1985 was a rather sad year for fans of Bud Spencer-Terence Hill: The Super Heroes was the couple’s last film, and only after almost 10 years of separation, until Christmas Bunyó in 1994. We just met them again. However, in the meantime, both actors have acted in many better solo films – which are always missing their familiar other half. Such was the case with the 1986 film Aladdin, in which the genie (Bud Spencer) known from the One Thousand and One Nights fulfills his owner’s wishes, and this causes all kinds of trouble. In our compilation below, you can learn some behind-the-scenes secrets about this movie.
(1) The film is directed by a director no less than Bruno Corbucci, the younger brother of pasta master Sergio Corbucci. He’s written and directed The Super Heroes, but he’s also written And We’re Angry Again, Banana Joe, Robber Cop, and Terence Hill’s I’m His Gun, so like his brother, he’s also worked quite a bit with our favorite slapsticks.
(2) Interestingly, Aladdin was one of the first VICO films in Hungary in 1989, because company owner János Fenyő loved the Bud Spencer classics Terence Hill and released quite a few many films from the duo’s work on yellow tape.
(3)By the way, until 1992, Fenyő was releasing increasingly better movies on its signature yellow videotape – most of the original copyright holders were unaware. His method was ridiculously simple: he ran to East Germany, bought all the films released on laser discs that he could find at the first shopping mall along the way, and copy them to as many cassettes as possible at home. However, in 1992 his wrongdoings were exposed, and after three years of litigation, he was awarded $100,000 to 20th Century Fox and Columbia studios, which forced him had to give up the illegal tape business. Oddly enough, the Golan-Globus production duo’s company, Cannon, never sued Feny, and neither did the Bud Spencers track down the cassette king, who was murdered in 1998, though it wasn’t until five years later. 92, the VICO company released a lot of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies, which were suspected to be illegal.
(4) One of Bud Spencer’s daughters, Diamante, also appears in the film.
(5) The film was shown in theaters in Italy on December 23, 1986, in Hungary on June 30, 1988, with a new Hungarian version on TV3 on May 30, 1998.
(6) Of course, creating a Rolls-Royce from scratch was not a challenge for Bud Spencer. The Silver Cloud II type is also introduced here, just like in No Two in Four, except that they also fly between skyscrapers with it…
(7) In Aladdin we can admire another old timer car. Tony, a very likable antique dealer, has a 1950s Chevrolet pickup truck with a large American flag on the door. Make sure it’s in the Advance Design line: it could be 3100 or even 3600.
(8) It is particularly interesting that Bud Spencer was voiced by both legendary Hungarian voices for the sake of the film. In the first Hungarian version (MOKÉP, 1988) it was sung by István Bujtor, while in the second version (TV3, 1998) it was sung by Lajos Kránitz.