YANKEE PASHA

'Yankee Pasha' Is Barbary Coast Western
Published: April 19, 1954, New York Times

IN "Yankee Pasha," which arrived at Loew's State Saturday, Jeff Chandler, who has fought with and against savages as one of the screen's outstanding strong-but-not-silent types, emerges the winner of that flame-haired prize, Rhonda Fleming, despite some of the most barbaric competition in all Islam. How our delectable heroine and our stalwart hero, who seemed to have little else on their minds but love, ever forsook the peaceful confines of Salem, Mass., in 1800 and got themselves involved in the court, harems and jail of Morocco is a long and obviously fabricated tale fanciful enough to turn Schéhérazade green with envy.

The point the scenarist, director and producer were trying to make, we suppose, is that our Mr. Chandler is quick on the draw and a sharpshooter, mounted or on foot. It is strongly indicated too that Miss Fleming is high-born and ladylike but as full of fire as a 16-inch gun. Also, as it turns out, she is steadfast in her love for her frontiersman-swain despite the villainous threats of the toughest of all the Barbary Janizaries, Bart Roberts.

Miss Fleming, in diaphanous harem habiliments, is spectacular enough to turn the head of a sultan but not Sultan Lee J. Cobb. As her sparring partner, Mamie Van Doren, a nobly endowed and tempting morsel aptly playing the role of Lilith, and a seraglio of the studio's Miss Universe prize-winning beauties justify the expense of Technicolor used for this Oriental Western. Despite its exotic splendors, burnooses, turbans and Arab stallions, "Yankee Pasha" is closer to Eagle Pass than the Barbary Coast.

In reverting to a stage-and-screen show policy the State also is featuring a vaudeville program composed of Julius La Rosa, Archie Bleyer and his orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbert and Saxon and Wells and Four Fays.

YANKEE PASHA, screen play by Joseph Hoffman; based on the novel by Edison Marshall; directed by Joseph Pevney; produced by Howard Christie for Universal-International.

Jason Starbuck . . . . . Jeff Chandler
Roxana Reil . . . . . Rhonda Fleming
Lilith . . . . . Mamie Van Doren
Omar-Id-Din . . . . . Bart Roberts
Sultan . . . . . Lee J. Cobb
Hassan Serdar . . . . . Hal March
Baidu Sa'ld . . . . . Philip Van Zandt
Zimil . . . . . Benny Rubin
Derby . . . . . Tudor Owen
Dick Bailey . . . . . Harry Lauter
Reil . . . . . Forbes Murray
O'Brien . . . . . Arthur Space
Lieutenant Miller . . . . . John Day
and
The Miss Universe Beauties

There will be a special screening of the 'Yankee Pasha' this week at Beauty School's Amparo Muñoz Performing Arts Center.