Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights (1942)

Dashing Thieves of Baghdad...riding out of the magic and splendor of Arabian Nights

Two half brothers battle each other for the power of the throne and the love of sensual, gorgeous dancing girl Scheherazade.

Date of release
1942-12-25
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (58)
Runtime
1h 26m
Genres
Action, Adventure
Director
John Rawlins

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $3.5M
  • Budget: $904.8K
  • Earned 3.8× its budget
  • Based on: One Thousand and One Nights
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 4

Arabian Nights is a 1942 American adventure film in Technicolor, directed by John Rawlins and starring Jon Hall, Maria Montez and Sabu. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but owes more to the imagination of Universal Pictures than the original Arabian stories. Unlike The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and other films in the genre, it features no monsters or supernatural elements.

Production

Walter Wanger had just joined Universal for whom he had made Eagle Squadron. Looking for a follow-up he noted the box office success of The Thief of Bagdad which starred Sabu, who was under contract to Universal. The studio announced they would make the film on 24 March 1942. Montez, Hall and Sabu were always meant to star.

John Rawlins was assigned to direct and filming started in June. Even before filming began Universal announced the trio of leads would appear in a follow-up Cobra Woman. Shortly after that the studio said they would appear in another film White Savage.

The movie was the first shot in color on the Universal lot in 12 years.

Parts of the film were shot in the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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