They both go undercover in the palace: the Scarlet Falcon as a physician who cures the Caliph of his hiccups (!), and Lida as a harem girl – Medina has the honor of delivering the token bellydancing sequence. Lida is an unusual love interest for a 50’s adventure film because she can hold her own and isn’t a damsel in distress in an early battle scene, she smashes down her opponents with a flaming torch. Agar is joined in his insurgency by stubborn and fiery Lida (Patricia Medina, who would go on to Aladdin and His Lamp and Siren of Bagdad) and faithful Razi (George Tobias, Sinbad, the Sailor and later of Bewitched). He’s now played by John Agar ( She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Sands of Iwo Jima), making a stock, square-jawed hero, and one as American as they come, of course.
When he grows up, he doesn’t know the nature of his inheritance, but he begins harassing the Caliph Ali under his secret identity the Scarlet Falcon, dressed entirely in red. The one true heir to the throne, Abdullah al Husan, is just a babe, and he’s placed on a flying carpet which spirits him away over the city. In the opening scene, a good caliph is usurped by an evil one, Ali (Gregory Gaye, Ninotchka) and his chief strategist, the Grand Vizier Boreg al Buzzar (played by Perry Mason himself, Raymond Burr). Landers keeps the pace pleasingly fast, squeezing this whole epic fairy tale into 83 minutes.
Another key attraction for kids and families was that it was in color – Supercinecolor, to be precise, a three-color process which had debuted that year and would be used in films like Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) starring Abbott and Costello and the 3-D science fiction pictures Invaders from Mars (1953) and Gog (1954).Ĭaliph Ali (Gregory Gaye) and his sister, Princess Narah (Lucille Ball). If nothing else, you’ll get to see a flying carpet. The Magic Carpet, directed by journeyman filmmaker Lew Landers (who had made The Raven with Lugosi and Karloff, and would direct Aladdin and His Magic Lamp the following year), was smart enough to spell out its best promise to matinee-devouring kids right there in its title. Alongside his many monster, swashbuckler, and teenage rebel movies, he would produce further Arabian Nights pastiches, including Thief of Damascus (1952), Siren of Bagdad (1953), Prisoners of the Casbah (1953), The Wizard of Baghdad (1960), and – if it counts – Elvis Presley’s Harum Scarum (1965). The disposable film in question, The Magic Carpet (1951), was produced for Columbia Pictures by Sam Katzman, who specialized in B-movies and serials, and in the same year was attached to projects like the Jungle Jim entry Fury of the Congo, the George Washington historical fiction When the Redskins Rode, and the 15-chapter Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere.
The court of the great Khan, the Pillars of Hercules, Constantinople, Rome, the mountains of the Moon.” Modern audiences might think it a scene straight out of Disney’s Aladdin, but it was just another Arabian Nights programmer at least a handful were churned out of Hollywood every year straight through the 1960’s. Carried away on a flying carpet by her hero, the Scarlet Falcon, the beautiful Lida asks, “Where are you taking me?” He replies, “Wherever you wish.
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