Kismet (1955)

Actors: Norman Leavitt (actor), Frank Mitchell (actor), Ethan Laidlaw (actor), Jay C. Flippen (actor), John Bleifer (actor), Mike Mazurki (actor), Howard Keel (actor), Jack Elam (actor), David Bond (actor), George Bruggeman (actor), Ted de Corsia (actor), Jamie Farr (actor), Sebastian Cabot (actor), Aaron Spelling (actor), Leonard Mudie (actor),

Plot: Like a tale spun by Scheherazade, Kismet follows the remarkable and repeated changes of fortune that engulf a poor poet. It all happens in one incredible day when Kismet (Fate) takes a hand.

Keywords: 1001-nights, arabian-nights, baghdad-mesopotamia, based-on-play, based-on-stage-musical, based-on-stage-musical-based-on-stage-play, beggar, caliph, dancer, dancing
Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Musical, Romance,
Taglines: ECSTASY OF SONG, SPECTACLE AND LOVE! {poster - all caps] FAMED STAGE HIT GLORIFIED ON THE SCREEN! [poster - all caps]

Quotes:

The Poet: May your taxes increase! [Said when acting as a beggar to get the Baghdad merchants to give him alms]

Caliph Guard: [closing lines] Is this man to be pardoned, O Caliph?::Omar: Pardon him, All Highest. His crime was a service. Let him go free.::The Poet: No, don't ask that. Under the circumstances it would embarrass the All Highest to pardon his father-in-law. No, O Prince of Justice, let me help you to compose this most difficult of verdicts against a man who in his life never once did right and who never once wronged anyone. Condemn the scoundrel to some dreadful oasis at least a week's camel's journey away. Force him to take with him the widow of the soon to be late Wazir and all the property she can get her hands on before the accounts are audited. Condemn him to lighten her sorrow and to toil ceaselessly to remove all grief from her heart.::Lalume: You have just condemned yourself for life, My Lord.::The Poet: And finally, O Prince of True Believers, take from me my greatest treasure, my daughter, Marsinah. Take her away forever by marrying her til the end of her days.::The Caliph: Such is the Caliph's pleasure. And so he orders.::The Poet: [singing] Princes come/Princes go. An hour of pomp and show./ They know. /Princes come/ And over the sands and over the sands of time./ They go./ Wise men come./Ever promising/the riddle of life to know./Wise men come./But over the sands./ The silent sands of time./ They go./Lovers come./Lovers go./And all that there is to know/Lovers know./Only lovers know.

Lalume: [singing] On days when my lord groweth restless, and bored by his staff and his plume... his handmaiden hath what he needeth- and what doth he need? Rahadlakum!

Marsinah: [on being told that the Wazir intends to visit her room that night] If you do I'll kill myself, I swear it!::Wazir: Really? It'll be one of the most interesting wedding nights I've had in years.

Chief Policeman: [Hajj the poet has just been sentenced by the Wazir, and the Chief Policeman enters to find him and Lalume, the Wazir's wife, kissing] Is that his sentence?

The Caliph: I was stepped upon!::Manservant: Oh inconceivable, All Highest, but true. You were incontrovertibly stepped upon.

Kismet (1930)

Actors: Alexander Hall (editor), Sidney Blackmer (actor), Edmund Breese (actor), Richard Carlyle (actor), Charles Clary (actor), Olin Francis (actor), Otto Hoffman (actor), Sydney Jarvis (actor), Noble Johnson (actor), Montagu Love (actor), Blanche Friderici (actress), Loretta Young (actress), Robert North (producer), Howard Estabrook (writer), Edward Ward (composer),

Plot: Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself.

Keywords: arab, arabian-nights, baghdad-mesopotamia, based-on-play, beggar, caliph, camel, castle, cheat, dancer
Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Romance,
Taglines: A Fantasy of Romance and Passion Woven With the Glamourous Threads of Ancient Bagdad! ...the night of nights - no dream of dreams ever thrilled like this! (original ad) The Rascal of Bagdad - Beggar - King - Trader of his own Virgin Daughter - Covetor of his Master's Wife! (original ad) A Thousand Thrills! Beggar by Trade - King by Inclination - Honors no Woman - Trusts no Man! (original poster) No Harem wanted a more delightful cheat...no favorite wife succumbed to more eloquent charm! (original ad) A PAUPER - yet he steals into a Caliph's harem to force kisses from the favorite wife! (original ad)

Kismet (1920)

Actors: Jimmie Adams (actor), Léon Bary (actor), Tom Kennedy (actor), Emmett King (actor), Harry Lorraine (actor), Herschel Mayall (actor), Sidney Smith (actor), Paul Weigel (actor), Elinor Fair (actress), Rosemary Theby (actress), Charles E. Whittaker (writer), Louis J. Gasnier (director), Edward Knoblock (writer), Nicholas Dunaew (actor), Sam Kaufman (actor),

Plot: Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself.

Keywords: based-on-play, masque, mecca-south-africa, murder
Genres: Drama,

Less Than the Dust (1916)

Actors: Russell Bassett (actor), Cesare Gravina (actor), Francis Joyner (actor), Frank Lackteen (actor), Frank Losee (actor), David Powell (actor), Mary Alden (actress), Mary Pickford (actress), Mary Pickford (producer), John Emerson (director), Hector Turnbull (writer), Mario Majeroni (actor), Nathaniel Sack (actor), Merceita Esmond (actress), Walter Morgan (actor),

Plot: A little English girl, abandoned in India and raised by an Indian swordmaker, learns of her true origin and returns to England to seek out her birthright.

Keywords: england, india, inheritance, melodrama, parentage
Genres: Drama,