Kismet (1930 film)

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Kismet (1930)

Directed by	John Francis Dillon
Produced by	Robert North
Written by	Howard Estabrook based on the play by Edward Knoblock
Starring	Otis Skinner Loretta Young David Manners Sidney Blackmer
Music by	Leon Rosebrook Edward Ward]<
Cinematography	John F. Seitz
Editing by	Alexander Hall
Distributed by	First National Pictures: A Subsidiary of Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	October 30, 1930
Running time	90 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Kismet is a 1930 costume drama photographed entirely in an early widescreen process using 65mm film that was called Vitascope. The film was based on Edward Knoblock's play. It had previously been film as a silent picture in 1920.

1 Production
2 Plot
3 Trivia
4 Preservation

[edit] Production

Warner Bros. spared no expense in making this picture. They spent $600,000 in producing this picture and the extravagance of the film was noted by every reviewer. The film played in ten cities across the United States in the wide-screen Vitascope (65mm) version while the rest of the country (which did not yet have theaters capable of playing widescreen films) were provided with standard 35mm prints.

[edit] Plot

Poster for the film.

Repeating the role he'd created on stage in 1911, Otis Skinner stars as Hajji, the wily Baghdad beggar who goes from rags to riches to rags again to riches again in the space of 24 hours. Outwitting the evil wazir (Sidney Blackmer), Hajji manages to install himself in the royal palace, romance the wazir's gorgeous "head wife," and arrange the marriage between his own daughter (Loretta Young) and the caliph's son (David Manners).

[edit] Trivia

At the time he played Hajj in the sound version, Otis Skinner was 72. This was his only feature-length sound film.

[edit] Preservation

David Manners and Loretta Young as they appeared in the film.

The film is believed to be lost. The enormous amount of Pre-Code content (especially in the sequences in the harem) probably contributed to this loss, as the film was condemned by the censors in 1935 and consequently became illegal to exhibit or view in the United States. Two cleaned-up version were made of the film, one in 1941 and the other in 1955. Some sources claim that the original 1930 film featured Technicolor sequences. The complete soundtrack survives on Vitaphone disks.