Slave Girl ** (1947, Yvonne De Carlo, George Brent, Broderick Crawford, Albert Dekker) – Classic Movie Review 9776

Director Charles Lamont’s 1947 Technicolor trifle Slave Girl tells an entertainingly silly action adventure tale (with weedy added humour when the Universal studio saw what a risible movie the original Victorian-set historical adventure story had produced) of American adventurer playboy diplomat Matt Claibourne (George Brent) sent to Tripoli with a chestful of gold to negotiate with the Pasha (Albert Dekker), a rotten ruler holding 10 American kidnapped sailors hostage in a dungeon in the desert.

Humpy the chatting camel (voice of Buddy Hackett) upstages all the other performers, especially Brent, Yvonne De Carlo (as Francesca) and Broderick Crawford (as Chips Jackson), who understandably seem at a loss with the farcical aspects of the film, as it is not their kind of thing at all.

But, then again, a film with kidnapped sailors, a beautiful slave girl, a slave auction, pirates, pashas, a dungeon, a torture chamber and devilish double cross can’t be all bad, can it?

It is written for the screen by Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano, supposedly telling a tale liberally adapted from an old Tripoli legend.

Also in the cast are Lois Collier, Andy Devine, Carl Esmond, Arthur Treacher, Philip Van Zandt, Dan Seymour, Trevor Bardette, Eddie Dunn, Mickey Simpson, Rex Lease, Harry Cording and Lloyd Ingraham.

Slave Girl is directed by Charles Lamont, runs 80 minutes, is made and released by Universal, is written by Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano, is shot by George Robinson and W Howard Greene, is produced by Howard Benedict (executive producer), Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano, and William Dozier (producer of Humpy the Camel scenes), is scored by Milton Rosen and David Tamkin (orchestrator / musical director), with Art Direction by Abraham Grossman.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9776

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