Eastmancolor fantasy that brings me back to my childhood, when I loved to see the Oriental movies because of the magical happenings and wonders around abound . Oriental adventure with all the usual ingredients , including glowing colour , glamorous settings , spectacular dances and distinctive photography . Adventure and stirring movie magnificently set , including bandits , a nasty ruler , gorgeous dancers , intriguing sheiks , and many other things . Set circa year 809 , concerning a powerful Sultan , marvelous maidens , gorgeous princess , brave Crusaders , several happy-go lucky thieves and anythings else . It deals with some Crusaders (Giuliano Gemma , Gil Vidal) led Renaud de Villecroix (Gérard Barray) who are assigned by Christian Emperor Carlomagno to get a free passage to the Holy Land to let European pilgrims to visit those remote as well as religious lands and there create an Oriental Ambassy . Meanwhile , the gorgeous Sheherazade (Anna Karina who dances at a breathtaking show) is promised to a powerful Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid (Antonio Vilar) . When Renaud de Villecrois saves Shéhérazade from certain death, she falls madly in love with her hero , then things go wrong .
A delightful Naive Adventure , as the film is fairly entertaining and, as can be expected from a grade-A European production of the sixties , handsomely mounted but it mainly survives nowadays on its high quotient of nostalgia . Scherezade is a rousing , moving , stirring tale , above average , and adding action as well as thrills with a great sense of wonder , including attractive scenarios . It is an amusing Arabian movie , plenty of action , thrills , colorful cinematography , wonderful camera work , luxurious costumes , catching score ; all meld together under Pierre Gaspard-Huit 's nice direction . Although the story has been told before , tight filmmaking and nice acting win out . Combination of overwhelming desert and palace battles , sword-play and full of villainy , romance , and heroism . The picture is fast-moving , exciting and thrilling right up with climatic final confrontation between good guys and bad guys . Lavish spectacle and good casting overcomes the somewhat sluggish storytelling that combines a number of familiar Arabian fare and One thousand and one nights tale . Main cast is franky excellent such as Anna Karina as Shéhérazade , Gérard Barray as Renaud de Villecroix and Antonio Vilar as Haroun-al-Raschid . They are supported by a very good plethora of Spanish , French , Italian secondaries as Fernando Rey ,Jorge Mistral , Giuliano Gemma , Marilù Tolo , Fausto Tozzi , Gil Vidal , José Manuel Martín , Jose Calvo , Maria Granada , among others . This Eastmancolor adventure fantasy is well adorned by beautiful cinematography by Christian Matras . Striking and evocative musical score by André Hossein . This European spectacle was glamorously directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit (Captain Fracassa, Les lavandières du Portugal, Gibraltar , Amoríos , Sophie et le crime , Little B.B.) .
In any case, this satisfactory viewing has brought back fond childhood memories of similar costume pictures and has certainly whetted my appetite for more ; as it belongs to Arabian sub-genre whose main representation was the bunch of Universal films from those old days such as : Arabian Nights (1942), apart from Ali Baba and the forty thieves itself, any of the following: Bagdad (1949), Sudan (1945) , The desert hawk (1950), Flame of Araby (1951), The prince who was a thief (1951) , Son of Ali Baba (1952), El capitán King (1953) , Bengal Brigade (1954) and several others
