ARABESQUE: Blu-ray re-issue (Universal, 1966) Kino Lorber

In 1963, director, Stanley Donen debuted what is, arguably, the greatest Hitchcockian thriller not to be made by Hitchcock himself – Charade. With its ‘body thrown off a train’ prologue, gorgeous Parisian locales, and, the uber-wit and sophistication of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn (two of the most glamorous people ever to walk this earth), Donen was already half way to achieving greatness, even before Henry Mancini’s as memorable main titles played under the credits. And the proof was not only in the film but in the box office, Charade ringing registers around the world and prompting Universal - and Donen - to attempt a follow-up. If anything, Arabesque (1966) illustrated Donen had only one ‘Charade’ in him; the espionage odyssey this time around, unraveling into a contrived and thoroughly convoluted claptrap that in no way recaptured the thrills or romantic chemistry its predecessor possessed in spades. On this outing Donen was hamstrung, not only by an inept and grotesquely cobbled together screenplay from Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price and Peter Stone (the latter, ironically, having written Charade, and therefore, knowing better), but also a docile and dotty central performance from Gregory Peck, as a rather befuddled hieroglyphics expert and professor, suddenly thrust into the thick of what was supposed to be a diabolical plan, rife with international espionage, but instead steadily devolved into an inert and inarticulate retread of ideas and plot points better expressed in his aforementioned sublime thriller.

Arabesque is very loosely based on Alex Gordon’s 1961 novel, The Cypher; its working title, ‘Crisscross’, later changed to ‘Cipher’ and then, finally, Arabesque.  Donen aggressively sought to cast Cary Grant as Prof. David Pollock, and, indeed, the character’s off-handed dialogue was conceived with Grant in mind.  Nevertheless, the script, as presented to Donen and Grant left a great deal to be desired and Grant, wisely, opted out of the project. Were that Donen had done as much. However, eager to work with both Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren – both stars as keen to sign on to the project, Donen acquiesced to Universal’s offer to make the picture. Donen has estimated that a cool $400,000 was spent attempting to ‘liven up’ the screenplay. Cinematographer, Christopher Challis has also recalled that the script continued to mutate as shooting commenced, adding, “The more the script was rewritten, the worse it got.” Indeed, nothing about Arabesque clicks as it should. After the flimsiest of premises is laid out at the start, the plot – if one can call it that – devolves into a series of not terribly spirited chase sequences. “Our only hope,” Donen reportedly told Challis, “…is to make it so visually exciting the audience will never have time to work out what the hell is going on.”

And yet, this is precisely why Arabesque fails to attain any sort of lasting integrity on the screen; Donen, unable to iron out the particulars in a plot possessing more nagging wrinkles than a Shar-Pei puppy. Arabesque commences with Major Sloane (John Merivale) posing as an oculist, murdering Oxford Professor Ragheeb (George Coulouris) with some tainted eye drops, and stealing a hieroglyph-encrypted message. Sloane then asks Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck), who has taken over Ragheeb's class, to meet with shipping magnate, Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) on a ‘business matter.’ Alas, David declines and is shortly thereafter forced into the back of a Rolls-Royce Phantom IV, where he is introduced to Middle Eastern Prime Minister Hassan Jena (Carl Duering) and his Ambassador to Great Britain, Mohammed Lufti (Harold Kasket). Stressing the importance of the mission at hand, Jena implores David to accept Beshraavi's offer to gain inside intel for the other side. Regrettably, he does. The pointedly mysterious Beshraavi orders Pollock to decode the hieroglyph-inscription on the piece of paper Sloane obtained from Ragheeb. So far/so good. Except that almost immediately David meets and falls for Beshraavi's gal-pal, Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren). Exactly whose side Yasmin is on remains debatable. Without provocation, she appears to be undermining Beshraavi, in tandem, bating David to decode the message, but also, conscious of the fact that once he does, he too will be murdered.

Donen’s attempt at romantic humor here is sour; David, forced to take refuge in Yasmin’s shower with a naked Yasmin, as Beshraavi, oblivious to his presence, attempts to carry on a conversation with his kept lover from the other side of the bathroom door. When Sloane bursts into the room to alert Beshraavi both David and the cipher have vanished into thin air, David conceals the minuscule cipher inside a candy wrapper before abducting Yasmin in plain sight and fleeing into the night. The couple takes refuge inside the zoological garden’s aquarium and narrowly avoiding capture by Beshraavi’s henchman, Mustapha (Larry Taylor). Precisely at the moment when all seems lost, as Mustapha is about to drown David in a fish tank, a man suddenly appears and kills Mustapha instead. Identifying himself as Inspector Webster (Duncan Lamont) of CID, this too proves a lie as an innocuous security guard approaches to make his inquiries and is shot dead by Webster, who then knocks David unconscious. Sometime later, David stirs in the back of a van, surrounded by Webster, Yasmin and another of her…um…boyfriends, Yussef Kassim (Kieron Moore). All are after the cipher. Observing the bag of candies where earlier he has hidden the cipher, now casually resting on a shelf in the van, David lies that Beshraavi has the cipher. Unable to expel its whereabouts from their captive, even after employing a truth serum, this motley crew take David’s inferences at face value, tossing him from the vehicle, with Yussef ordering Yasmin to ‘work’ on Beshraavi.

The next morning, a contrite Yasmin lies to Beshraavi that Yussef murdered David and Mustapha without the message being decoded. Yasmin believes Beshraavi has the cipher, But Beshraavi states David must have it. Playing both sides against the middle, Yasmin arrives at David’s apartment and interrupts his telephone call to Jena.  Employing her feminine wiles, Yasmin convinces David she abhors Yussef and is only pretending to aid him because his boss, General Ali, is presently orchestrating a military takeover and has already taken her mother and sisters hostage. Yasmin implores David to crack the cipher as she will then report their success to the embassy, thus insuring everyone’s safety.  Naively believing her story, David confides he left the cipher in the candies in the back of the van. Now, David takes Yasmin to the construction site Yussef is using as his front. The pair discover the van. Only Webster is presently eating the candies and, inadvertently, discovers the cipher first. Telephoning Beshraavi with his news, Webster is unaware his entire conversation is being eavesdropped upon by David and Yasmin, who now learn Beshraavi will meet Webster at the Ascot racetrack. Presumably as camouflage, Yasmin attends the Ascot races with Beshraavi while David scours the crowd for signs of Webster. He finds Webster and Sloane about to make an exchange: the cipher for an envelope full of money. Intercepting this transaction, David knocks the cipher and envelope onto the race track as the horses steadily advance. In the ensuing struggle, Sloane inadvertently stabs Webster instead of David, who also narrowly manages to retrieve the cipher moments before the horse gallops past. 

Now, David makes copies of the cipher, mailing the original to himself for safekeeping. He is startled to see his name in print, implicating him in Webster’s murder. Believing the widow (Mayla Nappi) of the late Prof. Ragheeb will be able to shed light on the cipher’s importance, David attends her at the safe house where she has been in seclusion and is quite unaware her husband is dead. Informed of Ragheeb’s untimely demise, Mrs. Ragheeb suffers a bitter breakdown, destroying the cipher, but implying she knew her husband’s work was dangerous. David pleads with the widow to reconsider, citing Yasmin’s mother and sisters’ perilous captivity at the hands of Gen. Ali. Now, the widow Ragheeb clarifies a few points of interest for David: Yasmin has no mother - no sisters. In fact, her father is Gen. Ali! Disgusted by Yasmin’s betrayal, David tests the depth of her deception by lying to Yasmin now. He claims to have decoded the cipher, making up a nonsensical translation. Arranging to meet later, David instead tails Yasmin to Yussef’s construction site. But he is as startled when Yussef, operating a wrecking ball, indiscriminately begins to swing it at Yasmin in an attempt to kill her. Instead, the ball makes contact with some live wires and Yussef is electrocuted.

Now, David determines the hieroglyphics are a simple nursery rhyme, the real message written with invisible ink that, once moistened, reveals a microdot decoding Beshraavi plans to assassinate Jena as he exits a plane at the airport for his press conference. Rushing to the scene of the crime, David briefly thwarts this public execution, but is powerless to stop Lufti, who shoots Jena dead with his pistol. In the frenzied chaos that results, Yasmin explains to David that the man who was just shot is an imposter - not Jena. The real Jena has been abducted by Beshraavi and locked inside a large steamer trunk in the back of a truck. David and Yasmin find the trunk and manage to free Jena just as the van arrives at Beshraavi's country estate. David, Yasmin and Jena make their daring escape on horseback, pursued by a farm combine. Meanwhile, Beshraavi and Sloane take to the skies in a helicopter. As Beshraavi and Sloane fly under a steel-girder railway viaduct, David manages to drop a wooden ladder into the copter’s rotors, causing it to fail and crash. Having saved the Prime Minister’s life, David and Yasmin depart on a punt back at Oxford – presumably, to officially begin their romance.

Arabesque is as dull and by-the-numbers as thrillers can get. Donen’s approach to this connect-the-dots farce cries out for the sort of whimsical sophistication he had in Charade. Alas, there is far too much going on here for the screenplay to ever become invested in these characters. They remain cartoonish cardboard cutouts at best. Gregory Peck is so ill at ease he appears to be reading his lines from cue cards posted just out of view. His performance here belies our appreciation for his formidable talents, exhibited elsewhere in his pantheon of acting achievements. Reportedly, Sophia Loren requested twenty pairs of shoes for her character to wear. She might have otherwise paid a bit more attention to what was going on from the ankles up. Loren makes for sultry eye candy in Arabesque. But that is the extent to her contributions. Seemingly void of charm (I don’t quite understand how this is possible), Loren relies exclusively on her looks to carry the part. It’s not enough. There is no on-screen chemistry between her and Peck - not even of the palpably fraying and antagonistic ilk.  And Peck, while admiring Donen’s precision on the picture, describing it as choreographed for maximum punctuation of both its drama and the action, was not altogether pleased with Loren’s insistence he sprint like a madman during one of their many chase sequences. It seems Peck had sustained a lower back injury, decades earlier. This prevented such agility now. However, his pleas for Loren to slow down so he could catch up to her, were virtually ignored by the haughty star until Donen intervened on Peck’s behalf to explain the situation.

In the final analysis, Arabesque made back its initial investment, mostly on the lingering reputation inculcated by Donen’s Charade, and, on the drawing power of Peck and Loren’s names above the title. But the picture’s modest $5 million gross, on a $3 million outlay was hardly proof positive Stanley Donen would become the new – or even next ‘master of suspense’. Indeed, Arabesque marked the end of Donen’s interests in the spy/thriller. Donen, whose chameleon-like talents had begun as a dancer in MGM’s Best Foot Forward (1943), before embarking on a lucrative co-choreographing/directing career with premiere dancer, Gene Kelly, and later, to emerge as the full-fledged solo director of such masterworks as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Funny Face (1957) and Indiscreet (1958) – to name but three – would continue making movies after Arabesque - alas, with diminishing returns - his last, 1999’s made-for-TV, Love Letters, a wan ghost flower of that finely wrought craftsmanship, seeming to be effortlessly exhibited throughout his golden period.  Viewed today, Arabesque is a footnote in Donen’s career and not a terribly flattering one at that. Ironically, it lacks Donen’s light touch, and ultimately, the picture never rises above mediocrity to enthrall us as it should.

Arabesque gets a second outing on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber. The first disc was released by Universal Home Video in 2019.  And despite some suggestions on other review websites to the contrary, this appears to be the identical video master used for the Uni disc, albeit, with a few extras tossed in to sweeten the deal. Arabesque was shot in 2.35:1 Panavision (along with the rest of the feature), but the main titles have been window-boxed with a black border on all four sides. The same is true for the Uni disc. The rest of the feature still fills the proper Panavision proportions. Image quality is mostly solid, though intermittently it suffers from some curious amplification of film grain and a strange desaturation of color. It is as though several moments scattered throughout this 1080p transfer have been sourced from a different print master altogether. When the image does snap together, colors are robust and fully saturated. Flesh tones waffle between fairly accurate to downright ruddy. Contrast is solid and fine details abound, except during the aforementioned anomalies. There is minimal age-related damage and only sporadic hints of gate weave. The 2.0 DTS mono audio is adequate but otherwise, quite unremarkable. The Uni’ disc had NO extras. Kino’s reissue tosses in a new audio commentary by historians, Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. It’s pretty average, but interesting in spots, as is the barely 9-minute ‘Music By Mancini’ featurette with Mancini and Leonard Feather. We also get a theatrical trailer, teaser, TV trailer and 5 TV spots, plus a rather anemic poster gallery. Bottom line: Arabesque is hardly high art. But coming from Donen and Peck it’s downright disappointing. The video/audio quality here is identical to the tired old Uni disc of yore and frankly, the extras are not worth the price of re-admission. Judge and buy accordingly.

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

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

2