FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Less Than Magical Film That Inspired I Dream of Jeannie
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, though, when confronted with “sympathetic magic,” there’s not a lot of sympathy left to go around…
The Brass Bottle (1964)
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Directed by: Harry Keller
Despite all the hand waving and corporate prestidigitation, there just wasn’t enough magic in evidence then.
In 1962, the Music Corporation of America (MCA) bought Decca Records in the US, which granted the music venue promoters ownership of Universal Studios, which Decca had acquired for a song in 1952. The studio had long ago stopped making films with its horror franchise characters and Abbot and Costello and built its name around the films of Francis the Talking Mule, which would be looked back upon as a low point for the outfit.
Could they get any lower than that? Well-l-l-l-l….
Our film opens as we follow architect Harold Ventimore (Tony Randall), whose life is a little complicated. He’s the abused partner at his firm, and gets taken advantage of by his childhood friend Seymore (Richard Erdman) and his wife Hazel (Kathie Brown) who live at his home and spend their days being bohemians.
And he keeps getting more abuse from the parents of his fiancée Sylvia (Barbara Eden), particularly Professor Kenton (Edward Andrews). He doesn’t think Harold is good enough for his little girl, and Harold’s not good enough to stand up to him when Dad demands a delay for the wedding. He’s so intimidated, Harold isn’t able to give the Professor a present he’d gotten to win him over, a valuable old antique from the Middle East that others have convinced him may be a fake.
Disheartened, he takes the present and starts to turn it into a table lamp, at which point he liberates the djinn trapped therein, Farkash (Burl Ives). From there, Harold’s problems really begin…
Now, Farkash does not want to abuse Harold the way everybody else does. Oh no, he wants to honor him, for having released him from a prison that he’d been stuck in for the last 3,000 years. Unfortunately, when you possess extreme power and no one’s there to tell you what’s right or not…
Must. Resist. Obvious. Comment…
…well, things are going to get messy. Oh sure, Farkesh means well when he drums up business for Harold to allow him to form his own firm, even though he cuts corners that draw plenty of regulatory interest. And having him cater a dinner to impress Harold’s potential in-laws sounds fine on paper, at least until the dancing girls that you’d find at a Bedouin gathering show up…
The big surprise is that despite all the color and magic, this is actually a bit of a snooze. Based on the 1900 novel of the same name by Thomas Anstey Guthrie (which was adapted twice before for film in 1914 and 1923), there’s actually a very low energy running through the film despite all the fantastic aspects. There’s even two such djinn in the film, when Farkash summons up Tezra (Kamala Devi) as a potential replacement for Sylvia when Harold’s relationship with her is tested thanks to the genie’s “honors” of his liberator. Having two such entities in the film, however, doesn’t ramp up the wonder factor.
And since we’re discussing such beings from Islamic culture: Burl Ives as a genie? Really? Even back then, this was probably a bit of a stretch for the audience, and might have been a bit uncomfortable to defend had anyone then called Universal out on it. Watching now, in the shadow of the current state of affairs, is especially discomforting if you can’t disassociate what you’re seeing with what’s going on outside.
The main blame, however, has to be with the star and director. This was Keller’s next-to-last job as a director (although he’d continue working as a film editor on such projects as Stir Crazy and Stripes), and you just feel as you watch that he didn’t really have that much interest in doing this. And this seems reflected in Randall’s performance as well; the character of Harold supposedly was a wild man in his youth, the script tells us, but we watch the star of 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and The Odd Couple just mope his way through the film and wonder what trauma he had to make him such a shadow of a person.
Best guess how we got this is, Universal during its transition under a new regime needed to have something for the schedule, pulled out a well-used property that was in the public domain, drew together what they could, and hoped for the best. Which didn’t happen; reviews at the time were terrible, and box office for the film was a mere $1.5 million. (In contrast, A Hard Day’s Night took in $16.2 million.) Just about anyone who came into contact with it wanted nothing more to do with this story of a djinn upsetting the person releasing it from the bottle.
Well, almost anyone…
One member of the audience, Sidney Sheldon, saw a lot of potential in the story. Asked by NBC to come up with counter-programming to Bewitched, Sheldon took the movie’s main concept, re-imagined it for the new media and what his show was to be up against, and came up with…
Unlike the quick exit of the movie that inspired it, I Dream of Jeanniewould go on for five seasons, with Eden going from engaged to efriet when the series went to air. The re-casting and re-setting of the basic story made for a more easily embraced property.
Which still carried some of the baggage of the original; as one of the defining aspects of sympathetic magic is “as above, so below,” how could it not…?
NEXT TIME: The saying is supposed to be “Evolve or die,” not “Evolve AND die;” the hell…?
