Siren of Bagdad (1953)

“I realise they have’t been invented yet, but do you have a match?”. Ha! The spirit of Phil Silvers and Bob Hope are alive and well in this surprisingly decent little Arabian adventure. No, it’s not especially original but it’s tongue is firmly in it’s cheek, the production is really quite decent and there are plenty of adventurous antics to pass an hour and a half easily. Things all kick off when travelling magician “Kazah” (Paul Henreid) is violently relieved of his dancing girls and so has to travel to Bagdad with his factotum “Ben Ali” (Hans Conreid) to fetch them back from the clutches of the grand vizier “Soradin” (George Keymas) who successfully pulls the chains of the Sultan and rules with a rod of iron. It isn’t long before our reluctant hero discovers that that the real sultan was deposed and lives in the cellars of the city with his feisty daughter “Zendi” (Patricia Medina) so they have to gang up on the malevolent usurper and it will hopefully all end happily ever after. Add to the mix some rabbits from hats; a very deep-voiced belly dancer and you might even get your name up in candles! This is quite an entertaining feature that I did enjoy.