Such a frustrating disappointment

best movie i've ever seen.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The ever handsome Cornel Wilde looks great in colorful outfits obviously recycled from the last big Arabian knights adventure or simply rented from Western costumes. Obviously as fictional as Aesop's fables, this tells of a simple poet's influence on the Shah, here played as a basically decent ruler by an excellent Raymond Massey. When Massey makes young Debra Paget (whom Wilde loves) his newest bride, Wilde must practice what he proverbs and turn the other cheek, especially as he helps prevent assassins from slaying the Shah as one of his own sons attempts to absurb the throne. More a feast for the eyes than for its silly dialog in spite of a plot that sounds more complicated than it is. Strictly entertainment, I didn't feel I knew anything more about Omar Khayyam coming out. Still, the sets are sumptuous and the costumes on scantily clad slave men and women are sublime, and there's plenty of great action sequences. For added camp, there's a musical sequence featuring Yma Sumac hitting notes that don't seem to be in any other human's range.

Other reviewers said it best; this is your typical 1950s period pic actioner with lots of adventure and some sword play. I never pictured Omar Khayyam as much of an infiltrator, but the movie, being a movie from the 50s, takes liberty with Khayyam's life, and spices things up for the audience. Think about it. If you were a young man needing to take his girl on a date in 1957, would you want to see some existential docu-drama about the Persian poet's life and works? No, more like you'd want to see something that had action, romance, adventure, and heroics over bad guys to cap off the evening.Well, this movie delivers. It's not an outstanding movie, but it's a good simple basic film that, to be honest, was a little ahead of its time in terms of addressing the turmoil in the middle east. Allusions to caliphates, the "one true religion", secret hideouts in the mountains certainly ring bells with events since our own September 11th, 2001. But, fortunately our hero, Omar Khayyam played by Cornel Wilde, uses his learned ways and scholarly teachings to fight a familiar foe we know today, whose roots are seated in past pride.The story is right out of Hollwood 101, and everyone here is from central casting. The performances are a little wooden, and SFX are easily spotted but do their job, and overall the production values are fairly solid. Omar Khayyam doesn't give us too much of his poetry as he's too busy saving the kingdom of those he serves, but we are treated to a few lines of his poetic brilliance before the movie ends.It's worth seeing once, and perhaps again on a rainy weekend afternoon. It's that kind of a movie. Watch it, enjoy it for what it is, but don't take it too seriously.Overall a decent watch.Enjoy.

With respect, I submit that it is the mindset of 50 years ago that cannot be remade, rather than the film itself, which was an admirable effort in its time, eerily prescient in its relevance to our present-day fears and therefore practically commanding a newly-filmed version ( or, at the very least, greater attention given to the original ).Sad but nonetheless true it may be, that gone indeed are the days when the Middle East and Islam itself conjured up in the Western ( read "Hollywood" ) mind only quaint and archaic tropes of the "Thousand-and-One Nights"---'harems, slaves, sultans, thieves and intrigues', decked in robes and turbans and speaking in a quaintly flowery fashion ( "By the beard of the Prophet!"), moving in and out of gaudy buildings capped everywhere by onion-domes. Then the Arabs found themselves in a position once more to make their power felt on a world scale, and perceptions ( and stereotypes ) changed irrevocably---the new images generally being of languid Saudis replacing Texans as the archetype of the oil zillionaire, and wild-eyed, wild-bearded, greasy fanatics ready to throw bombs in support of their beliefs ( the Arabs here merely being the latest to fill an archetype going back at least a century-and-a-half to the anarchists of Europe ).The great days of Islamic glory in the arts and sciences well deserve to be brought back into the Western ( read "Hollywood" ) consciousness. It was due in great part to the efforts of Islamic scholars that the heritage of the Greco-Roman classics was preserved while Europe sank into Christian dogmatics. Much of the ancient observations were improved upon by Arabs from Cordoba to Ferghana, most notably in astronomy---and here Omar Khayyam may be said to enter the scene. Well versed in the natural sciences and mathematics, Omar was indeed the author of an improved Muslim calendar ( which unfortunately was rejected by the more traditional-minded in power ). Renowned also as a warrior, his greatest fame stems from the collection of quatrains called the "Rubaiyat", which gave us---by Hargreaves's translation---such familiar lines as 'A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou' and 'Could you and I alone with Fate conspire' (both of which are to be heard in this movie).Oh yes, this movie---I should get round to that now. EXCELLENT settings and costumage, entertainingly photographed. Cornel Wilde may seem too subdued to be the swashbuckler, but he plays the gentle poet and scholar foremost, a quiet and stolid center around which tumultuous events unfold and chase each other. A stellar cast supports him---Debra ('The Ten Commandments') Paget as the great love of his life, Raymond ('Things to Come') Massey as the dignified yet wry old Shah, John ('The Ten Commandments') Derek as handsome young Prince Malik, and---as Omar's old schoolmates---the always endearing Sebastian ('Family Affair') Cabot as the minister Nizam al-Mulk, and Michael ('The Day the Earth Stood Still') Rennie as the imposing, capable Hassan-i Sabah. Other colorful characters keep things hopping---a scheming Queen, her petulant son and half-brother to Malik, a timid but loyal slave girl and, just when you think it can't get any better---Edward ('Get Smart') Platt as a prior in the sect known commonly as the 'Assassins', who menace the Shah's rule from within while the Byzantine Romans threaten from without.This movie should be seen today if for no other reason than that the machinations of the Assassins will easily bring to mind the plottings of Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda, and Omar's ringing, climactic speech to the Assassin's ruler is both uneasily accurate but also heartening to us of today who face their spiritual descendants. It really ought to be remade for that reason if for no other...but there is just so much else about Omar---and his world in particular---that is deserving of big-budget attention today, to return it to Westerners' ( read "Hollywood's" ) attention. Posted on 23 August 2007 (the 50th anniversary of the film's premiere).

"Omar Khayyam" is in many ways a typical 50s Hollywood oriental sword and sandal epic but with a few twists and tremendous (unmet) potential. The actual story of three friends (Hassan, Omar and Nizam) goes back hundreds of years and is pretty engaging. The historical personalities of Omar and Hassan al-Sabbah are quite interesting characters. There is potentially a great film here.The actual production is not great but it has some nice things: Michael Rennie gives a great performance as Hassani. It is one of his best things, right up there with the alien in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It also has Raymond Massey and the great Abraham Sofaer, a distinctive character actor, as Tutush, the Sultan's brother. It has a fine score by Victor Young and some neat matte paintings of Alamut. Some of the lines are great: "I know of some other heads that should be sealed with wax and honey." But in the end it is too formulaic of a Hollywood spectacular. Cornel Wilde is too stolid. Such a rich historical backdrop and fascinating subject matter is worthy of a better film.