Aloysius “Al” Babson, a star-struck autograph hound on his vacation to Hollywood, falls out of a boxcar in the desert. Startled to see a horde of Arab riders heading toward him, he runs into an Arabian village, where some riders fall over him. He then awakens in the 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. first-aid room to learn that he has ruined a take in their desert picture, Ali Baba . When a company man offers him money to sign a waiver releasing the company from damages, his nurse Dinah cautions him not to sign, but when he is offered the opportunity to be an extra and to collect autographs, Al excitedly agrees. Dinah gives Al some pain-killing pills and instructs him to take two at twelve o’clock. On the set, Al plays one of the forty thieves hidden in large jars who are to kill Abdullah, the sultan, for Prince Musah, who plans to abduct the sultan’s daughter, Princess Miriam. He volunteers to play the thief who remains faithful to the sultan, but when he learns that it is two o’clock, he mistakenly thinks that Dinah told him to take twelve pills at two and takes the large dosage. In his subsequent dream, Al finds himself in Bagdad in the year 937. He is about to be put to death, but when he reveals that his name is Al Babson, he is hailed as the great “Ali Baba’s son” and invited to lunch at Sultan Abdullah’s palace. In response to the starving people outside the gates, Al convinces Abdullah to invite them to lunch also, thus quelling the rebellion. Al is soon made prime minister, and he instigates a number of works projects based on American New Deal projects. When Al suggests that Abdullah disband the army, Musah plans, with the connivance of Sultana, one of the sultan’s 365 wives, to take over the kingdom, capture the princess, who has rebuked his entreaties, and serve Al’s head on a platter. Meanwhile, Al has met and fallen in love with Deenah, who is the daughter of Omar the Rug Maker, a magician, while Princess Miriam and the spokesman for the peasants, Yusuf, also fall in love. Because marriage between a princess and a commoner is not allowed, Al suggests that Abdullah resign as sultan and run for president. Despite Al’s attempt to inaugurate a “Vote for Honest Abe” campaign on Abdullah’s behalf, the people elect Al president, which leads Abdullah to sentence him to be boiled in oil. Al escapes and, dressed as a veiled woman, enters Musah’s camp. Greatly attracted to Al, Musah has “her” dance for him, whereupon Al secures Musah to a post with his veils and escapes to Deenah’s house, where Omar is trying out commands to make his carpet rise. Al suggests the word “inflation,” and the carpet takes off over Musah’s approaching army with Al aboard. He scatters the army with a burning rope, but Musah climbs up, and they fight as the carpet burns. Al knocks Musah off, but then falls off himself. After Al is rudely awakened from his dream, the director of the film shoves him off the set. Later Al goes with Dinah and his autograph book to the front of the theater showing the film’s premiere, where actor Tony Martin introduces celebrities, including Eddie Cantor, who is mobbed by autograph seekers. When Cantor waves to an excited Dinah, Al, upset, asks “What’s he got that I haven’t got?” and rolls his eyes around. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Festival Films
Academy Awards, 1938- Nominee: Best Dance Direction
Watch Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937)
