Der Dieb von Bagdad

A beautiful princess, courted by royal suitors, is desired by a powerful Mongol magician. There is none in the kingdom wily & cunning enough to thwart the evil one's wicked plots - no one, that is, except THE THIEF OF BAGDAD.

This is another wonderful Douglas Fairbanks silent adventure epic. The world of the Arabian Nights springs alive before our eyes, with Fairbanks as all its fantastic heroes rolled into one. His athleticism is here perfectly at home in a realm of flying carpets, magic armies & undersea battles.

Director Raoul Walsh & Art Director William Cameron Menzies have created a realm of domes & towers, turrets & great halls, bazaars & souks - all the perfect backdrop for Fairbanks & the plot's sinuous action.

In the supporting cast, Sojin makes an excellent villain, the mysterious epitome of evil. Look for Anna May Wong as a palace maid & versatile African American actor Noble Johnson as the Indian Prince.

Both versions of this film now available on video feature scores based on themes from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, which exquisitely conveys all the allurement of the Thousand and One Nights.

There are very few silent films that I enjoy as much as a modern film. In fact, the only silent film that I would rate as a 10 is Buster Keaton's The General. But Douglas Fairbanks is certainly worth watching, if you have any real interest in film. He has so much charm, and moves so fluidly, that he captivates even when the special effects are, well, very 1920s. Fairbanks does not so much act as he dances the role. The costumes and sets, by William Cameron Menzies, are also spectacular. I have watched this movie in the earlier DVD version, and frankly it put me to sleep. First, a great deal of it was missing, and so the story was choppy and hard to follow. Second, the print quality was poor. But the new Kino Fairbanks collection is a miracle of film restoration. There is one section on this DVD that is poor quality, compared to the others. But since this is a section that I have never seen before, to see it at all is wonderful.

The acting is corny. The sets are strange. The special effects are crude as hell. (You can even see the wires.) And you sit there for 138 minutes totally entranced.

Seeing this is like seeing Star Wars for the very first time. Honestly. And seeing Fairbanks do his stuff (he really does hop from pot to pot in one scene) drives home exactly why he was a superstar. Talk about presence; This guy owns the screen!

If you care about movies, then give this one a try. (the HBO restoration with the London Symphony Soundtrack is the best.)

I first viewed this movie in 1924 at age 6 yrs--probably the first movie I ever saw. I thought it was terrific then, and after viewing it again now(2003) I still think it is an exceptionally fine movie. Many special effects without benefit of computers. A very ambitious movie for that time.

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

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