"The Adventures of Hajji Baba"..'starring' John Derek

OH MY GOD... No wonder we have an infantile vision of the middle east.. I have a feeling that a lot of the current white house staff has seen this movie too many times.. It was on at 3:00 am and I actually watched it.. LMAO...but underlying the horrible writing, Southern California landscapes, and terrible acting, the message was inescapable..... ...Total disregard for any resemblance to history or fact.

.Nat King Cole's marvelous voice singing the theme song was what made me stop.. Dumb song, but it was good to hear that voice again

The movies of the 50's & 60's have IMPRINTED images of the world into the brains(?) of way too many americans and we are paying for those misimpressions even today..

That said, it's a very campy and strangely funny movie, when you consider how the middle east has developed.. It was made in 1954..WWII had been over less than 10 years, Korea had just "finished", The cold war was just heating up, "spies" were everywhere, Nixon was veep, Israel was young...the arabic world was in turmoil, but not very well-connected to the outside world then..Iran was about to be toppled, and have the Shah reinstated (I think it was just months away).. Not many people cared a lot about what was happening..


you gotta read the comments at the link..hysterical
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046683/usercomments


The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954)
Poster Not Submitted Directed by
Don Weis

Writing credits
Richard Collins
James Justinian Morier (novel)


The Adventures of Hajji Baba is remotely based on the book by a British writer James Morier who was actually raised in a harem and later served as an English diplomat at the court of the sultan of Iran in the first part of the 19th century. The book called The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan enjoyed quite a success at the time of its release in 1824 not only in England but also in Iran, the fact that encouraged the author to write a sequel called The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan in England where our hero is sent to learn its customs and way of life. This film version hasn't borrowed much from the book except perhaps the name of the main character – Hajji Baba (played by John Derek) and his profession – the barber whose banal, but sweet story we follow as he runs of with a beautiful but very capricious princess Fawzia (Elaine Stewart) who tries to escape from marriage to a man she isn't really crazy about which is imposed by her authoritative father Khalif (Donald Randolph) who is not particularly inclined to consider his daughter's opinion regarding choosing her lifetime partner especially when his power and monetary interests are at stake. But the main Hajji Baba's interest in helping the fugitive princess lies not in her attractive physical appearances but in a ring with a priceless emerald in it, which she happens to possess and which Hajji happens to covet. But gradually a struggle ensues inside of our hero's heart as about the change in the flow of his preferences to the girl instead of the emerald, which are also fed by the attraction the princess feels each time stronger towards the irresistible barber.

While all this internal fight is going on, our heroes come through numerous adventures most excitingly dangerous of them being caught by a band of beautiful women-outlaws several of whom were once Fawzia's personal servants who managed to escape mainly from princess' ill temper and promptly turned into bandits.

Overall Adventures of Hajji Baba is an ultimate what can be called sex and sand adventure comedy with a lot of beautiful women and sand in it all filmed in larger than life Cinemascope, which somehow covers the films poor story and is significantly helped by a pleasant title song performed by Nat King Cole which can be heard several times throughout the film - `Hajji, Hajji, Hajji, Hajji, Hajji Baba, Hajji Baba.' 7/10

This book is on my "to-read" list. I've been wanting to get around to it for quite a while. One review I had read commented that the book demonstrates how public opinion and policy is formed because of representation in media. Liberals and conservatives alike buy into these sorts of depictions.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566563887/sr=8-1/qid=1151704098/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3880091-2492749?ie=UTF8

(where I used to live) these people are NOT EVEN ARABS!!!!!! Esfahan is the second largest city in Iran, which is in southwest Asia, and has an indo-european language!!!

And you'd be hard put to find the type of "Lawrence of Arabia" sand in Iran. It's more like the hardscrabble desert of our country...flat, packed, odd little desert-hardy plants, and every so often, a village or a caravanserai.

The Adventures of Pilgrim Daddy! Good grief....

not even IN "Persia"..(iran)

I haven't seen the flick...can't imagine how I missed it!!!

Of course, there are a couple of big shi'a shrines in Basra, and it is a bit of a holy city, so maybe they were trying to go for an "I'll send you to the convent" equivalent!!!"