…an exotic enchantress in sheer harem pantaloons.
-Los Angeles Times, September 8, 1951, obituary of Maria Montez, found dead in a Paris bathtub filled with scalding water and weight reducing salts
I remember watching movies in my grandfather’s basement after Saturday night dinners, especially the repeat screenings of a 16mm Castle Films short of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944), with Maria Montez as the beautiful Amara, forced into concubinage to the evil Mongol Khan and rescued by the Caliph’s son Ali Baba, who at the end falls into a palace fountain after nearly being killed by the Khan and has his faithful factotum Abdullah, played for laughs by Andy Devine, wring dry his sodden Arab robe, with Abdullah giving the film’s last line, “Always the nursemaid!”
Back then I paid closer attention to Andy Devine than to Maria Montez, so I don’t remember if her harem pants were see-through. KhairAllah’s definitely were not, even after forty days of hard riding and acting as nursemaid to us greenhorn Khawajas.
