Full of eastern promise

Most of Hollywood’s Arabian Nights fantasies are, of course, unadulterated tosh. The Middle East, wrote the American film critic William Zinssner, is transformed into ‘a place where lovely young slave girls lie about on soft couches, stretching their slender legs… Amid all this décolletage sits the jolly old Caliph, miraculously cool to the wondrous sights around him, puffing his water pipe.’

It is box-office commercialisation at its worst. As a cinematic franchise, however, Arabian Nights is the gift that keeps on giving, which goes a long way to explaining why Wikipedia has a list of 72 films (nowhere near complete) based on One Thousand and One Nights, starring everyone from Catherine Zeta-Jones to Scooby Doo.

Film fell for the caliphs and slave girls early. Thomas Edison kicked things off in 1902, producing an Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that included dancers from the Paris Opera. These first film-makers loved the challenge of conjuring up the fantastical elements, especially the French technical virtuoso George Méliès. In his hand-coloured Palace of the Arabian Nights of 1905 we hack through fluorescent forests, greet giant lizards, fight dancing skeletons, Méliès throwing all manner of early cinematic chicanery at the story.

It was in animation, however, that the Arabian Nights would find its most abiding home. In fact, the world’s oldest-surviving animated feature was Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an exquisite silent ballet made out of hand-cut silhouettes, an early high point for adaptations.

One more will be added to the list later this month, when Disney releases Aladdin, directed by Guy Ritchie and reported to be ‘very muscular and action-packed’. Disney’s latest foray into one of the Arabian Nights’ best-loved tales is a live-action remake of its 1992 hit Aladdin, the then highest-grossing animated film of all time, in which Robin Williams stole the show with his charismatic, shapeshifting genie.