******DJINN-SIZED SPOILERS!******

Even the most ardent movie lovers like myself have ‘blind spots’; major classics and blockbuster movies we’re familiar with through cultural osmosis, yet we’ve never actually seen. Despite my mad love of cinema, I’ve had an embarrassing number of overlooked classics in my lifetime. For example, I’d never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) in its entirety until only a few years ago (on New Year’s Eve, no less; and yes, it greatly exceeded my expectations).

More recently, there was another legendary movie that’d escaped my radar, though I’d known of it since childhood. The movie was based on Indian/Persian folk tales from the Islamic Golden Age (approximately 622 to 1258 AD) which were published in multiple languages as “Arabian Nights,” or “A Thousand and One Nights.” That film was the 1940 Technicolor classic “The Thief of Bagdad,” a remake of a silent classic from 1924 starring silent-era superstar Douglas Fairbanks. Like “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) and “Star Wars” (1977), “The Thief of Bagdad” had a very troubled production. Shooting was forced to move from the UK to the US following the escalation of World War 2, with multiple directors; Tim Whelan, Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, Zoltan Korda (executive producer Alexander Korda’s brother) and uncredited direction from former “Gone with the Wind” production designer William Cameron Menzies (“Invaders from Mars”).

Decades of budding curiosity finally blossomed during a recent Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD sale at my local Barnes & Noble, and I did a blind purchase of the 2-disc DVD set (the movie is not yet released in Blu-Ray or 4K). At the ripe old age of 58, I was familiar with elements of the story, such as evil Jaffar, the flying carpet, and the colossal genie (Djinn), but otherwise, I knew very little. And in retrospect, that was perhaps the best way to experience it…

“The Thief of Bagdad” (1940)

Note: Actor John Justin (1917-2002) bears a vague resemblance to his predecessor, the legendary silent film star Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939), who played the role of Ahmed (not Ahmad) in the 1924 silent version (where Ahmed was a charming street thief). Justin also bears a passing resemblance to the equally legendary Errol Flynn (1909-1959), the swashbuckling star of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938). To secure this role, Justin had to sign a seven-year deal with producer Alexander Korda, who previously produced “The Thief of Bagdad”‘s (unofficial) co-director William Cameron Menzies‘ “Things to Come” (1936); which was adapted for the screen by pioneering sci-fi author H.G. Wells from his own book.

Note: Resourceful young thief Abu is played by 15 year old, Indian-born actor Sabu, born Sabu Dastagir (1924-1963), who’d go on to star as ‘Mowgli’ in “Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book” (1942); a live-action predecessor to the popular 1967 Disney cartoon. The talented young actor plays the titular thief of the movie (a role given to Ahmed in the silent version), and he carries the role with aplomb. The actor’s casting as Abu was rare for a time when such characters were largely played by white actors in heavy makeup with stereotypical accents (something this film is guilty of as well). Sabu’s tragic death from a heart attack at age 39 cut short what should’ve been a long and fruitful career.

Note: The Princess is played by June Duprez (1918-1984), whose role–like many female leads of the time–is little more than eye and arm candy for the hero and villain. That said, the luminous Duprez does what she can with the role, and would appear in films such as “And Then There Were None” (1945) and “The Brighton Stranger” (1945) before (apparently) retiring from show business in the early 1960s.

Note: The greedy, goofy-looking Sultan is played by the movie’s cowriter Miles Malleson, who shares credit with Lajos Biro and Miklós Rózsa. Rózsa (1907-1995) was also the film’s composer, and would enjoy a long career writing scores for such classics as “The Lost Weekend” (1945), “The World, the Flesh and the Devil” (1959), “Ben-Hur” (1959), “King of Kings” (1961), “El Cid” (1961) and one of my personal favorites, “Time After Time” (1979), which was written and directed by Nicholas Meyer.

Note: The shots of the horse riding across the sky were achieved with blue-screen technology, which was still new in those days. While the compositing is less-than-perfect, the effect still carries a whimsical charm well-suited for a fantasy. The cityscapes representing ancient Basra and Bagdad/Baghdad (located in modern Iraq) were achieved with combinations of ‘floating miniatures’ (placed in the camera’s foreground field during live-action shooting) and more traditional matte paintings. Overall, the pioneering visuals of this movie are effective, considering they were crafted 85 years ago–long before visual effects technology came into maturity with movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “Star Wars” (1977) and “Jurassic Park” (1993).

Note: Fijian-born British actress Mary Morris (1915-1988) would play two roles in the film; the duplicitous handmaiden Halima, and the Silver Maiden–a six-armed automaton who fatally stabs the Sultan later on.

Note: Legendary German-born actor Conrad Veidt (1893-1943) plays the villainous Jaffar, King Ahmad’s former vizier who steals power through his dark magic. Veidt made a name for himself with 1920’s silent German expressionist classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and would play the lead in 1928’s “The Man Who Laughs” (an early inspiration for Batman’s Joker). The actor fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s to become a British citizen. Veidt would go on to play the equally villainous Gestapo Major Strasser in the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman classic “Casablanca” (1942) before suffering a fatal heart attack in Los Angeles a year later.

Note: No explanation given for how or why Abu’s curse was lifted at the same time as Ahmad’s, but who cares, right? Story’s gotta story…

Note: In addition to her two roles in this film, Mary Morris would have an interesting association with science-fiction after appearing as the only female ‘Number Two’ for one episode of Patrick McGoohan’s groundbreaking 1967 TV series The Prisoner (“Dance of the Dead”) and in the three-part Doctor Who serial “Kinda” (1982). Morris would also appear in The Ray Bradbury Theater episode, “There Was an Old Woman” (1988).

Note: The movie’s adventure quotient kicks into overdrive with the introduction of actor Rex Ingram (1895-1969) as the colossal Djinn, aka Jinn, or ‘genie’ (the anglicized version of the original Arabic word). Jinn are supernatural, often mischievous spirits from ancient Arabian folklore. Nearly every culture has some version of these mythical creatures; the Japanese Yokai (shapeshifting spirits), the Egyptian akh (blessed spirits of the deceased), or the Indian vetala, who can occupy bodies.

Note: Actor Rex Ingram wore an almost Vulcan-featured makeup to play Djinn (complete with pointed ears, eyebrows and greenish-blue pallor), and would go onto play other supernatural characters in other films. In fact, Ingram was perhaps the only actor of that era to play both God and the Devil respectively, in the landmark films “Green Pastures” (1936) and “Cabin in the Sky” (1943). Ingram would later play another giant in “A Thousand and One Nights” (1945), which was adapted from the same series of ancient Persian/Indian folkloric stories as “Thief of Bagdad.”

Note: Abu’s protracted side-quest with the spider and the octopus is one of the few scenes in this otherwise delightful movie that could’ve used a little trimming. The large, not-so menacing spider is not at all convincing, even by 1940s effects standards (this was seven years after “King Kong”). If the budget had allowed for it, this sequence could’ve used some of Willis O’Brien’s or Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion magic.

Note: The giant multi-limbed statue with the “All-Seeing Eye” embedded in its forehead seems to be a representation of the eight-armed Hindu goddess Durga–a fierce warrior who’d be a logical choice to guard and protect the All-Seeing Eye (though she didn’t do such a great job with a certain scrappy young thief). Multi-armed goddesses are a staple in Hindu mythology, including the four-armed Kali (perhaps the most well-known) and the six-armed Vasudhara (reflected in the Silver Maiden automaton earlier).

Note: The All-Seeing Eye is a magical surveilling device that can be used to track our characters, not unlike the crystal ball used by both Professor Marvel and the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939).

Note: Shots of the genie flying were achieved with methods similar to the rear-projection effects used to make actor Christopher Reeve fly in “Superman: The Movie” (1978), 38 years later. During Rex Ingram’s flying shots, his right foot is never seen in frame. I’m guessing he was standing on that foot as scenes of mountains and canyons played above his head, with a camera positioned on, or just beneath the floor. For long shots of the flying Djinn, we can see a doll of the character pulled along on guide wires. Hey, whatever works…

Note: One of the advantages of the film production’s move from England to the United States was that extensive new aerial footage of the Grand Canyon in Arizona could now be shot for sequences involving the soaring Djinn, and Abu’s flying carpet rides later on in the film. This would add tremendous scope to the movie. With a little squinting, parts of the Grand Canyon could double for a mountainous canyon just outside of mythical Badgad (I suppose…?). Aerial footage of the Grand Canyon was also used in the aforementioned “Superman: The Movie” as well.

Note: Abu’s absentminded wish for his lovesick friend Ahmad to go away was counted as his third and final wish by the Djinn. But wouldn’t that final wish have been flying Abu to Ahmad’s location in the canyon? Abu’s first wish was for sausages, and his second was for the Djinn to help him locate the All-Seeing Eye, so wouldn’t flying Abu to Ahmad’s location count as his third and final wish? Maybe I missed something…

Note: Blind luck that an angry impulse on Abu’s part happens to restore a lost kingdom which provides the exact items our heroic young thief needs to complete his quest to save Ahmad and free Bagdad from Jaffar’s despotic rule. Hey, if you can buy the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys or spaceships making noise in the vacuum of space? You can buy this little plot convenience, too…

Note: Once again, the Princess is less of a flesh and blood character and more of a McGuffin to be acquired by the hero or the villain. The issue of women as objects to possess is hardly unique to this movie, and is still an ongoing issue with screenwriting in movies and TV shows, 85 years later (not to mention recent draconian court rulings in the US that have largely robbed women of their bodily autonomy).

Note: Swashbuckling heroes attacking an enemy stronghold have been a staple of movies since the silent era, but as I watched Ahmad wielding his sword against Jaffar and his forces, I kept hearing Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) from 1987’s “The Princess Bride” yelling, “Have fun storming the castle…”

Note: The wires suspending Abu’s ‘magic carpet’ are clearly visible on any decent-quality print of the movie (particularly the Criterion DVD), but they wipe off easily with a little suspension of disbelief…

Note: I appreciated that Abu and Ahmad didn’t singlehandedly bring down the evil sorcerer Jaffar’s reign of terror–they served to inspire the people of Bagdad to stand against him as well. Power to the people.

Note: The actual shot of Abu’s arrow striking Jaffar right in the forehead was surprisingly effective, though a bit graphic for a 1940 family movie (then again, “Star Wars” featured Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s charred corpses, so…). Also effective is the shot of Jaffar’s flying horse breaking into pieces beneath his lifeless body; as if Jaffar’s magic was the ‘glue’ holding the horse together (insert ‘horse’ and ‘glue’ joke here).

Note: A Leni Riefenstahl-style ending sees the heroes triumphant with a grand palace celebration, as the restored King Ahmad and his new Princess bride (hehe) promise justice for the people of this mythical version of Bagdad (nee: Baghdad). Ahmad’s promise is a callback to an earlier scene where the young king walked anonymously among his subjects, recalling Shakespeare’s “Henry V.”

Note: The 1992 Disney animated film “Aladdin,” and its 2019 live-action remake, are also quasi-remakes of “The Thief of Bagdad.” They all stem from the same “Arabian Nights” source. In “Aladdin,” a charming street urchin woos the Sultan’s runaway daughter, Princess Jasmine, with the aid of a powerful genie and a magic flying carpet. Aladdin, like Ahmed/Ahmad, also falls into conflict with the Sultan’s evil vizier, Jafar (nee: Jaffar). Despite a few name and plot changes (for example, Abu is now the name of Aladdin’s pet monkey), the story essentials are more or less the same. First time viewers of any version can expect a little déjà vu.

The End.

Summing It Up

Watching 1940’s “The Thief of Bagdad” for the first time so late in life was perhaps more rewarding for me than if I’d first seen it on TV in childhood. Back then, I would’ve watched it on a 25″ Zenith instead of my current 80″ digital projector screen, which allowed me to better immerse myself in the experience. Filmed in three-strip Technicolor, there are moments which look like a red/blue glyph 3D movie, due to slight misalignment of the color strips during remastering. But this is a minor issue compared to the overall spectacle of the film, which is preserved well enough on the Criterion DVD. “Thief of Bagdad” is chock full of visual effects; matte paintings, foreground miniatures, blue-screen and rear-projection. All of it done decades before analog visual effects reached their apex in the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition to the visual effects, the movie has an effective cast. Ahmad (Errol Flynn-like John Justin) and the Princess (June Deprez) are certainly attractive and charming enough, but the real star of the movie is 15-year old Sabu, who plays the titular thief and hero Abu. Many heroic young boys in movies tend to be annoyingly precocious, but Abu is clever, earthy and resourceful. Indian-born actor Sabu made a name for himself in movies at a young age in “Elephant Boy” (1937), and later as Mowgli in “Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book” (1942). The confident young Sabu effortlessly holds his own against actors twice his age or more. His role in this film is even more impressive for a movie made in 1940; a time when prominent actors of color were rare in big-budget, mainstream films (“Thief of Bagdad” was made for $1.75 million–a huge sum in those days). Sabu’s career was tragically cut short when the otherwise healthy actor died from a sudden heart attack in 1963 at age 39.

They say the actor playing the villain always has the most fun, and for this movie that honor was given to German-born actor Conrad Veidt (1893-1943), who plays Jaffar–the evil vizier who uses sorcery to usurp his naive young king. Jaffar is this movie’s Darth Vader, and I could easily imagine 1940s movie audiences booing and hissing the moment he appears onscreen. In addition to his insatiable hunger for power, Jaffar also lusts after the Sultan’s Princess daughter, making him a romantic rival to his king, whom he’s blinded and imprisoned. Playing the opposite of his maniacally grinning role from 1928’s “The Man Who Laughs” (an early inspiration for Batman’s Joker), Conrad Veidt wisely confines most of his facial expressions to his searing eyes. Veidt’s Jaffar remains a landmark of cinematic villainy.

Much like the late Robin Williams in the animated Disney film of “Aladdin,” the Djinn (anglicized as ‘genie’) is another bonafide scene stealer within this movie, and trailblazing Black actor Rex Ingram (1895-1969) truly gives his all. Created through a combination of makeup, optical effects, miniature sets, and Ingram’s memorably booming laughter, the Djinn is arguably the most iconic character of the movie, dating back to images of the film I’d seen in books and magazines as a kid. A star of movies such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1939) and “Sahara” (1943), Ingram clearly relished playing the giant, mercurial spirit, who could be adversary or ally, depending on the quick thinking of whomever frees him from captivity.

Finally seeing “The Thief of Bagdad” so late in life was like discovering “The Wizard of Oz” for the first time. While a part of me regrets not growing up with this film, the older me better appreciates the challenges, pains, labor and sheer talent that went into creating this surprisingly effective and thoroughly enchanting movie. With its combination of timeless storytelling, gorgeous Technicolor, and a memorable cast aided by then-groundbreaking visual effects, “The Thief of Bagdad” more than earns its time-honored reputation to become an instant favorite of mine.

After 85 years, “The Thief of Bagdad” still gives one hell of a magic carpet ride…

Where to Watch

In addition to the Criterion DVD (no Blu-Ray yet), “The Thief of Bagdad” can be streamed for free on YouTube, Tubi, and with subscriptions on Hulu.com and HBOMax.