It meanders here and there with no semblance of a cohesive storyline or logic. My favorite thing in the world at that time was listening to the Broadway cast album of "Kismet" (the movie of which I didn't see for many years) and reading 1001 nights tales in picture books. like a sign of a form of art. all at perfect place. THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN is an Arabian PEPLUM adventure which makes little sense. When I saw "The Wonders of Aladdin" on television with my family, I remember being absolutely enthralled. This movie is not available in DVD format so I took a chance on a used VHS version. Aladdin on the Run 5:41 05.
Noelle Adams steals the show, of course.
Allgemeine Angaben: Medientyp: Plakat: Land der Veröffentlichung: USA: Filmdaten: Dieses Medium wurde zum 670. mal aufgerufen. The movie is a European fantasy based on Aladdin and the flying carpet along with a genie. The Amazons 1:47 14. O'Connor was great in this, a departure from his usual yet not a departure, An odd choice for a lead in an Italian fantasy yet he makes it smoke like a genie's lamp. U.K. release: 16 December 1962 (sic). Intense color, the kind not used anymore in this dull digital age.
Attack on the Caravan 5:27 12.
But it does entertain as much as any goofy Italian movie can. Was this review helpful? 2 out of 2 found this helpful.
All in all, **1/2 stars (of four). Was this review helpful? Was this review helpful? As expected, the fantasy sequences – capped by a desert climax in which O'Connor duels with Tozzi (albeit managing to overcome him only through De Sica's helping hand, just as, at one point his dimensions are enlarged in order for him to turn the tables on some pursuers, with one of them even landing the post thereafter of the hero's servant/sidekick!) 5.0 out of 5 stars THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN-VHS. A local dollar movie got a copy of it about the time Disney's Aladdin came out and sh0wed it for matinees one weekend. Apart from the obligatory Hollywood veteran brought in to act as 'supervisor', we also get an American lead in Donald O'Connor: his comic shtick may be an acquired taste, but the actor's irrepressible energy served the role well in action highlights (not to mention a dance sequence towards the end in which he assumes the garbs of a mannequin imbued with life by the villain's sorcerer!). I rooted for Donald O'Connor.
I have seen several film adaptations of Aladdin (from Soviet live-action to Disney cartoon), but this weird little thing beats them all. 6 out of 7 found this helpful. Bava's involvement notwithstanding, I had long wanted to check this one out, in view of a movie poster of it kept in a scrapbook by my father back from the time of its local theatrical release. Add that to the fact that the movie itself is kind of dopey and absurd, with lots of good actors wasting their efforts, and the INSANE use of Vittorio De Sica playing the genie as a guy standing around in a choir robe, in footage shot elsewhere probably in about half an hour, and just matted into a cloud in the corner of the screen, and I'd classify this as one of the most frightening Mario Bava movie I've ever seen.
Was this review helpful? Agreeable, colorful fantasy adventure about Aladdin (O'Connor), a boy from Bagdad, who discovers a genie inside his oil lamp and travels to a wedding, which an evil schemer (Tozzi) intends to foil. The Arabian Nights theme of movies certainly opens itself up to it, with its navel-jewel-wearing harem girls and all. Still, quite violent for a kiddie film. Was this review helpful?
I'd like to write a comprehensive review of it but the story is near incomprehensible that I can't review it because I still don't know what the story is about. That said, there are also comedic flashes of eroticism (O'Connor twice discovers his girlfriend hanging naked after being captured by the villain) and a couple more of outright sadism (people falling through a secret panel in the floor of Tozzi's palace are ripped apart by his vicious dogs) which are decidedly incongruous for what is essentially a kiddie film!