An evil wizard searhces all Bagdd for Aladdin (Boris Bystrov), to his knowledge
the only man alive who can get him the magic lamp from Shadow City.
But Aladdin, son of a poor farmer, has just lost his heart to princess
Boudour (Dodo Chogovadze), whom he has just laid an eye upon when she was going
to take a bath in public - in Bagdad a crime punished with decapitation,
Aladdin escaped however, & now his heart beats only for her. This makes it
an easy task for the wizard to weasel himself into the life of Aladdin, posing
as his rich uncle, promising him diamonds & pearls so Aladdin can marry the
princess, & all he asks for is for Aladdin to get the magic lamp.
Once Aladdin has achieved that, though, the wizard tries to kill him, &
only th nks to the Djinn (Sarry Karryev) of the lamp, who despises the wizard,
can he be stopped in the nick of time & is sent to all 4 corners of the
world ... Aladdin & the Djinn, on the other hand, become friends.
Knowing the Djinn on his side, Aladdin startsto court the princess, who of
course falls in love with him too, but for his efforts he is only thrown into
the dungeons, while the princess - to yavoid her falling for a farmer's boy
ever again - is promised to the first bloke who enters through the palace's
door by her father the Sultan (Otar Koberidze) - who happens to be Mubarak
(Valentin Bryleyev), the rather dim-witted son of the Grand Vizier (Gusejn
Sadikhov), while the princess is persuaded that everything concerning Aladdin
has just been a dream, which she reluctantly starts to believe.
Then though the Djinn frees Aladdin from his prison, discredits Mubarak in
front of the Sultan with some harmless trickery and arranges another meeting
between Aladdin & the princess -- & on that occasion they decide to
marry right away, with the help of the Djinn's magic.
However, the spoilt princess takes the thing too far & uses the magic
without limitations, & soon the lovers start to fight which leads to
Aladdin leaving the palace - & in all the confusion the wizard, who has
since returned from the 4 corners of the world, snatches the magic lamp.
First thing he orders is that he will marry the princess & the Djinn is
to kill Aladdin. This puts the Djinn into a dilemma though, since on one hand
he has to follow orders of the master of the lamp, on the other hand he can't
kill his friend.
Aladdin finds a way out of this though, making the Djinn a new home in a
jug, of which he, Aladdin, is the master. Now the Djinn & Aladdin can chase
off the wizard for real, & Aladdin can finally marry princess Boudour - for
real.
A rather childish Arabian Nights-fairy tale, but in contrast to similar
Hollywood products of the same time & genre it is rather restrained in
all-out kitsch & lacks the unbearable sugarcoating of its American
counterpart (please note: said sugarcoating is not necessarily a bad thing, but
more often than not it is), instead striking a more serious - even darker -
note. And (also in contrast to Hollywood), none of the women are blonde
or red-haired (!).
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