1957 - OMAR KHAYYAM aka THE LIFE, LOVES AND ADVENTURES OF OMAR KHAYYAM

This Paramount film about the life of poet, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Omar Khayyam hardly mentions any of these achievements.  Instead this film should be called "Omar Khayyam Love Sick School Boy," since the film is basically about Khayyam carrying on over a Persian princess for almost the entire run of the film.

The actors in this piece of junk are all white Europeans with some brown makeup smeared on their faces to give the illusion that they are descended from anywhere but Southern California.  Pretty boy Cornel Wilde is Omar Khayyam and he looks and acts like he would rather be anywhere else than in this film.  Wilde started his career playing romantic leads but eventually moved into producing and directing probably because of appearing in films like this.

 

The film also features Debra Paget, Raymond Massey, Michael Rennie and "Mr French," himself, Sebastian Cabet all actors pretending to be of middle eastern descent.  The director was William Dieterie who had seen a lot better days in the 1930's and 40's with films like A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster and Portrait of Jennie.  Dietrie's career ran into trouble during the blacklist era in Hollywood where he was associated with left wing causes although apparently he was not a communist.

 

Omar Khayyam was shot primarily on the back lot with lots of sets and costumes that look like something you would see in a community theater production of the musical Kismet.  I suppose it would have been unrealistic to stick to the actual facts of Khayyam's life.  No moviegoer in the 1950's would want to watch a film about a mathematician discovering algebraic proofs and inventing the 365 day calendar.  Still that stuff would have been more interesting than watching Cornel Wilde constantly quote poetry throughout the film.  Clearly the goal of this film was to be an exotic romance however the actual execution of this film was really poor.  The film isn't even campy fun.

The film was written by Barré Lyndon, who had a few decent films on his resume, the running time is 101 minutes.