Johnny Showtime: THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924)

 by JB

For too long, this one flew under my radar... flew under my radar on a flying carpet!

Kino-Lorber released a new restoration of Douglas Fairbank’s silent masterpiece The Thief of Bagdad last Tuesday, and the disc is truly stunning. It features the original 1924 score by Mortimer Wilson, re-recorded and performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. The previous Cohen Media Group Blu-ray disc release featured a rousing score by Carl Davis. Of the two, I prefer both the original Wilson score and the Photoplay Productions restoration on the new Kino-Lorber disc. The image is more stable and sharper and the many tinted scenes are also more pleasing to the eye.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Handsome and charming thief Ahmed (Douglas Fairbanks) has an easy time of it in Bagdad, stealing food when he needs it and getting out of scrapes through his wits and his muscles. Thanks to a magic rope he has conveniently purloined, he finds himself in the palace one night, where he falls head over heels in love with the caliph’s daughter, the Princess (Julanne Johnston). Trouble is, to win her over, he must compete with three other suitors: the anger-management-failure Prince of the Indies (Noble Johnson); the round, firm, and fully packed Prince of Persia (Mathilde Comont); and the truly evil Prince of the Mongols (Sôjin Kamiyama).

When Ahmed is revealed to be a common thief and not a prince, it looks like all is lost. With the help of a crystal ball, a flying carpet, a magic apple, a miracle powder (not that kind) and a cloak of invisibility, Ahmed might just come out on top.

Though he is largely forgotten today, Douglas Fairbanks was once one of the most famous movie stars in the world. Shortly before making Thief, he founded United Artist Pictures with wife Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. His productions of Robin Hood, The Mask of Zorro, The Three Musketeers, The Black Pirate, and The Thief of Bagdad once broke box-office records back when the price of admission was barely twenty-five cents.

Of his many films, Thief was Fairbanks’ personal favorite, and was one of the first silent super productions to cost more than a million dollars (roughly $19 million today). Famed art director William Cameron Menzies built sets for this film that have to be seen to be believed. They are enormous and super detailed. Although I was floored by them on my big-screen TV, I can only imagine what they looked like in 1920s movie palaces with screens four stories high. And Fairbanks uses all that real estate: watch him jump about, run around, and climb things; watch a literal cast of thousands; watch a magic carpet soar using special effects that are still impressive today; and watch yourself smile as you enjoy this wonderful boy’s adventure film.

Fairbanks is clearly the whole show here. It is rumored that he actually directed the film (Numerous production photographs show him holding a director's megaphone) though the director of record is Raoul Walsh, who would rise to fame in the sound era directing The Roaring Twenties, They Drive by Night, High Sierra, They Died with Their Boots On, Gentleman Jim, White Heat, and The Naked and the Dead. He also played John Wilkes Booth in D.W. Griffith’s famous and controversial Birth of a Nation.

Modern audiences might find the plot here strangely familiar, given that it is based on the Thousand and One Arabian Nights tales that inspired both Alexander Korda’s 1940 remake and Disney’s Aladdin. All that is missing in Fairbanks’ version is that damn genie.

I was so looking forward to this new disc. I am a big Douglas Fairbanks fan and I found previous restorations lacking. The image quality on this release is the best I have ever seen... and this is a title that I am very familiar with. Though the new Kino Lorber disc is missing the excellent 17-minute video essay Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance prepared for the earlier Cohen Media Group release, it does include a feature-length commentary track by Anthony Slide. Slide really knows the territory: beside writing more than 70 books about film, he is a member of the editorial board for the American Film Institute catalog. In columns featured in Film Review and Classic Images magazines, he has reviewed film books for more than twenty years.

Watching and enjoying this new presentation of a Douglas Fairbanks classic, I wondered aloud how many of my movie-loving friends and how many F This Movie listeners and readers enjoy silent films. I feel that any self-respecting cinephile should have the following 35 silent films in their physical media library or at least access to them digitally: The Great Train Robbery, A Trip to the Moon, the Chaplin Mutual Comedies (12 films), The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Freshman, The Lodger, The Unholy Three, The General, Safety Last, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Nosferatu, The Wind, Way Down East, Phantom of the Opera, Metropolis, Steamboat Bill Junior, The Unknown, He Who Gets Slapped, Big Business, Cops, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Thief of Bagdad.