Thief of Damascus

Before Roger Corman there were the B movie departments. At Warner Brothers they had Bryan Foy, at Paramount they had the Dollar Bills and at Columbia, which was a B movie Studio for 90% of their productions anyway, they had Sam Katzman.

This means, for this flick, occasional A movie intellectual support Paul Henreid, looking as depressed as he did in NOW VOYAGER or CASABLANCA, as an action hero, horror lead Lon Chaney Jr. in support for marquee value.... and the rest of the movie, for some reason, strikes me as having been cast out of a Brooklyn burlesque house: girls from the stage, extras from the audience. Director Will Jason came out of short subjects and directs the whole thing with not too serious an air. The set design looks like the designer went into the prop storehouse, had everyone grab everything they could carry and heaped it all together.

The net effect is ridiculous rather than funny, depressing rather than dramatic. Unless you want to see the hordes of the Middle East riding over landscape like American cowboys -- I've no idea who was directing the second unit, but it's clearly cowboys in those pointed helmets, wielding scimitars -- give this one a miss.