Yankee Pasha (1954)

Yankee Pasha has the potential for silliness, but is commendably played straight by most of the participants (exceptions being such professional funsters as Hal March and Benny Rubin). Jeff Chandler plays American frontiersman Jason, who springs into action when his sweetheart Roxanna (Rhonda Fleming) is kidnapped by Barbary Pirates. Pursuing the villains all the way to Morocco, Jason gains the confidence of sultan Lee J. Cobb, who helps our hero thwart the megalomanic machinations of Omar-Id-Din (Bart Roberts). Mamie Van Doren is better than usual as a pampered harem girl who develops a crush on the stalwart Jason. Just as Universal's 1953 release Abbott and Costello Goes to Mars was an excuse to show of the charms of that year's crop of Miss Universe contests, so to does Yankee Pasha devote plenty of screen time to the pulchritudinous finalists of the 1954 Miss Universe pageant, including such now-forgotten lovelies as Christiane Martel, Kinuko Ito and Maxine Morgan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi