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Arabian Knights: Lovers of Arabia, Part 3
Rating: 2 Stars
Written and directed by Csaba Borb& eacute;ly. Videography by Zsolt Tesz& agrave;ri. Edited by Alexander Gray. Starring Ray Phillips, Fabrice Felder, Jack Laurel, Rick Perry, Fernando Nielsen, Renato Bellagio, Tony Magera, Roberto Giorgio, Claudio Antonelli, Gilbert Bosco, Nico Luchini, and Cristopher Montana.
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Like its predecessors, this concluding installment in Csaba Borbély's Lovers of Arabia trilogy starts with an informative opening crawl. "As they take the sun from the world whom relegated the friendship," we're reminded, "Ali was very-very suffering of it. He haven't found peace since his most loyal man, Mustafa, missed from the palace." Having sent emissaries off to search Istanbul, Ankara, Cappadocia, Pamukale, Pergamon, Lycia, Antalya, Alanya, Erzurum, Aspendos, Kayseri, Amasya, Nemrut, Dijarbakir, Urfa, and Ephesus for the missed and still missing Mustafa, Sultan Ali is beginning to get cranky. When, as the subtitles claim, an underling reports, "We searched for everywhere and didn't find anywhere," Ali snaps back, "I'm not interesting in it! Bring him to me in any case."

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So one more team of dazed young models in period costumes belonging to no period strides purposefully through modern Istanbul. (Borbély calls this setting Arabia, but seems to have the Ottoman Turkish Empire vaguely in mind.) In their spangled robes and bulbous headgear, Ali's men look like renegade Fabergé eggs. As they meander about, Turks and tourists caught on camera turn and stare. After a couple of nondescript sex scenes, several Mustafa-hunters pause for a hookah break in the marketplace, where at last they spot their quarry (Roberto Giorgio) as he strolls by. They escort him back to Ali, who's sulking in a park overlooking the Bosporus. Relieved but piqued, the Sultan asks his errant boyfriend where he's been. "I were walking in the city," Mustafa assures him.

Viewers who made it through Lovers of Arabia, Part 2 will recall that Mustafa has in fact been dallying with Danny Fraser at some pouffy hotel, but Ali doesn't pry. Instead he orders a celebratory feast. To the strains of that joyous old Islamic ditty "Hava Nagila," servants lay out a spread in which watermelons, turkey legs, baguettes, oranges, and speckled bananas figure prominently. Ali is hungry only for Mustafa, however. "I neither have the need of eating since you missed," he sighs. They repair to Ali's bedchamber for sex, leaving guests and servants to pursue a stilted orgy. Ali is once again played by the Eastern European model who uses the name Ray Phillips; his performance here is unaccountably uncredited.