The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.

Director:

Raoul Walsh

Writers:

Lotta Woods (scenario editor), Douglas Fairbanks,

Stars:

Douglas Fairbanks, Snitz Edwards, Charles Belcher

2 wins.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Douglas Fairbanks	...	The Thief of Bagdad
Snitz Edwards	...	His Evil Associate
Charles Belcher	...	The Holy Man
Julanne Johnston	...	The Princess
Kamiyama Sôjin	...	The Mongol Prince (as Sojin)
Anna May Wong	...	The Mongol Slave
Brandon Hurst	...	The Caliph
Tote Du Crow	...	The Soothsayer
Noble Johnson	...	The Indian Prince

Storyline

A thief falls in love with the Caliph of Bagdad's daughter. The Caliph will give her hand to the suitor that brings back the rarest treasure after seven moons. The thief sets off on a magical journey while, unbeknownst to him, another suitor, the Prince of the Mongols, is not playing by the rules...

---

Plot Keywords:

thief | suitor | magic | princess | treasure | 

---

Genres:

Adventure | Family | Fantasy | Romance

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

23 March 1924 (USA)

Also Known As:

Der Dieb von Bagdad

Filming Locations:

The Lot - 1041 N. Formosa Avenue, West Hollywood, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Douglas Fairbanks Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

155 min 139 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White (tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the scenes with the giant ape, the guards are played by children. When the ape is out of sight the guards are played by adults. It was done to make the normal-sized ape appear bigger.

---

Goofs

The bloody mark The Thief leaves on the wall disappears in the next shot.

---

Connections

Featured in Slaying the Dragon (1988)

User Reviews

Fun '20's swashbuckler, starring Douglas Fairbanks!

This movie is great fun to watch, like you would expect from a genre movie such as this one. It has all the typical adventurous, action and comedy elements present to make this a great swashbuckling movie. Add to that Douglas Fairbanks in good shape and you have a classic unforgettable genre movie!

Douglas Fairbanks is totally great in this one. He looks, acts, breaths, eats like a real superstar. He handles all of the athletic action in the movie really well. It's not hard to see why this man was THE swashbuckling hero of the '20's.

The movie is really great looking, with many grand looking sets. Really great looking stuff! (though obviously all fake.) Something you would normally expect to see in a D.W. Griffith movie. The movie also has some silly looking but yet great early special effects, toward the ending of the movie.

The story has all the ingredients needed for such a genre movie as this one; an heroic main character, a love interest, stereotypical villains and lots of fun and action. Especially toward the ending the movie starts to become greatly adventurous after a sort of slower middle and good first part. It's of course all rather simple and formulaic but this is also what makes the genre so great. You just always know what to expect. It's good simple fun that's professionally and well made, that's also beautiful to look at.

Also definitely fun to see how much of this movie was later used again in Disney's "Aladdin". Some, mostly action sequences, are obviously almost directly copied.

A great fun movie, from swashbuckling-specialist director Raoul Walsh.

9/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/