Six hundred years ago in the desert, Abdullah thinks himself the happiest shoemaker in the world. He has a very special knowledge about women and shoes. But the story takes a surprising turn for both Abdullah and us. A humorous animation film for adults based on traditional Middle East story-telling. A mix of traditional animation and arabic calligraphy is here used to focus on a delicate subject.
A 1958 bollywood fantasy film based on Alibaba and the Forty Thieves.
Showing off his love of visual aesthetics as a painter, director Dan Duyu combines elegance, exoticism and oddity into a grand big-budget package with New Arabian Nights. Dan's vision is definitely not bound by the source material, but his magical and music-filled version of the orient turns out to be not so different from how Western storytellers would imagine it.
A song cycle about love, death, and whiskey. A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk.
Ali Baba steals hidden treasure from some raiders who then seek revenge on his family.
Alibaba and his son live with his rich brother Cassim. Marjina and Zabba are two slave girls who work in Cassim's house. Marjina and Alibaba's son are in love with each other. Zabba is in league with Abu Hassan, who is the leader of a gang of thieves. Alibaba finds the thieves' cave and becomes rich. Cassim's wife insists on knowing the secret of his wealth. Alibaba tells his brother who goes to the cave but can't get out as he's forgotten the magic words. The thieves find him and kill him. Alibaba and his son find Cassim and bring his body back for burial. Abu Hassan finds out about Alibaba, and the story then follows Marjina outsmarting Abu Hassan, who comes visiting as a merchant.
A poor but honest man wins great wealth, and the hand of a beautiful princess, after facing a series of exciting trials in the tunnels and catacombs of ancient Araby. Guided by the mysterious Khalafar, the troupe (alongside him go some cowardly scholars) encounter skeletons, fire-breathing lizards, and mirages on their journey through the lower world.
Ali Baba's powerful uncle hates how his nephew visits many beds of the caliphate and fetches a professor to set Ali Baba on the straight-and-narrow, but Ali humiliates the professor. Thinking Ali Baba is gay, Qadi's wife sets up a wedding, enlisting the help of a sorceress's magic potion to make Ali Baba fall for the selected woman, but the bride-to-be falls for Ali Baba instead.
Musical retelling of the "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" Arabian Nights tale.
This film stays very faithful to the original down to the smallest details, save for the kangaroo-rat that suddenly appears twenty minutes into the movie and subsequently follows Aladdin around, serving no purpose in the story but fulfilling the role of token animal mascot. The story takes some illogical and confusing jumps at the point where Aladdin begins to court the princess, and the extravagant animation that had characterised Toei films of the 60s, when Toei had the best animators around, had become a thing of the past long before this point; but this is still an above-average film, in large part because of the screenplay that stays so faithful to the original. The character designs are slightly more western-looking than one is accustomed to seeing in anime.
Presented in the form of a feverish love dream, 1001 Nights is the first and only installment of the ground-breaking "Filmharmonic" project, which presents original compositions created by pairs of A-list film composers and directors.
In ancient Persia the son of Ali Baba (of forty thieves fame), Kashma Baba is a military cadet by day and a party goer by night. He falls for a girl who he later finds is an escaped slave girl belonging to the wicked Caliph. They flee to his father's palace. But alas, there's more to her than meets the eye. Will the evil schemers succeed? The sons of the Forty Thieves to the rescue!
There’s only one person who so accurately personifies movie magic in the history of film, and that man is special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen. Focusing on the man behind the landmark effects on films like Clash Of The Titans, One Million Years B.C., Jason And The Argonauts and many more, this in-depth film features interviews with the great man himself, and with an array of animators and directors influenced by his work including Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Terry Gilliam, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. The film also features unseen footage of tests and experiments recently uncovered.
An evil caliph (Christopher Lee) offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to a prince if he can complete a perilous quest for a magical rose. Helped by a young boy and a magic carpet, Prince Hasan (Oliver Tobias), has to overcome genies, fire breathing monsters and treacherous swamps to reach his prize and claim the hand of the Princess Zuleira (Emma Samms).
After completing his voyages Sindbad the Sailor and his hearty crew have come home to find a palace coup d'etat has occurred and his home city is being run by a brutal dictator played by Pedro Armendariz. He's got designs on the beautiful young princess, Heidi Bruhl both lustful and political.
Cole Porter's version of the story of Aladdin--his only musical written especially for television.
Sinbad returns from the sea to find his country subjected to the will of two unscrupulous sorcerers.
Two half brothers battle each other for the power of the throne and the love of sensual, gorgeous dancing girl Scheherazade.
Based on stories from "The Arabian Nights". A wicked sorcerer tricks Prince Achmed into riding a magical flying horse. The heroic prince is able to subdue the magical horse, which he uses to fly off to many adventures. While travelling, he falls in love with the beautiful Princess Peri Banu, and must defeat an army of demons to win her heart. The film is animated using the silhouette technique.
Princess Farah refuses to marry Sinbad until Prince Kassim, her brother, is able to give his consent. However, the Prince's wicked stepmother, Queen Zenobia, has changed Kassim into a baboon in order to have her own son crowned as caliph. Sinbad, his crew, the Princess and the transformed Prince travel to a distant land, fighting every obstacle Zenobia places in their path, to seek the advice of a legendary wise man who can possibly tell how to end the spell.