This 1944 "Kismet" was supposedly an enormous and expensive MGM production. Filmed in color, the film stars Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Joy Page, James Craig, and Edward Arnold.There are songs in this movie, not memorable -- it's not the Broadway musical that Vincente Minnelli directed in film form starring Howard Keel.Set in Baghdad, Colman plays Hafiz, who calls himself the King of the Beggars by day and by night plays the role of royalty from a foreign land. He has a daughter, Marsinah, and now that she's older, he realizes that he promised her the world and isn't going to be able to deliver. Marsinah is content, however -- she's in love with a gardener's son (James Craig) who is really the Caliph of Baghdad but likes to go incognito. So Hafiz goes incognito as wealthy and the Caliph goes incognito as poor.Hafiz poses as a dignitary and manages to get into the palace of the Grand Vizier. He's determined to have his daughter become part of the household; also, he's in love with sovereign from a distant land and romances the beautiful Jamilla (wife and queen of the grand Vizier). The big scene in this is Dietrich's dance, with her legs painted gold. As always, she is incredible and beautiful. Colman is a little old for Hafiz, but in this version, he has a teenage daughter. He's terrific as the sly beggar. As his daughter, Joy Page is lovely and innocent. She was Jack Warner's stepdaughter, not that it did her much good. She is still remembered as the young Bulgarian woman whose virtue is saved by Bogie in "Casablanca." The sets are obviously backdrops and studio builds. But somehow, one believes it's a foreign land. The color is beautiful.The musical numbers, except for Marlene's dance, are on the dull side. In the musical Kismet, the songs were fashioned from the music of Aleksandr Borodin, the melodies of which are very familiar, particularly Stranger in Paradise, and And This is My Beloved. So this isn't Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, and Delores Gray; it's Colman, Page, and Dietrich. Since it's not a musical, that's more than good enough.

Had Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg written anything memorable from this version of Kismet, Robert Wright and Chet Forrest might not have ever adapted Alexander Borodin's music to make their acclaimed version of Kismet in the fifties. We should all be the poorer for that.Music is the weak spot in this version of Kismet, the songs sung by Joy Page and Marlene Dietrich aren't anything memorable. But classical American actor Otis Skinner who created the role of Hajj on Broadway back in 1911 is replaced by probably the only man in Hollywood who could have made that Edwardian dialog palatable to modern ears. Of course that would be Ronald Colman, a man I could get joy listening to him recite Buffalo Phone Directory.This was one of MGM's biggest productions in the Forties, they splurged for technicolor and if you're going to have Marlene Dietrich play the seductive princess go for the gold. Lots of delightful cries emerged from cinema audiences when those golden painted legs of Dietrich were shown. Even on television they're still quite a sight.Unfortunately the sound version of Kismet that Otis Skinner made in 1930 for Warner Brothers appears to be a lost film so we can't compare his interpretation of the lead with Colman. But in watching Colman's performance it seemed to be his Francois Villon aged so that he now had a teenage daughter. Anyway, it works beautifully.James Craig is the earnest young caliph who I kept expecting to sing A Stranger in Paradise and Edward Arnold is the villainous vizier. Mr. Arnold played him like the political boss of ancient Bagdad.MGM also filmed the better known musical version of Kismet with Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, and Vic Damone putting their marvelous voices to that classical score. That version has the music no doubt, but this one has Colman and Dietrich, so take your choice and you can't go wrong with either.

William Dieterle directing, music by Harold Arlen (there's even a tiny bit of the Witch's Guard music at one point!), opulent sets and gorgeous costumes, Ronald Colman -- what more could anyone ask? The film was very carefully crafted. Even the bit players -- especially Henry Davenport and Florence Bates -- were perfect. From the beginning, you are immersed in a magical world, an Iraq that died long ago, the Islam of Arabian Nights and Haroun el-Raschid, a romantic culture with its own philosophies and mysteries. Karsha foretelling the future with a sand reading, the muezzin and his apprentice singing the call to prayer, or the public bathing place that the rascals hide in, give the film a sense not only of unity and atmosphere but of meticulous attention to detail.Dietrich's character was not Greek but Macedonian (like Alexander the Great, another blonde). I could have stood for more authenticity in her dance (especially after the Kraft girls who preceded her -- their Deva Dasi style dance *was* pretty authentic) and that gold paint was a little much. Still, the idea was that Jamilla was wild, and did unconventional things.I do see where it could have been better. Craig in particular sounds jarringly "modern". But you forget that after a while. Modern films don't present this kind of idealism. We have to have everything brought down to sordid reality. A thing like this is good for you after too much "realism" gunk.

This is not a bad movie, but it is not an important one. Made in the last decade of Ronald Colman's active career as a movie star, KISMET seems to be an odd choice for him. Normally he was playing English gentlemen types - Rudolph Rassendyll in THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, or Robert Conway in LOST HORIZON or Dick Helgar in THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. If he played Americans, they were the Supreme Court Candidate in THE TALK OF THE TOWN or the title character Boston Brahman in THE LATE GEORGE APLEY. Here he was playing the philosophical thief Hafiz of 11th Century Baghdad. An odd choice indeed.To begin with, as he is playing an Arab, there was nothing physically "semitic" about Colman to suggest a citizen of Baghdad. However, the producers must have thought of him as a good example of a cultured type (Hafiz sprouts proverbs and examples of Middle Eastern wisdom), so he fit half the requirement. Still, it might have been better to have used someone who might have looked more like a citizen of the "fertile crescent". Robert Donat would have made a better choice.Secondly, if they had to do a story about ancient Islam at it's zenith of glory and power, why did they choose KISMET? It is an old play by Edward Knobloch which was written about 1910 and became the favorite starring part for the then great stage character actor Otis Skinner.* In fact, Skinner did a film version of the play in the silent period. But while not the worst example of a well made piece of hokum, it remains hokum. Skinner was quite well identified with the central role, but he died in 1942. It may be that Paramount felt they could get away with this just because he was no longer around.*Skinner's career, like so many of his contemporary stars like Richard Mansfield and Henry Irving can only be judged by snips and brief glimpses of their work - if they made an early silent film or even sound film (George M. Cohan in THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT comes to mind) we can see something of what they were like. Irving actually made surviving gramophone recordings of Shakespearean parts. In Skinner's case, most people who recall him at all today probably do so because Charlie Ruggles played him in the movie OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY which was based on a book by Skinner's daughter Cornelia Otis Skinner. If you can find the 1961 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the article on "Make-up" had a page of photographs of Otis Skinner in a dozen roles, including Hajjj (the actual name of Hafiz's character - the real "Hafiz" is the greatest of Persia's poets).Still the studio went to great lengths - they made it a color film (a rarity for Colman, by the way). They gave the two other best parts to the capable Edward Arnold as the evil Vizier, and to Marlene Dietrich as the Vizier's sexy (and bored) wife. This film reunited James Craig and Arnold (formerly together in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER) with Craig as the Caliph. Except for romancing Joy Page as Colman's daughter, Craig really has little to do here. He's a target for Arnold's ambitious murder plans. Old Harry Davenport is the wise old Chancellor - a comparative figure of good to the evil Arnold.It's serviceable and no more. You watch KISMET and you won't be bored, but you will not be enthralled by it. Colman does try to bring some additional juice to Hafiz. When threatened with banishment he seems genuinely surprised, hurt, and horrified - like being told he will now be a fish out of water, although he can live anywhere else in the empire. There are also some humorous moments, such as the threatened plan to punish Colman (in this film he is threatened with punishment several times) by cutting off his hands - he was captured as a thief. His anticipated looks at this imprisoned, chained down fists are surprisingly amusing. But the screenplay keeps going from mock philosophy to comedy to romance to melodrama. The ride is made as smooth as possible, but it seems like it's on old fashioned back roads.So, I will say the film can be watched - but stick to THE LATE GEORGE APLEY or RANDOM HARVEST or A DOUBLE LIFE or CHAMPAIGN FOR CAESAR to get a better glimpse at Colman's acting strengths. He was just treading water here.