Word: saadia
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While your editorial is critical of the lack of initiative on the part of the State Department, it advocates in effect the continuation of the "sit and do nothing policy" which is partly responsible for the present dangerous situation. Saadia Weltmann...
...Saadia (M-G-M). "I will not allow any man to look at my body," moans Saadia (Rita Gam), a Moroccan's daughter, as the kaid (Cornel Wilde) pounds at her portal. The kaid commands. Saadia fearfully slides back the bolt. In rushes the desert chieftain. Has he come to print a searing kiss upon her lips? No, he has merely brought the local French medic (Mel Ferrer), who says that Saadia has acute appendicitis, and proceeds to cut her open...
From this point on, it is fairly clear that Saadia is not about sex, but then, it is not about much of anything else, either. There is a witch (Wanda Rotha) who changes into an owl and a Holy Man (Cyril Cusack) who declares that Saadia "has a soul capable of the most extraordinary action." In fact, she turns out to be a sort of North African Calamity Jane, who rides off into the badlands, carves up a bandit chief, steals back some serum he has stolen, and so saves the country from a bubonic plague...
Except for the serum-stealing episode, Saadia has about as much plot and pace as a travelogue. Scenes follow each other like lantern slides, and the leading players recite their speeches in a sort of elocution-lesson English, apparently intended to suggest that they are speaking cultivated French. Cornel Wilde even groans in an Oxford accent. Mel Ferrer, an actor who appears to know better, seems sheepish most of the time, but Rita Gam at least manages to look like what the Hollywood wise guys have been calling her: the leg with a first name...