Saadia *** (1953, Cornel Wilde, Mel Ferrer, Rita Gam, Wanda Rotha) – Classic Movie Review 3495

Modern medicine meets its match in traditional Moroccan magic when the French doctor Henrik (Mel Ferrer) falls for a wild, strange local Arab girl called Saadia (Rita Gam) whom he saves from sickness and the clutches of the witch sorceress Fatima (Wanda Rotha) in the midst of an outbreak of a lethal plague disease. Henrik’s friend Si Lahssen (Cornel Wilde) also fancies and falls for the Arab girl Saadia.

The natural locations dominate this off-kilter, too sedately paced melodrama, which mixes the common place (the love triangle rivalry of two men –  Wilde’s Si and Ferrer’s Henrik – for a young woman, Gam’s Saadia) with the exotic (cannibalistic capers) in an unevenly achieved mix of themes.

This rich and strange 1953 adventure movie is an interesting, if ponderous, curio concoction by movie-making one-man band Albert Lewin, an inventive, oddball one-off talent, responsible for writing, producing and directing this and several other curious epics. Lewin’s screenplay is based on the novel Echeck au Destin by French writer Francis D’Autheville.

Saadia was filmed entirely in Morocco and is thought to be the first Technicolor feature wholly filmed on location. Christopher Challis’s Technicolor cinematography is a huge asset, balancing some ordinary and hesitant performances, and some shaky scripting. Years later Challis named Saadia the most difficult production he worked on. Lewin selected the sets on a pre-production tour of Morocco, unaware of the technical requirements of the large three-strip Technicolor camera rig. But the interiors proved to be too small for filming so Challis could take no long shots.

Also in the cast are Michel Simon as Bou Rezza, Cyril Cusack as Khadir, Peter Bull as the village leader, Richard Johnson as Lt. Girard, Marcel Poncin as Moha, Anthony Marlowe as Captain Sabert, Peter Copley as Mokhazenis, Jacques Dufilho as the leader of bandits, Hélène Vallier as Zoubida, Mahjoub Ben Brahim as Ahmed, Bernard Farrel as Lt. Camuzac, Harold Kasket as the Sheikh of Inimert, Marne Maitland as the horse dealer and Edward Leslie as a villager.

It cost $1,022,000 and took $580,000 in the US and Canada and $772,000 elsewhere, recording $1,352,000 at the box office, but making a loss to the MGM studio of $408,000.

The eccentric director had a horse transported more than 1000 miles to the set but, thinking its tail was too short, had a fake one made abroad and sent to the location.

Rita Gam died on 22 March 2016, aged 88.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3495

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