Jessica Dani This is one pre-Code movie I will miss should I ever come across it again.****This may contain spoilers**** The reviews seem to be divided between whether Myrna's character (Diana) is British or American. The movie tells us she is half Egyptian.Whatever her nationality, what she endures is much more obvious. Lured to a house under false pretenses by Roman Navarro's character (Jamil), where she is subjected to being whipped (we hear the off screen screams), a whip that Navarro himself hands to Edward Arnold (Pasha), she is "rescued" by her betrayer and bought back. This leads to a trek across the desert with Jamil wistfully repeating "you called for me". Right, Diana called for him rather than her no where to be seen fiancé or the police.Then after a fight with some of Pasha's men sent to bring back Diana, Jamil, the winner of the fight, makes Diana walk across the desert to the oasis.After all of this comes the much debated scene. Jamil grabs her and forcefully kisses her, completely with pulling hair scene. She tries to fight him off. Did he or did he not rape Diana?The movie makes this very plain in the very next scene. A close up of Diana, face tear stained, eyes vacant, she recoils when Jamil talks to her, offers her a cloak to cover herself for the rest of the trek in the desert. He graciously offers to let her ride the horse this time.At his father's camp, Jamil reveals he is a prince and that he adores Diana, even wanting to marry her. She goes so far as to go through the ceremony until it is her turn to drink from the wedding cup. She throws the water in his face and storms out. Humiliated, Jamil grabs a whip and strikes her. A second whipping! Yes, this is love. Then he relents and sends her home.Back with her people, and her fiancé, Diana is getting ready to be married that day. The movie gets in one more subtle hint to what happened to Diana. Her close confident, overcome by emotion at seeing her friend ready to be married responds to Diana's request to be alone by saying "yes, your last moment of virgin solitude" then turns away from Diana suddenly realizing the import of her words indicted by her gasping and whispering "virgin".And at the end of all of this, Diana runs away with Jamil!Another reviewer commented that we shouldn't judge a movie made so long ago by our century's standards. I disagree adamantly. Eighty years or eighty centuries, rape is rape, abuse is abuse.Skip this one and watch one another of Myrna Loy's pre-Code movies such as "Penthouse" or "When Ladies Meet".

nomoons11 I think the only saving grace for this film is that is when it was made...1933. Basically you get a suave young lady coming to Cairo to marry her husband. She seems to love him enough then a ruthless womanizer who happens to be a guide/thief in Cairo continually professes his love for her but she resists.They let you know early on that he's a inveterate womanizer but by the end the Myrna Loy character falls in love with him. I mean after he lies to her consistently and she knows it, constantly undermining things between her and her husband, and she knows it...constantly kissing her and she doesn't expect or want it...then the peak of it all, he kidnaps her and forces marriage from her from his tribe. She says yes then turns the tables on him at the ceremony. She gets to leave his ways and she then informs the Egyptian authorities who then set out to catch him (Of course they don't).After all this you already know the ending. There's 2 to 3 minutes left and she finally gets alone in her room ready to get married to her future husband and guess who arrives? You got it, Mr. Charm himself. We then proceed to see them floating down the Nile lying in each others arms.I can only think of this film as offensive to women, in 1 way, is this character so weak minded that she would leave her future husband she loves for a guy who does everything he does to her in the way of lying, cheating and kidnapping and then she decides.."Oh well, I'll go with him cause now I love him."? It's just ridiculous. I can see why this one isn't very popular. It's a dud.If you wanna see where Myrna Loy starts to shine, fast forward a year and start on the "Thin Man" movies. They're a class unto themselves.

overseer-3 I am constantly amazed at how sexy the precode films of 1933 are (the last year before the Production Code was enforced, which resulted in all Hollywood actresses becoming virgins again overnight), including this intense movie, "The Barbarian", the story of an inter-racial attraction between a white British woman (Myrna Loy, looking exceedingly beautiful here) and an Arab prince (Ramon Novarro, in what has to be his sexiest role ever), who disguises his true identity as part of a coming of age tribal ritual. Myrna's character is attracted to Ramon's Arab the moment she steps off the train in Cairo, Egypt. Fireworks promptly ensue between the two but it is unclear that Ramon is actually falling in love with the woman he pursues until closer to the end of the picture.I completely disagree with another reviewer who called this movie "bilge" because of a certain scene in the desert. It is clear that Myrna finds the Arab desirable, so no real force was involved, it was mutual attraction right from the beginning. This was an important film role for Myrna Loy; she finally got to look beautiful and sexy on screen as the lead, instead of being cast in minor roles in silly exotic parts which didn't do much for her talents. It is not right to attack her memory, as the other reviewer here did, for a theme that has been repeated by Hollywood many times over the decades.Other cast members were perfect here, including dapper Reginald Denny as the fiancée who quickly realizes the Arab's true intents, and Louise Hale as the grandmotherly Powers, who comes off with some of the most hysterically funny lines in the picture.A wonderfully entertaining and intense film, and I give it a 10 out of 10. Excellent and very romantic. I just wish that Ramon's silent film "The Arab" from 1924, which was the basis for this re-make, was available to compare with this one, but unfortunately it is sitting in European archives and unlikely to ever be seen on video or DVD. Even "The Barbarian" is only available for viewing whenever TCM bothers to show it (usually once per year).

Ron Oliver Kidnapped in the Egyptian desert, a beautiful American finds herself alternately loving & loathing THE BARBARIAN who abducted her.Taken solely as romantic adventure, this lavish little MGM film has much to offer, including good acting & fine production values. Considered only from the standpoint of the plot, the story is ludicrous, what with a heroine suffering histrionics among the sand dunes & a hero who is a completely unprincipled cad.Ramon Novarro does well in the title role, a reprise of his silent film THE ARAB (1924). MGM's Mexican star adds yet another ethnic stripe to his thespian escutcheon, this time portraying an Egyptian prince. Looking a little like a Valentino clone, he gets to sing & act in a variety of languages. Myrna Loy, who only gets billing below the title, is excellent as the Englishwoman caught-up in the allures & entrapments of the Nile Desert. After paying her dues in roles like this, she would very soon become a major Hollywood movie star.In the very able supporting cast Reginald Denny plays Loy's stuffy fiancé; Edward Arnold is an unctuous pasha; Hedda Hopper appears briefly as an American tourist very pleased with Novarro's attentions. Wonderful old Sir C. Aubrey Smith is well cast as Loy's eccentric uncle and elderly, tart-tongued Louise Closser Hale steals every scene she's in as Loy's peppery companion.This film is definitely pre-Production Code vintage, a fact made plainly obvious by Loy's lounge-in-the-tub scene. Considered rationally, many of THE BARBARIAN's implications are rather disturbing. That Loy could only be happy with the man who has humiliated, beaten, abused & raped her are decidedly unwholesome ideas to come from the pen of screenwriter - and liberated woman - Anita Loos.Novarro sings 'Love Songs of the Nile' quite well, but interminably. If it sounds suspiciously like his previous 'Pagan Love Song' hit, it may be because the two songs share the same composers, Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed.