Did You Know?
In some prints, Mathilde Comont is credited as M. Comont to keep her sex a secret. However, in several scenes in the film it is very obvious that the Persian Prince is being played by a woman.
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Douglas Fairbanks was inspired to make this film by an episode in Paul Leni's German film Waxworks (US title: "Waxworks").
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Ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy". One of only two silent films chosen for the AFI's "10 Top 10" lists (the top 10 films in 10 genres) in June 2008 (the second being City Lights).
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For the early scene where the Thief leaps in and out of the giant clay pots in the marketplace, Douglas Fairbanks had small trampolines placed inside each pot, allowing him to bounce easily from pot to pot.
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Included among the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', edited by Steven Jay Schneider.
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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.
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The production cost of "The Thief of Bagdad" has been commonly cited as $2 million or $2.5 million for decades. Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance, who had access to Fairbanks' private and professional papers, revealed for the first time in 2008 that the film actually cost much less: $1,135,654.65. See "Douglas Fairbanks" (UC Press, 2008), page 153.
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For the scenes in the underwater mermaid kingdom, Douglas Fairbanks had the cameras shoot through a curtain of thin gauze, to give the illusion that the Thief was swimming underwater. The mermaid kingdom scenes were then tinted blue in post-production.
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For the flying carpet effect, Douglas Fairbanks stood on a 3/4-inch thick sheet of steel attached to 16 piano wires and rigged to the top of a crane, which lifted him above the crowd.
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