A miscalculation on his medicine sends him into a dream, however, and he finds himself at the court of the Sultan of Baghdad. Giving his name as "Al Babson," they assume he's the son of Ali Baba, and after surviving an assassination attempt made with his stunt knife, he's made an adviser to the king.

The film is full of Cantor's trademark humor, singing and dancing, and the obligatory rueful reference to Cantor's family full of daughters. A troupe of African musicians--who speak no language but Cab Calloway's--provides a terrific swing number (unhappily, Cantor performs it in blackface), and Cantor and Tony Martin deliver a catchy number, "Vote for Honest Abe," that works as a campaign song for Sultan Abdullah.

The production cost over a million dollars, not a little of which went to create an impressive flying carpet effect. Sadly, two of the crew were killed when the carpet fell on them, and Cantor himself got so knocked about and bruised in the scenes on the carpet that he was elected an honorary member of the Hollywood Stunt Men.

The film ends with Al Babson attending a film premiere in which he sees Eddie Cantor (another common Cantor touch), and a host of stars such as Victor McLaglan and Shirley Temple are also seen there (understandably: the premiere was for "Wee Willie Winkie").

All in all, the film is great fun, with fast-paced and topical dialogue and lots of great sight gags (a "W.P.A. Filling Station" for watering local camels). It's very much of its time, so if you're at all familiar with the New Deal era, it will be an entertaining hour and a half.