Lack of good storyline.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Two decades before her debacle of the movie version of the Broadway musical "Mame", Lucille Ball had a truly wretched film which she herself had badmouthed. It was all to get out of that Columbia contract, hopefully to appear in the big Cecil B. Demille smash, "The Greatest Show on Earth", but of course, that didn't happen. Instead, she ended up on TV and the rest was immortality.Lucy's a princess here, beyond miscast as an obviously non-Arab Arab princess. This is miscasting at it's worst, with Lucy acting like she's ready to have a cat fight with the first actual Arab to come along and reclaim the title she seems to have stolen from them. She's the sister of the caliph, the subject of affections by the caliph's right hand man (Raymond Burr) who is twice as evil as the usurper caliph, having nefarious intentions himself. Years before, the rightful caliph was murdered, and his heir is sent off on a magic carpet, growing up to be John Agar, a common thief. Hired as the caliph's doctor simply because he cured his hiccups, he soon finds out his real identity and becomes involved with both Lucy and Patricia Medina, a peasant girl who is no Maria Montez or Yvonne De Carlo. Corny to the end, this is a quota quickie (produced by poverty row producer Sam Katzman) that was perfect for Saturday matinée audiences but forgotten soon after. Burr is appropriately sinister, with Lucy obviously phoning in a performance. George Tobias provides comedy relief while the actual carpet is pretty impressive allegedly flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

MGM's slogan was "More stars than there are in heaven." Columbia's might have been "More crap than there is in a chicken coop". Columbia produced some fine films, but its percentage of gobblers is notably higher than that of 20th, MGM, Paramount, Warner, etc. This is one of the turkeys.The story is the usual Arabian nights hokum. The dialog (some of which sounds as if it was lifted from Westerns) is written so as not to confuse a five-year-old, leading to terminal boredom for adults. The film is so uninvolving that the composer fills virtually every second with music, to make the viewer think something of interest is happening. The fight scenes, in particular, are notable non-events. (They look as if the actors choreographed them on the fly.)The acting is strictly amateur, with only Raymond Burr working up enough energy to sound convincing -- and that only occasionally. John Agar's performance is among his worst -- perhaps //the// worst. One gets an inkling of why his marriage to The Queen of Cute ended.The sets and costumes are lavishly cheap, and the color is the weirdly hued Super Cinecolor, a couple of notches inferior to the more-expensive Technicolor. The only things that show any taste or talent are several beautiful glass paintings.This is the sort of film that ought to have been skewered on MST3K, but wasn't. A shame, really.

I totally disagree with some previous comments. It seems as though everyone wants message films, or biting dialog for a picture to be great. Whatever happened to films being made strictly for entertainment sake. If you are looking for academy award performances forget it, but for a rainy afternoon and you just want some simple escapism then this is just the thing. The interesting thing about the whole movie was how Lucille Ball foiled all of the bigwigs who tried to put the screws to her by offering her this movie to fulfill her contract obligation. they all thought she would turn them down but she fooled them and accepted and as soon as the film wrapped she was gone.

Lucille Ball didn't have to do THE MAGIC CARPET and chose to make it just to finish off her contract with Columbia and move onto her planned new TV show, and we all know the result of THAT. Columbia did not believe that Ball would accept the role in this film, but she outfoxed them all and played the villainess in this Arabian Nights-type fun film. I saw it initially when it was first released, and I LOVE LUCY was already a smash hit on the tube. It was the second half of a double bill, and the audience enjoyed every minute. It was an unintentional(??) riot to see Ball so out of the character that we had come to expect already from LUCY. The SRO audience hooted, laughed, giggled, and had a great time. I don't even recall what the main feature was.... But THE MAGIC CARPET is still remembered, and I would love to find a copy.