The Thief of Bagdad is a
1940 British
fantasy
film produced by
Alexander
Korda, and directed by
Michael Powell,
Ludwig Berger, and
Tim
Whelan, with uncredited contributions by Alexander Korda, his
brother
Zoltan and
William Cameron Menzies. It starred
child actor
Sabu,
Conrad Veidt,
John
Justin, and
June Duprez.
Although
the film was produced by Alexander
Korda's company London Films in
England, due to the outbreak of World War
II, filming was completed in California
. The film won the
Academy Awards for
Cinematography,
Art Direction
(
Vincent Korda) and
Special Effects. It was
also nominated for
Original Music
Score.
Although this and the
1924 version have some
similarities there are also significant differences. The most
notable is that in the 1940 version the thief and the prince are
separate characters.
Plot
Ahmad
(John Justin), the naive King of
Bagdad
, is convinced by his evil Grand Vizier, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), to go out into the city
disguised as a poor man to get to know his subjects (in the manner
of his grandfather Harun
al-Rashid). Jaffar then has Ahmad thrown into a dungeon,
where he is joined by Abu the thief (
Sabu), son of Abu the thief, grandson of Abu
the thief. Abu arranges their escape.
They flee
to Basra
, where Ahmad
becomes acquainted with its Princess (June
Duprez). However, Jaffar also journeys to Basra, for he
desires the Princess. Her father, the Sultan (
Miles Malleson), is fascinated by the magical
mechanical flying horse Jaffar offers and agrees to the proposed
marriage. Upon hearing the news, the Princess, by now deeply in
love with Ahmad, runs away. Confronted by Ahmad, Jaffar magically
blinds him and turns Abu into a dog; the spell can only be broken
if Jaffar holds the Princess in his arms.
The Princess is eventually captured (but not recognized) and sold
in the slave market. She is bought secretly by Jaffar and taken to
his mansion, but falls into a deep sleep from which he cannot rouse
her. Ahmad is tricked by Jaffar's servant Halima (
Mary Morris) into awaking the Princess. Halima
then lures the Princess onto Jaffar's ship by telling her that
there is a doctor aboard who can cure Ahmad's blindness. The ship
immediately sets sail. Jaffar informs the Princess about the spell;
she allows herself to be embraced, whereupon Ahmad's sight is
restored and Abu is returned to human form. They chase after the
ship in a small boat, but Jaffar conjures up a storm to shipwreck
them.
Abu wakes up alone on a deserted beach and finds a bottle. When he
opens it, an enormous
djinn or genie (
Rex Ingram) appears. Embittered by his
long imprisonment, the genie informs Abu that he is going to kill
his rescuer, but Abu tricks him back into the bottle. The genie
then offers to grant Abu three wishes if he will let him out again.
The hungry boy uses his first wish to ask for sausages. When Abu
demands to know where Ahmad is, the genie flies Abu to the top of
the highest mountain in the world. On it sits a temple, and in the
temple there is an enormous statue with a large jewel, the
All-Seeing Eye, set in its forehead. The genie tells Abu that the
Eye will show him where to find Ahmad. Abu fights off a giant
guardian spider while climbing the statue and steals the gem.
The genie then takes Abu to Ahmad. When Ahmad asks to see the
Princess, Abu has him gaze into the All-Seeing Eye. Ahmad despairs
when he sees Jaffar arranging for the Princess to inhale the
fragrance of the Blue Rose of Forgetfulness, which makes her forget
her love. In agony, Ahmad lashes out at Abu for showing him the
scene. During the ensuing argument, Abu unthinkingly wishes Ahmad
to Baghdad. The genie, freed after granting the last wish, departs,
leaving Abu alone in the wilderness.
Ahmad appears in Jaffar's castle and is quickly captured, but
seeing him restores the Princess's memory. The furious usurper
sentences them both to death. Abu, unable to watch his friend's
impending doom, shatters the All-Seeing Eye and as a result is
transported to the "land of legend," where he is greeted by the Old
King (
Morton Selten) and thanked for
freeing the inhabitants, who had been turned to stone. As a reward,
he is given a magic crossbow and is named the king's successor.
However, in order to save Ahmad, he steals the king's magic
flying carpet and rushes to the
rescue.
Abu's marvelous aerial arrival (which fulfills a prophecy often
cited in the course of the story) sparks a revolt against Jaffar.
Abu kills the fleeing Jaffar with his crossbow, and Ahmad regains
his kingdom and his love. However, when Abu hears (with growing
alarm) Ahmad tell the people of his plan to send him to school to
train to become his new Grand Vizier, Abu flies away on the carpet
to find his own fun and adventure.
Cast
Alexander Korda had intended to cast
Vivien
Leigh as the Princess, but she went to Hollywood to be with
Laurence Olivier.
Reception
New York Times reviewer
Bosley Crowther enthused that the
film "ranks next to '
Fantasia' 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 has rated
The Thief of
Bagdad one of his great movies, "on a level with 'The 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"), though he was less impressed with the chemistry
between Duprez and Justin ("rather bloodless").
Like its 1924 predecessor,
The Thief of Bagdad has a 100%
fresh rating from
Rotten
Tomatoes.
Influence
Although it borrowed many ideas from the
earlier silent version, this
film has been highly influential on later movies based on
The Book of
One Thousand and One Nights. For example, the Disney film
Aladdin borrows freely
from it, particularly the characters of the evil Vizier and the
Sultan, both drawn with a marked similarity to the characters in
The Thief of Bagdad. The thieving monkey Abu in the Disney
cartoon is obviously based on the boy played by Sabu.
Richard Williams, speaking about
his film
The Thief and the
Cobbler, said that one of his interests was in creating an
Oriental fantasy that did not copy from it. The
Prince of Persia franchise also shares
similar characteristics with the film.
DVD release
The film was released on DVD by
MGM on 3
December 2002. That version is now out of print. The
Criterion Collection released a
two-disc DVD release on
27 May 2008 that includes a commentary track by filmmakers
Martin Scorsese and
Francis Ford Coppola, who are both
longtime fans of the film (their comments were recorded separately
and then edited together).
References
- Robert
Osborne, Turner Classic Movies
- Foster on Film - Fantasy: The Thief of
Bagdad
Bibliography
- The Great British Films, pp 55–58, Jerry Vermilye,
1978, Citadel Press, ISBN 080650661X
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