Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1917)

This is one of the earliest film adaptations of Aladin ou la Lampe merveilleuse.

The gimmick is that all young people are played by young children. And these actors got a proper silent low-res acting training. They act with their faces and Violet Radcliffe playing the magician’s role is the best of them.

The story is re-arranged with some shortcut events, like the servant saying that only Aladdin can take the lamp, or Yasmini saying that he is riding a camel.

The runtime of all the files is 40 minutes, but there are multiple places listing it as 80 minutes. There’s a theory that many old movies are digitized at the double speed, and yeah, i kinda see this as a possibility. But playing the file itself at a half speed introduces a lot of “artefacts”, so i’ve watched it as is. The end credits say see “More Adventures of Aladdin”. But there is no any information about that sequel. There’s barely enough proof, that it probably did exist.

Descriptive Catalogue
of
KODASCOPE
LIBRARY
16 m m
Motion Pictures
Some in Color
Sixth Edition
Revised

4135 Code GEFAR More Adventures of Aladdin Fox
Sequel to Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
In the ancient Arabian Nights version the story of Aladdin was limited
to a single evening. Youth of the 20th century is insatiable and here we
have More Adventures.
Know ye then, that on their wedding eve, the Magic Lamp is again
stolen from Aladdin by the villain, Al Talib, and at his command the princess
is abducted from the palace by the Slave of the Lamp. She is carried hastily
by camel caravan across the desert, closely followed by Aladdin, also on a
camel. A terrible sand storm overtakes the travelers, who barely survive.
After the storm, Al Talib summons the Slave of the Lamp, who promptly
constructs a beautiful palace for the princess, in which the villain unsuccess-
fully presses his suit, even to the threat of throwing her to the lions if she
remains obdurate. The sultan’s Bedouins, searching for the lost princess,
discover Aladdin perishing of thirst on the desert and together they spur on-
ward to the rescue of the princess, arriving just in time to save her and
destroy the villain. And so Aladdin and the princess were married and lived
happily ever after.
736 feet—on 2 reels Rental $2.0