I watched the Rohauer/Cohen restored version of the 1924 The Thief of Bagdad with appropriate tinting and a wonderful score by Carl Davis, who strip-mined the work of Rimsky-Korsakov for it (Mostly Scheherazade). I’d seen this long ago in the 1980s on PBS’ Great Performances, and still have a recording of it that I frequently watch. But I’ve become aware that, for reasons of their own (probably to get it to fit in a time slot), that version actually has at least four scenes cut from it, including one rather important scene. Also, my recording still has imperfections and artifacts from taping from broadcast, so I still hadn’t seen the complete, best-quality version.
You can see the trailer here
Or here. You can find the whole film online.
A great silent film, especially when you can finally see the whole film. I saw an Italian remake from 1961 (starring Steve Reeves after his “Hercules” films) as a kid and didn’t realize that it was a remake. I’ve watched that recently, too. I knew of the 1940 “remake”, but never saw it until recently.
I’m not a big fan of the 1940 Alex Korda version, even though it features great special effects and is a bright and flashy color film, because it’s NOT a remake, no matter what they say. They completely changed the plot, although they kept some iconic images (William Cameron Menzies was art director for both the 1924 and the 1940 version, and one of the scenes they redid was the “stealing the jewel from the eye of the idol” scene, which looks a helluva lot better in the 1940 version, I have to admit), but with a completely different story, I don’t much care for the result. (Disney, by the way, took a LOT from this version for their animated film Aladdin). The 1961 version is more faithful to the 1924 version. (There was also a made-for-TV version circa 1978, which I have never seen).
I long wondered where the story came from, since “Thief of Bagdad” is not one of the 1001 Nights stories, or a pre-existing work of fiction. It seems to have been a collaboration between Douglas Fairbanks himself (the star, producer, and quasi-director of the 1924 film) and Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff. Romanoff claimed to have been born in Yalta of Afghani parents and to be related to the czar of Russia, and wrote for the pulps under the name Achmed Abdullah. He also wrote many screenplays in the 1920s and 1930s (although the only one likely to be remembered – besides “Thief” is Lives of a Bengal Lancer. “Achmed Abdullah” also wrote the novelization of the film, and it’s well worth reading. I assume the style it was written in was “Abdullah’s” typical “oriental story” style, which has many flourishes and local “touches” Like many novelizations written by people who wrote the screenplay or were involved in the production (Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: Space Odyssey and Orson Scott Card’s The Abyss come to mind), it has much in it that adds to the film.