Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

drednm Bright musical comedy with Eddie Cantor as a hobo who wanders onto a movie set and gets hired as an extra. He falls asleep and dreams he's back in ancient Bagdad.In ancient Bagdad he's taken as a relative of Ali Baba and gets involved in the palace intrigue where the Sultana (Gypsy Rose Lee as Louise Hovick) and her allies are plotting to overthrow the Sultan (Roland Young). Cantor cracks an endless stream of one-liners about Roosevelt's "New Deal," which of course no one understands. The plot then has Cantor running for president against the Sultan. But it's all a dream.The two show stoppers are the extended "Swing Is Here to Sway" with Cantor joined by dancer Jeni Le Gon and the fabulous Peters Sisters, and the "Twilight in Turkey" number by Raymond Scott and Quintet and danced by the Pearl Twins. Great stuff.Co-stars include Tony Martin, June Lang, John Carradine, Virginia Field, Alan Dinehart, Stanley Fields, Warren Hymer, and Lynn Bari as a harem girl. The Peters Sisters, Mattye, Anne, and Virginia, just about steal the show from Cantor, who discovered them at a local nightclub and put them right in his movie.One of Cantor's best.

vincentlynch-moonoi If I could give this film two different ratings, I would. If I were watching this in 1937 I'd rate it highly because the script is really quite clever. But, for someone watching this today, if they don't have a decent knowledge base about the politics and life of the Great Depression, many of the jokes will go right over their heads. So, my 1937 rating is a 7. My 2011 rating is a 5.As another reviewer here put it very well, "Eddie Cantor is in Iraq...to bring the New Deal to the old caliphate." That's why understanding jokes about FDR and the Republicans at that time is essential in watching this film.Aside from Cantor, the performances here are rather meek. Tony Martin unimpressively plays a good guy on the side of freedom. Bland Roland Young all too calmly plays the sultan. Though her performance is tenuous, it's interesting seeing Gypsy Rose Lee (with all her clothes on) playing a member of the royal family.I watched this on a retrospective TCM was doing about how Arabs have been treated poorly on the silver screen. While I admit that they weren't portrayed positively in this film, my impression is that it wasn't done with any malice at all. The royals and locals here were treated much the same as Bing Crosby treated the royals and locals in "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court"...and they were all White.The average person today probably wouldn't enjoy this film. But Eddie Cantor is a show business legend, and this performance is in his heyday, and is worth watching for that reason. So, I'll give the film its rating for 1937 -- a 7.

edwagreen Awful film. It is so inane, even with the talents of Tony Martin, Roland Young and others.Made in 1937, Eddie Cantor finds himself in old Iraq, filled with intrigue and plots, the major plotter being the usual Douglass Dumbrille.It's funny how the Cantor role wishes to introduce democracy to the country with the New Deal Programs. Even Happy Days are Here Again is played. Tony Martin has little to do; besides, the lyrics of the songs he songs are as ridiculous as the movie itself.The best part consists of 3 African-American ladies singing a song twice about the coming of spring.Nice to see the cameo appearances of stars at film's end. Even they probably couldn't wait for this nonsense to end.

bkoganbing Ali Baba Goes To Town anticipates the war in Iraq by several decades. Just as we are at war to democratize Iraq and its capital Bagdad, so Eddie Cantor is in Iraq by himself to bring the New Deal to the old caliphate. The populace seems to take to it somewhat better.Cantor is young Al Babson hitchhiking on a freight car to Hollywood when while doing a little soft shoe to entertain fellow tramps Stanley Fields and Warren Hymer he falls out of the car and in the desert. Not to worry though, he lands in the middle of a sand and sandal Arabian picture that 20th Century Fox was shooting. The film has the look of the kind that Maria Montez would do at Universal in the next decade. He gets hired as an extra.However in a big scene where he's one of many to pop out of a giant jar, Eddie over medicates himself on his many pills and falls asleep and dreams himself back into old Bagdad. The people he meets there are suspiciously like the stars of the film he's on like June Lang, Tony Martin, and Roland Young. Young makes a rather urbane sultan who takes to Cantor, so much so he makes him his prime minister. Cantor proceeds to introduce the New Deal to Bagdad and gives the people some ideas of democracy.That does not sit well with a trio of villains, Douglass Dumbrille, John Carradine, and Louise Hovick. If you don't recognize the name Louise Hovick, she was a minor starlet at Fox who would leave their shortly for another career involving exposure under the better known name of Gypsy Rose Lee. Cantor did this whole thing before and much better in Roman Scandals. In real life Cantor was a number one booster of the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt and the satire is somewhat blunted. It's also somewhat dated and you'd really have to be familiar with both Cantor and the Thirties to get a lot of the jokes.Tony Martin is in the film as a young reformer type or what passed for one in old Bagdad. I got a feeling that a lot of his role was left on the cutting room floor. He makes no mention of Ali Baba Goes To Town in his joint memoir with Cyd Charisse.Ali Baba Goes To Town did not fare well at the box office even with the presence of a whole lot of guest stars in the film via newsreel clips from the premiere of Wee Willie Winkie. By mutual consent Darryl F. Zanuck and Eddie Cantor did not make any more films and Cantor was off the screen for three years.The film is really for Eddie Cantor fans and for those who'd like to familiarize themselves with one of the greatest entertainers of the last century. But there are far better filmed examples of his work.