| The Thief of Bagdad | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Powell Ludwig Berger Tim Whelan |
| Written by | Lajos Bíró Miles Malleson |
| Produced by | Alexander Korda |
| Starring | Conrad Veidt Sabu June Duprez John Justin Rex Ingram Mary Morris |
| Cinematography | George Perinal |
| Edited by | Charles Crichton |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release dates |
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Running time | 106 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million[1] |
| Box office | over $1 million (US/Canada)[2] 5,134,653 admissions (France, 1946)[3] |
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 BritishTechnicolorhistorical fantasy film, produced byAlexander Korda and directed byMichael Powell,Ludwig Berger andTim Whelan, with additional contributions byWilliam Cameron Menzies (who had designed sets for theoriginal 1924 version starringDouglas Fairbanks) and Korda brothersVincent andZoltán. The film starsIndian-born teen actorSabu,Conrad Veidt,John Justin, andJune Duprez. It was released in the US and the UK byUnited Artists.
Georges Périnal, credited as George Perinal, won theAcademy Award forCinematography,Vincent Korda forArt Direction, andLawrence W. Butler andJack Whitney forSpecial Effects[4] (marking the first use of the "manualbluescreen technique"[5]).Miklós Rózsa was also nominated forOriginal Music Score, a first for a British film at the Academy Awards.[6]
Although this production is a remake of the1924 version, the two films have differences, the most significant being that the thief and the prince are separate characters in this version. The screenplay is byLajos Biro andMiles Malleson, who also appears in the film as the Princess's father, the Sultan of Basra.
In ancientBasra, a blind beggar begins telling the film's story inflashback (mimicking the style of theArabian Nights), revealing that he is really Ahmad, the young, naive king ofBaghdad. Wanting to know more about his people, Ahmad is tricked by Jaffar, hisGrand Vizier, into going in disguise into the city. Jaffar then has him arrested and usurps the throne. In prison, Ahmad meets the young thief Abu, who arranges their escape. They flee to Basra, where Ahmad meets and falls in love with the Princess. Jaffar, however, also journeys to Basra, intent on having the Princess for himself.
Jaffar, a powerfulsorcerer, provides the toy-obsessed Sultan of Basra with a mechanicalflying horse in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage. The Princess, now in love with Ahmad, runs away, but Jaffar uses magic to blind Ahmad and turn Abu into a dog. She is captured and taken to the slave market, where she is bought by Jaffar's agent. At the palace, though, she falls into a deep sleep and cannot be awakened. Halima, Jaffar's minion, tricks Ahmad into awakening the Princess. He is then dismissed with the dog to the city's docks, where he concludes his story.
The Princess is tricked into boarding Jaffar's ship. Jaffar tells her that she can cure Ahmad's blindness only by allowing the sorcerer to embrace her. She submits and the spells are lifted from both Ahmad and Abu. When the pair sail in pursuit, Jaffar raises a storm that shipwrecks them. Returning to Basra, Jaffar intrigues the Sultan with a life-sized automaton, 'The Silver Maiden', whom the Sultan embraces until she stabs him in the back. Jaffar then returns to Baghdad with the Princess.
Abu awakes alone on a deserted beach. He finds a bottle and opens it, releasing an enormousgenie so embittered by his long imprisonment he announces he will kill the boy. Abu tricks the genie into submitting to him and granting him three wishes. The first wish is wasted, but the genie helps Abu steal a magical jewel, the "All-Seeing Eye", that enables him to find and reunite with Ahmad. With the jewel, Ahmad sees Jaffar using his magic to make the Princess forget her true love. Despondent, Ahmad quarrels with Abu, who inadvertently uses his third wish to send Ahmad back to Baghdad.
In Baghdad, Ahmad is reunited with the Princess, who remembers him. They are imprisoned by Jaffar and condemned to death. Abu helplessly witnesses all this with the jewel's aid. In anger, he destroys the jewel, which frees the "Old King" of the "Land of Legend". Abu is given a magic crossbow as a reward. He steals the king'smagic carpet and flies on it to Baghdad. Abu's appearance fulfils an ancient prophecy and sparks a revolt against Jaffar by the city's inhabitants. Abu kills the fleeing Jaffar with the crossbow, and Ahmad is restored to power. Abu, alarmed by Ahmad's plans to educate him to become the vizier, flies off on the carpet in search of fun and adventure.
Korda had intended to castVivien Leigh as the Princess.[9]
Producer Alexander Korda, after a search for a director, chose German filmmakerLudwig Berger in early 1939, but by the early summer became dissatisfied with Berger's overall conception of the movie—feeling it was too small-scale and intimate—and, specifically, the score that Berger proposed to use. Essentially behind Berger's back, British directorMichael Powell was brought in to shoot various scenes—and Powell's scheduled work grew in amount and importance while, in the meantime, Korda himself did his best to undercut Berger on his own set; and while publicly siding with Berger on the issue of the music, he also undercut Berger's chosen composer (Oscar Straus) by bringing inMiklos Rozsa and putting him into an office directly adjacent to Berger's with a piano, to work on a score. Eventually, Berger was persuaded to walk away from the project, and American filmmakerTim Whelan, who had just finished work on another Korda-produced movie (Q Planes) was brought in to help augment Powell's work. However, work was suspended with the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, for Powell was taken off the picture and put to work on the morale-boosting documentaryThe Lion Has Wings.
By the end of the year, Korda found himself running out of money and credit, and in the spring of 1940 he arranged to move the entire production to Hollywood (where some shots of the movie's young star Sabu had to be redone, for he had grown more than 3 inches (76 mm) in the year since shooting had commenced). Powell remained in England, so direction was taken up in Hollywood byMenzies andZoltan Korda during the summer of 1940—including shots of the heroes in theGrand Canyon,Monument Valley,Bryce Canyon[10]: 287 and thePainted Desert; the scenes in the Temple of the Goddess of Light, among the last to be written, were done late in the summer, and the film was being edited and re-structured into the autumn of 1940.[citation needed]
At some point during production, the film was being written as a musical. The finished film has three songs, but others were written, with recordings of some surviving, including one verse of Rex Ingram singing a song written for the genie.
The film is notable for being the first filmPeter R. Hunt worked on, serving as an associate editor at 15 years old.[11] Hunt later worked on sixJames Bond films, including directing 1969'sOn Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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The film was Korda's most successful in the U.S.[2] The film was also a success in Europe, selling 5,135,145 tickets in France and becoming the seventh-most-attended film of the year.[12]
The film premiered atRadio City Music Hall.[13]The New York Times reviewerBosley Crowther enthused that the film "ranks next toFantasia as the most beguiling and wondrous film of this troubled season". Crowther praised "its truly magnificent color" and the performances of all five main actors.
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times addedThe Thief of Bagdad to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "on a level withThe Wizard of Oz". According to Ebert, "It maintains a consistent spirit, and that spirit is one of headlong joy in storytelling." He praised the performances of Sabu and Veidt ("perfectly pitched to the needs of the screenplay"), but he was less impressed with the chemistry between Duprez and Justin ("rather bloodless").[14]
Its 1924 predecessor holds a 96% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and its 1940 remake has a 100% rating based on 29 reviews, with an average score of 8.70/10. Its consensus states: "Dashing, dazzling, and altogether magical,The Thief of Bagdad is an enchanting fantasy for children of all ages."[15]
The film has been highly influential on later movies based onThe Book of One Thousand and One Nights setting. For example, the Disney filmAladdin borrows freely from it, particularly the characters of the evil vizier and the sultan, both drawn with a marked similarity to the characters inThe Thief of Bagdad. The villainJafar is named after the character played by Conrad Veidt, himself named after the historical vizierJa'far ibn Yahya, who servedHarun ar-Rashid.[16] Like the sultan of the earlier film, Disney's Sultan is obsessed with toys. The thieving monkey Abu in the Disney cartoon is based on the character of the same name played by Sabu.[17]Richard Williams, speaking about his filmThe Thief and the Cobbler, said that one of his interests was in creating a fantasy film that did not copy from it. ThePrince of Persia video game franchise also shares similar characteristics with the film.[18]
Larry Butler invented the first properchroma key process for the special effects scenes in this film, a variation on the existing "traveling matte" process. This technique has since become the standard process for separating screen elements and/or actors from their backgrounds and placing them on new backgrounds for special effects purposes and has since been used in thousands of films.[citation needed]
This film later influenced the creation of the Malay filmAbu Hassan Penchuri ("Abu Hassan the Thief", 1955), which was set in Baghdad.[citation needed]
The film was released on VHS byThe Samuel Goldwyn Company. The film was released on DVD byMGM in 2002. TheCriterion Collection released a two-disc DVD release in 2008 that includes a commentary track by filmmakersMartin Scorsese andFrancis Ford Coppola, who are both longtime fans of the film (their comments were recorded separately and then edited together).
It has been released onRegion B–lockedBlu-rays in Germany (Anolis Entertainment, 2012) and the UK (Network Distributing, 2015).[19] The UK disc also includes image galleries and the original theatrical trailer. The German disc features the same extras, plus additional trailers, an audio commentary and a 53-minute documentary on the film's star, Sabu. The Thief of Baghdad is also set to be released on region-free blu-ray on September 25, 2025 by Imprint Films.
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