Ali Baba

Ali Baba is a 1973 Bengali short animated film directed by Rohit Mohra. It is a musical drama about the character Ali Baba from the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves who discovers the secret of a thieves' den, to the ire of the thieves. Ali Baba is a poor woodcutter who discovers the secret of a thieves' den, entered with the phrase "Open Sesame". The thieves learn of Ali Baba's discovery and try to kill Ali Baba, but Ali Baba's faithful slave-girl foils their plots. Ali Baba gives his son to her in marriage and keeps the secret of the treasure. Plot Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After the death of their father, the greedy Cassim marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business. Ali Baba marries a poor woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter. One day, Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, when he happens to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens on the words "open sesame", and seals itself on the words "close sesame". When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself, and discreetly takes a single bag of gold coins home. Ali Baba and his wife borrow his sister-in-law's scales to weigh their new wealth. Unbeknownst to them, Cassim's wife puts a bit of wax in the scales to find out what Ali Baba is using them for, as she is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to the cave, taking a donkey with him to take as much treasure as possible. He enters the cave with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over the treasure, he forgets the words to get out again. The thieves find him there and kill him. When his brother does not come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him and finds the body quartered, with each piece displayed just inside the entrance of the cave as a warning to anyone else who might try to enter.