Musings!

Greg Morris, Jocelyn Lane and Peter Mann in THE SWORD OF ALI BABA (1965)

By 1965, most films used some sort of widescreen aspect ratio. When I watch this movie for the first time, the first thing that struck me was the fact that it was in Academy format, or 4:3. I thought that was odd until I realized the movie was re-using scenes fro ALI BABA AND THE 40 THIEVES, from 1944. There was no widescreen movies back then. So they had to shoot in the same format as the 1944 film. This is what I remember mostly of it. I saw it on Drive-In Classics, a now defunct Canadian channel. I remember very little of it except for Gavin MacLeod, of THE LOVE BOAT, hamming it up as the villain and Jocelyn or Jackie Lane, who had already appeared in a good number of PEPLUM movies before this. In fact, the only reason to watch this oddity is for Jocelyn. I'm not familiar with Peter Mann and looking at IMDb profile, I know why. He had a short-lived career. Greg Morris would star in the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series. I still don't have this movie in my collection. Just the trailer.