I’ve watched two versions of The Thief of Bagdad recently (the silent original from 1924 and the Italian version starring Steve “Hercules” Reeves" from 1961, which is the one I first saw as a kid), so I thought I’d finally watch the most praised version, the 1940 Alexander Korda version.
I didn’t like it, overall. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad
1.) As I’ve remarked before, early Technicolor movies really go out of the way to showcase their colors. When most of your films are black and white, a color film is going to stand out, but they really went out of their way to bring out vibrant and contrasting colors. There’s lots of Red and Blue (neither of which you really got with the Cinecolor process, or the so-called “two strip” Technicolor). There’s an entire blue city. Thumbs up for the bright colors
2.) This is one of the first really big special effects films in color. Wizard of Oz had preceded it, of course, and Gone with the Wind had more effects scenes than people realize, but they tried more new and experimental techniques here – lots of travelling mattes, glass paintings, blending of images, using items at different distances to suggest size differences, using suspended models, using rear-projection, etc. A lot of these had been used before, but not with color photography. Thumbs up for the effects, even if some are substandard to our jaded modern eyes.
3.) William Cameron Menzies, who was the production designer for the 1924 version, is for this one as well. (He also did Gone with the Wind). Most of his sets are gorgeous. Thumbs up
4.) I hate when people call this a remake. Even from the Wikipedia and IMDB articles you wouldn’t guess that the plots of the 1924 and the 1940 versions are completely different. And it’s not just that the Thief and the Princess’ lover are two different people. This is a wholly different movie, with different locations, characters, and motivations. They both share a setting (an imaginary Bagdad, inexplicably located on the seacoast), roots in the Arabian Nights, and some images/tropes (The flying carpet, the flying horse, the giant idol with the jewel in its head that can be used as a seeing stone (which someone has to climb, at great personal peril, to get), the lover breaks into the princess’ garden). The 1940 version adds a genie , an Evil Vizier, a childish sultan obsessed with toys, a hero blinded by the villain and another turned into a dog, a mystical council of elders, a giant spider, and other things. It lacks a lot of things from the original, including the Quest and the explicitly shown transformation of the Thief of Bagdad from an unrepentant rogue to a prince.Thumbs down, in my opinion
5.) Not only is the plot different, it makes very little sense, and has no general trajectory. Things just sort of happen, to keep the film going. The heroes are kind of dumb. But then again, the villain is, too. Thumbs WAY down
6.) Disney’s Aladdin clearly strip-mined this film – an evil vizier named Jafar who can work magic, control minds, and wants to marry the Princess; a dim-witted Sultan who is obsessed with toys; a thief as a co-hero, and who’s named Abu (!); an oddly-colored and usually giant genie; a flying carpet. I think Disney lifted some stuff from UPA’s 1001 Nights (starring Mister Magoo), which also told the story of Aladdin, but the borrowing is more explicit from ToB.
6.) As often happens, the romantic leads are pretty thin and unimpressive. They get a few good lines, but the show is definitely stolen by Rex Ingram’s genie, Sabu’s thief Abu, and especially Conrad Veidt’s wonderfully evil Jafar.
Bottom line – it’s an important film, in terms of effects, its design and color, but it’s not really a remake and its plot is a wandering mess. Turn your brain off for this.