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Arabian Nights

Play trailer Poster for Arabian Nights 1942 1h 26m Fantasy Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
75% Tomatometer 8 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
Scheherazade (Maria Montez), Sinbad, Aladdin and an acrobat (Sabu) help Baghdad's real caliph (Jon Hall) dethrone his bad brother.

Critics Reviews

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Nancy Banks-Smith Guardian 02/25/2020
Arabian Nights was lavish entertainment, with some good actors, mostly lost in whiskers, excellent effects like the flying carpet, and sly lines woven in to amuse the adults. Go to Full Review
John Leonard New York Magazine/Vulture 02/06/2018
They should have adapted, instead of Arabian Nights, a children's book that derives from (while modernizing) the same classic text -- Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Go to Full Review
Grant Watson Fiction Machine 05/16/2023
6/10
It runs a tight 90-minutes: it gets in, does exactly what it says on the tin, and gets back out with efficiency. Go to Full Review
Dennis Harvey 48 Hills 07/18/2022
To watch this Arabian Nights now is to take in a rainbow of hues you’d forgotten existed... Go to Full Review
Charles Cassady Common Sense Media 12/14/2010
5/5
A fresh, but long, take on the classic stories. Go to Full Review
TV Guide 07/30/2003
4/5
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Audience Reviews

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jordan m 01/27/2022 They did a good job with the costumes, which were surprisingly revealing for a 40s movie, and with creating a plot that doesn't exist in the tales the movie is ostensibly based on, but with this coming hot on the heels of 1940's Thief of Bagdad there wasn't much that ended up sticking with me for more than a couple days after my viewing. They didn't do anything with this movie that hadn't been done better by a predecessor. See more 03/16/2020 Gives a wrong shape to Arabian culture as if it was the intention. See more 01/27/2020 Arabain nights (2000) made for TV mini-series. Abit long, but it's a made for TV type of mini 2 part movie. Its can be digested in chunks. Although I watched it in one long sit in. It doesnt focus on the stories of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves or Aladdin too much. Those are treated more like side stories here. But they are saved thanks to the long run time. And it's the stories which are the most interesting part. All in all. It's a thumbs up from me. Arabian nights is definitely worth a watch. See more 11/24/2019 Very underrated. The movie is long, but is truly captivating. See more 11/15/2019 Never feel bored something about the magic lamp and Alladin See more Frances H 03/11/2016 Okay, but not spectacular. See more Read all reviews
Arabian Nights

My Rating

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Movie Info

Synopsis Scheherazade (Maria Montez), Sinbad, Aladdin and an acrobat (Sabu) help Baghdad's real caliph (Jon Hall) dethrone his bad brother.
Director
John Rawlins
Producer
Walter Wanger
Screenwriter
True Boardman, Michael Hogan
Distributor
Universal Pictures, Film Classics Inc., MCA/Universal Pictures [us]
Production Co
Universal Pictures
Genre
Fantasy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 25, 1942, Original
Release Date (DVD)
Feb 6, 2007
Runtime
1h 26m
Sound Mix
Mono