NOTES: Nominated for the following prestigious Hollywood awards: Krasner, Skall and Greene for Color Cinematography, losing to Leon Shamroy's The Black Swan; Golitzen, Otterson, Gausman and Webb for Color Sets, losing to My Gal Sal; Bernard Brown for Sound Recording, losing to Yankee Doodle Dandy; Frank Skinner for Scoring of a Drama or Comedy, losing to Now, Voyager.Universal's first three-strip Technicolor feature, and the studio's top domestic box-office attraction of 1942-43.As for the writing credits, producer Walter Wanger stated at the time of the film's New York release that the story was written by Michael Hogan, True Boardman and Eddie Hartmann from a general outline by Alexander Golitzen. Its only similarity to Burton's classic is the title as Mr. Wanger found the original "dull and dirty".VIEWER'S GUIDE: Adults. The story is certainly silly enough for kids, but they're likely to take it seriously.COMMENT: "The woman whose beauty shames the glory of the sunset" (to quote some of the rich dialogue in this delightfully escapist yet ultra-lavish and regally elegant slice of eye-dazzling fantasy), namely Maria Montez, here makes her Technicolor debut. Shortly to be crowned "Queen of Technicolor", Montez presents an exotically fiery, tantalizingly tempestuous personality, extravagantly costumed, exquisitely groomed. That she can't act for toffee and that her accent is often almost impenetrable simply adds to her more-than-mortal allure. Interestingly, as her box-office appeal was as yet unknown, she is not allowed to dominate the Nights as she did her subsequent films, like White Savage, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cobra Woman, Gypsy Wildcat, Sudan and Pirates of Monterey. Here, there's still plenty for Jon Hall and his seemingly acrobatic sidekick Sabu to get their hands on. Turhan Bey, later to take precedence over Jon Hall as the romantic lead, is also in the cast; Leif (pronounced "Life") Erikson and Edgar Barrier enact the villains; whilst some additional comedy relief (the whole film is just one vast howl) is skilfully provided by our favorite (if impermanent) Stooge, Shemp Howard, plus John Qualen and Sneezy Gilbert.The trailer for this one is also a real hoot, the best of the lot. "Bagdad, city of temptations, where ruler and rogue, slaver and sinner fight for the forbidden Sherazad. A story rich and exotic as the East itself!" And that's just for openers. Mind you, the trailer for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves runs this one pretty close. How about: "See Bagdad enslaved by Hunnish hordes!" or, as the off-screen commentator breathlessly informs us, "see Romance in the shadow of the torture rack!" Cut to hero Jon Hall as he remarks (with a perfectly straight face) to heroine Maria Montez, "I'm curious why a girl so young, so lovely, should marry the ruthless Khan?" OTHER VIEWS: Lush color, attractive sets and costumes and plenty of action, somewhat offset by corny dialogue and juvenile plotting. - G.A.

ARABIAN NIGHTS is a rather routine Hollywood adaptation of the Middle Eastern source material, made with a juvenile audience in mind. I guess the film-makers were attempting to distract contemporary audiences from all of the bad stuff going on around the world at the time, hence them making this very 'safe' piece of entertainment.Sadly, ARABIAN NIGHTS is simply too routine to be very entertaining. There's a silly, pantomime feel to the whole thing, a campiness that just wasn't there in other contemporary fare from the era. The film also seems to be a bit miscast in terms of the lead actors. Jon Hall is a dullish hero and Maria Montez, while acceptable, suffers from playing a one-dimensional Scheherazade. The romance stuff is sappy and boring.To my disappointment, there isn't any of the magical/effects type stuff to enjoy here, and nor is there much in the way of action. What we do get are some fun supporting turns from the likes of genre mainstay Sabu (underutilised, unfortunately), Shemp Howard randomly playing a comedic Sinbad, Turhan Bey, Laurel & Hardy comedy actor Billy Gilbert, and Leif Erickson.

Provided you really don't know or want to know the real tale of Scheherazade, then you'll no doubt enjoy this film. The actual book, "The Arabian Nights" (also known as "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights"), was supposedly written by Princess Scheherazade and consists of many short stories she supposedly invented each night in order to save her life from her crazy husband. In this movie there is no reference to this and apart from some of the names of characters from the book (such as Sinbad and Ali Baba), there isn't much similarity between them. Additionally, if you think too much and question the silliness of it all, you'll probably hate the film since it is purely an escapist style film--not too much unlike a movie serial condensed into 90 minutes. As for me, I enjoyed the silly escapism and learned to ignore all the mistakes in the film and the rather limp love affair between Maria Montez and Jon Hall . It was nearly non-stop action and fun--complete with perhaps a bit too much slapstick provided by the very large stomach of Billy Gilbert. However, I did enjoy the references to Sinbad and Ali Baba--especially because over and over, Ali (John Qualen) would grab every lamp he found and rubbed it furiously hoping for a genie. Also, it was nice to see Shemp Howard in one of his many appearances before going on to replace his brother, Curley, as a Stooge.If you liked this silly adventure film, try watching Hall and Montez in COBRA WOMAN or Sabu in THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD--both of which are better than ARABIAN NIGHTS.

After her adoring audience had grown up, they discovered that Maria Africa Vidal de Santo Silas (born 1920, died 1951) hadn't done her own singing (she was dubbed), nor her own dancing; her ability as an actress was also put into question, but her spell was not tarnished...Maria Montez was still the madly glamorous South American 'Queen of Technicolor'. What her roles (all of them variations of Scheherazade) required were ingredients she had a surplus of: statuesque bearing, regal demeanor, fiery beauty and, best of all, an unassailable confidence in herself… When one weighed all the things she couldn't do against the thing she did so well, the balance came out in her favor…Her film, "Arabian Nights," is a well presented oriental adventure which has nothing to do with its source material but entertained multitudes in search of relief from total war and was followed by several vaguely similar slices of hokum with the same stars...