THE GOLDEN ARROW: Blu-ray (MGM/Titanus Productions, 1962) Warner Archive

A lot of production design, but precious little else went into Antonio Margheriti’s The Golden Arrow (1962); an expensive turkey that nearly bankrupted Titanus, the company footing the bills. An Arabian nights fantasy, with bronzed Apollo/American heartthrob, Tab Hunter improbably cast as an Aladdin-esque beggar/thief, Hassan, The Golden Arrow utterly failed to gel, thanks largely to its loose-stool of a screenplay, written – then, re-written…and re-written again by Giorgio Arlorio, Augusto Frassinetti, Giorgio Prosperi, Filippo Sanjust and Bruno Vailati to the point where not even Flavio Mogherini’s formidable art direction could save the picture from coming off as a lavishly appointed hodge-podge.  Shot in Egypt, with interiors lensed at Titanus’ Italian studio facilities, The Golden Arrow was an ambitious endeavor to say the least. Massimo Tavazzi’s gaudy sets and Giorgio Desideri’s costumes are expertly photographed by Gábor Pogány. And while I continue to question the somewhat effete robin-egg blue boots that Hunter’s Hassan wears with his rather drab beige ensemble, as well as the reasoning behind the endless inveigling of Hassan with various princesses, fairy-queens and underworld vixens – pointlessly to delay the plot (such as it is), The Golden Arrow is, quite simply, a ridiculous and disposable little nothing that seems even more disingenuous with the passage of time. Hunter’s hunk du jour defeats some monolithic fire creatures, charms an Egyptian empress (Gloria Milland), disposes of an evil magician (Omar Zolficar), wins the heart of an underworld goddess (Dominique Boschero) and runs afoul of a trio of Allah-sent genies (Giustino Durano, Umberto Melnati, Franco Scandurra) who prove more spirit guides than the granters of wishes on Hassan’s quest for the eponymous weapon to save Damascus from the wicked grand vizier, Baktiar (a sufficiently leering and maniacal, Mario Feliciani).

Seems Baktiar is hell-bent on the Princess Jamila (a very brittle Rossana Podestà) wedding one of three foppish prince consorts, ineffectually played by Renato Baldini (Prince of Bassora), Rosario Borelli (Prince of Aleppo) and Ceco Zumurovich (Prince of Samarkand). While all three have pledged their ‘love’ to this henna-haired future ruler of the nation, they all have an invested interest to see Baktiar succeed to the throne. So, precisely why Baktiar attempts to poison Jamila with a diabolical green vapor as she sleeps – a certain death, even more inexplicably thwarted by Bassora, who returns with the ‘gift of life’ on a magic carpet lent to him by Aleppo with a future-predicting pearl of wisdom that Samarkand uses to reveal Jamila’s failing health, is frankly just one of the idiotic curiosities that The Golden Arrow never explains away. Ditto for Hassan’s repeated effrontery to enjoy various seductions of the fairer sex, even though he has pledged his heart to Jamila from the outset. Oh well…boys will be boys, I suppose. And if Hunter, bristled over the picture’s atrocious dialogue that he endeavored to rewrite himself, “so I'd at least have fun delivering them” even these results were later camped into the sand and dust by Titanus’ executive decision to hire an Italian baritone to re-dub virtually all of Hunter’s lines with a deadpan lack of finesse. “I ended up sounding like Rossano Brazzi!” The debacle was offset by Hunter’s payout for the picture which, in 1962, was something of a king’s ransom. Even if the picture was not profitable – and, it wasn’t – Hunter’s paycheck was.

Tab Hunter is one of those unlikely Hollywood success stories that proves an exception to the rule about dime-a-dozen beefcakes. Indeed, Hunter would show his versatility as an actor, appearing opposite some of the biggest female stars of his day, and in some of the splashiest, high-profile movies then in production, including 1952’s Island of Desire, 1956’s The Girl He Left Behind, and 1958’s Damn Yankees. Hunter was also very adept at a singing career. His single ‘Young Love’ became a gold record winner, charting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping 6 weeks (7 in the U.K.). He followed it up with another winner, ‘Ninety-Nine Ways’ – that resulted in Jack L. Warner, who owned Tab’s movie contract, enforcing a ban on Dot Records (a subsidiary of Paramount), unable to release the album Hunter had already recorded for them.  Jack, however, was generous – establishing Warner Bros. Records division, strictly to promote Hunter’s music career. And Hunter would prove unequivocally to be the studio’s No. 1 box office draw between 1955 and 1958. Behind the scenes, however, Hunter frequently feared that his ‘gay’ lifestyle would eventually catch up to his studio-sanctioned image as the blonde all-male heartthrob. “I was living two lives at that time,” Hunter later explained, after the stigma on homosexuality in Hollywood had somewhat relaxed, “…the word ‘gay’ wasn't even around in those days, and if anyone ever confronted me with it, I'd just kinda freak out. I was just not comfortable in that Hollywood scene, other than the work process.”  Even so, Hunter managed to keep his affairs with Anthony Perkins and champion figure skater, Ronnie Robertson under wraps, eventually marrying his partner of over 35-years; film producer, Allan Glaser.

Because of Hunter’s frank admissions and lifestyle, his performance in The Golden Arrow has since acquired an unintentional picaresque quality – Hunter’s Hassan, taken into the undulating arms of three vibrant vixens as he effortlessly navigates his way through the movie’s heavy-handed Arabian night clichés; flying carpets, magic spells, and marauding hoards, sabers drawn, charging across the desert sands on horseback. The Golden Arrow begins, promisingly enough, with a challenge competition. He who can shoot the fabled ‘golden arrow’ through an embossed bullseye is destined to win the hand of the Princess Jamila. In tandem the Princes of Bassora, Aleppo and Samarkand are summarily humiliated by their lack of achievement in this seemingly simple endeavor. Then Hassan, professing to be a Prince from a fabled province, takes his turn. Miraculously, he succeeds. It is preordained by Allah. Hassan should wed Jamila. Alas, Hassan has other plans, kidnapping the princess with his band of cutthroats, presumably to obtain a ransom for her safe return. However, only a few scenes later, Hassan has a change of heart. The embittered Jamila, it seems, has completely won him over. So, Hassan betrays his followers, sneaking back into the city to restore Jamila to her people. Regrettably, Baktiar observes their return and captures Hassan. Imprisoned in the dungeon, with plans for his execution, Hassan is spared death by three genies who have bumbled their way through a secret passage (although they all leave through the front door). Why any of this should matter, since Jamila is allowed to choose for herself who she shall wed (and would prefer Hassan) makes little sense at all.

And from this moment forward, The Golden Arrow will steadily digress into a series of unprepossessing vignettes as Hassan encounters fire creatures and a subterranean goddess who feebly attempt to delay his escape, then, thwarts a malicious magician, hell-bent on discovering a hidden fortune within the walls of an Egyptian tomb. Thwarting the magician’s plan, with the aid of the genies, Hassan inadvertently liberates an Egyptian queen from her suspended animation, along with all her people, who were put under a terrible spell by the deceased illusionist. To illustrate her gratitude, the queen throws a lavish dinner party in Hassan’s honor. Regrettably, he has to be put to sleep by the genies to resist being seduced by her charms. Meanwhile, in Damascus, Baktiar strikes a bargain with Bassora, whom he intends to promote to the throne after Jamila orders another competition underway to win her heart. Whomever shall bring to her the greatest gift on earth, she shall marry. In response to this challenge, Bassora discovers a sorcerer’s potion of life-giving waters, guaranteed to restore anyone to health. Aleppo purchases a flying carpet from a peddler in the market square (previously to have had an off-kilter encounter with one of the genies over a pineapple, and, who bequeathed the floating rug to him) and, Samarkand, who unearths a rare pearl that can predict the future but also act as a porthole, revealing whatever the beholder wishes to see.

On his journey back to Damascus, Hassan and the genies are taken prisoner by Hassan’s former band of cutthroats who believe he has betrayed them. In short order, one of the genies assaults these attackers with flying logs of fire. Hassan is freed and makes restitution with his former band of brutes by bequeathing to them the riches the Egyptian queen has given him as thanks for his freeing her from the magician’s curse. Hassan and his cohorts now return to Damascus, though not before Bassora’s arrival, on Aleppo’s magic carpet, to restore Jamila’s health after Baktiar has already poisoned her with a toxic green smoke. Pouring a few vital drops of the magic elixir down Jamila’s throat, she is stirred from her dying slumber. Now, Bassora demands she marry him at once. If only Hassan had not returned. In the resultant chaos, Bassora and Baktiar escape on Aleppo’s flying carpet and Hassan and the genies make chase on their own flying rugs, dropping urns on Bassora’s unsuspecting army, who have arrived on horseback to take Damascus by force. Hassan manages to use the golden arrow to thwart Bassora and Baktiar’s getaway. They plummet from their perch into the mud below and are humiliated. Hassan is reunited with Jamila, whom he immediately vows to make his wife.

The Golden Arrow is a convoluted and careless affair. The special effects are so haplessly strung together they belie any suspension of disbelief we might have had for this Ali Baba rip-off. The colorful sets and costumes cannot mask the picture’s pitiful shortcomings that amount to a crazy quilt of missed opportunities and garish spectacle. The performances are difficult to judge as many have been the victim of post-production dubbing. So, how effective is the looping of dialogue? In spots, quite good – in others, not so much. Given his high-profile career at the time, Hunter was hardly pleased to be squeezed into this sword and sandal quickie, albeit, with a better than average budget and production values. And while Hunter’s career in movies would continue (his last was in 1992), his real ‘golden’ period as Hollywood’s heartthrob was officially over with the release of this movie. Hunter’s inability to land some of the more high-profile parts he desperately would have wanted, eventually convinced the actor to retire to the south of France. He appeared in spaghetti westerns, with the occasional supporting role offered to him in a big Hollywood movie.  But in the end, Hunter could only watch from the wings as his eminence as the hunk du jour steadily eroded with time and age catching up and the swoon-bait status of the heroes he was so readily identified with, finally left to molder with the past.   

The Golden Arrow arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive (WAC). It’s a passable 1080p transfer with dated Technicolor in Technirama and looking fairly flat – although, light years ahead of anything on home video up until now. As MGM was the U.S. distributor of the picture, Leo the Lion’s roar precedes the Titanus Pictures main titles, marred by ever-so-slight edge effects and gate weave and wobble that renders the image fairly unstable at the outset. Things improve as soon as we enter the live-action sequences, with colors, fairly vibrant and fine detail, impressive at a glance. Color density fluctuates from scene to scene. A lot of the desert sequences can appear bleached out, lacking the lushness one would otherwise expect. The interiors, shot under optimal lighting conditions, fair considerably better, as cinematographer, Gábor Pogány has made eye-popping use of his palette, staged with excessive use of colored spotlights in the garden that make every moment in the palace appear as though it were taking place in a swank post-war Italian nightclub. Age-related artifacts are absent. But contrast is frequently weak. And the composite matte work used to create the flying carpet sequences is awash in horrendous rotoscoping/blue-screen edges and excessively faded and out of focus rear projection. The 2.0 audio is adequate for this presentation. The dubbed audio is appropriately canned. Save an original theatrical trailer, there are no extras. Bottom line: WAC delivers a fairly competent 1080p transfer from flawed archival elements with a modicum of clean-up and color balancing applied. It’s still a lousy movie, and, I cannot imagine how money could have been more grotesquely misspent bringing this B-movie with C-grade entertainment value to the forefront of their hi-def release schedule – ahead of Oscar-winning Best Pictures, and a treasure trove of bona fide classics still awaiting their long overdue Blu-ray release. Pass and be very glad that you did.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

1

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

0