Sabu's Daughter Scripts The Second
Coming of 'Thief Of Bagdad'
Arthur J Pais
Nearly 60 years after Thief of Bagdad consolidated actor Sabu's
reputation as one of the biggest movie stars across the globe, his daughter
Jasmine hopes to see her long-cherished dream come true. She has sold a
script for the movie, The Return of the Thief of Bagdad, which will star Chiranjeevi and will be shot in India next month.
Unlike the first Thief of Bagdad, which was directed by the distinguished
Michael Powell and produced by the highly respected Alexander Korda and was
hailed, among other things, for its technicolor visuals and stunts, the new
film, being made on a modest budget of $ 3 million, is being directed by a
relatively little known Douchan Gerci.
Thief of Bagdad was shot mostly in America as the war conditions made it
difficult for Korda to shoot it in England, his adopted country.
Sabu, the child actor from The Elephant Boy (1937) was very much
integral to the success of this version of the tale. As Powell writes in his
autobiography, A Life In Movies: 'It was because the leading part was
played by such a wonderful, graceful, frank, intelligent child, that the film delighted audiences around the world. Magical tricks and color and vivid spectacle help to make fantasy work, but it is the human beings in the fantasy who make it immortal.'
This is the film that also finally begot Korda his belated fame and fortune as a producer in the US, and Powell his reputation as one of Britain's finest directors.
Jasmine, who breeds horses used in many Hollywood films including The
Godfather, is Sabu's only daughter; her brother Paul is a musician.
Sabu, who was discovered by Korda in Mysore while he was riding an
elephant, became an international star with Elephant Boy and acted in many British
and Hollywood hits including The Jungle Book (1942) and Song of India (1949).
In the late 1940s and 1950s, he was among the richest stars in Hollywood.
In an era in which white actors often played Asian characters, Sabu was
respected not only for his physique but also for his natural acting
abilities. He was a friend to many Hollywood actors including James Stewart
and Ronald Reagan.
His fortunes declined in the 1960s. He lost money in business deals. And
though his films remained perennial hits on television, to many in the
younger generation they represented a defense of imperialism and the
complaint that they were full of inane and exotic images increased with
each passing year.
Sabu, who acted in A Tiger Walks in 1964, the year he died, was reduced
to performing in a circus in the early 1960s but the Mysore-born actor wanted to go
back to India to shoot a sequel to Thief of Baghdad. Sabu was just 40 when he died; his widow Marilyn never married again. "When you were
married to someone so special like Sabu, how could you think of sharing
life with another man?" she said in an interview a few years ago.
"My father was slowly emerging from the shadows, he was even talking to
Walt Disney to set up a Disney Land in India but he died following a heart
attack when he was in the middle of taking charge of his career again," Jasmine
Sabu said.
The script she has written would not have stereotyped images of Arabs and
the minorities, she said. She hopes the film will lead to renewed interest
in her father's life and achievements.
"His own life had so much of drama, I wish I could make a film about him,"
she says.
Sabu's movies:
A Tiger Walks (1964)
Rampage (1963)
Mistress of the World (1959)
Sabu and The Magic Ring (1957)
Jungle Hell (1955)
Jaguar (1955)
Pardon My Trunk (1951)
Savage Drums (1951)
Song of India (1949)
Black Narcissus (1947)
The End of the River (1947)
Tangier (1946)
Cobra Woman (1944)
The Jungle Book (1942)
Arabian Nights (1942)
Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Drums (1938)
The Drum (1938)
Elephant Boy (1937)
The Treasure of Bengal
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