They don't make 'em like this anymore, and more's the pity. It's hokey, contrived, politically incorrect, and laced with clichés, but it blissfully transports one back to that innocent, popcorn-scented time in the balcony of the local Bijou when Technicolor images flickering across a silver screen could sweep one into a magical world of harem girls and charging horsemen.
Structurally, the film is a bit of a mess, stitching together a forbidden romance between star-crossed lovers, a stiff-upper-lip adventure about civilized British soldiers subduing pagan hordes, and a personal drama about the growing respect between two enemy combatants. While the plot is a mishmash, however, it's never dull, it moves along at a merry clip, and it fills the CinemaScope screen with lively, colorful, filmed-in-Morocco images.
Michael Wilding and Patrick McGoohan are properly British, Anita Ekberg never looked more glamorous, and Victor Mature was born to play just this sort of thing. Lean back, set your brain at "Idle," and enjoy!
(Incidentally, Victor Mature is flogged twice in this movie. The one which occurs in the first reel is especially vivid and it ranks 52nd on a list published in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")
Structurally, the film is a bit of a mess, stitching together a forbidden romance between star-crossed lovers, a stiff-upper-lip adventure about civilized British soldiers subduing pagan hordes, and a personal drama about the growing respect between two enemy combatants. While the plot is a mishmash, however, it's never dull, it moves along at a merry clip, and it fills the CinemaScope screen with lively, colorful, filmed-in-Morocco images.
Michael Wilding and Patrick McGoohan are properly British, Anita Ekberg never looked more glamorous, and Victor Mature was born to play just this sort of thing. Lean back, set your brain at "Idle," and enjoy!
(Incidentally, Victor Mature is flogged twice in this movie. The one which occurs in the first reel is especially vivid and it ranks 52nd on a list published in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")