The Arabian Nights - Aladdin

By: Alpha DVD

Narrated by: Gale Van Cott

The original story of Aladdin is a Persian folk tale. It concerns an impoverished young ne'er-do-well named Aladdin who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb. The sorcerer persuades young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Fortunately, Aladdin retained a magic ring lent to him by the sorcerer. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring, and a jinni appears, who takes him home to his mother.

Public Domain (P)2010 Alpha DVD LLC

Where did the songs go?

I enjoyed this classic version of the story (though my husband and I joked that they forgot to have the characters break into song every ten minutes. Prince Ali, mighty is he, Ali Abab.... oops, sorry!) While the story itself felt like a traditional rambling folk tale and I liked the narrator's performance, there was one thing that I had trouble with: the way people talked! It really threw me out of the story and made me laugh several times at the absurdity of the language. It just felt silly to have a lazy and uneducated street urchin who has been living in poverty saying things like, "I foresaw that you would reproach me with folly and extravagance" or "I have every reason to commend your exactness in executing hitherto punctually whatever I have demanded." Yes, those are direct quotes. Aladdin is quite the wordsmith, apparently!

Annoying reader

I had the book of Arabian Nights as a kid and loved it. Hearing the tale brought back memories however the reader was so very bad. It was thought sheer willpower I made it through the end. I dread going on to the next book in the series as it is read by her