The Thief of Bagdad (Silent Film 1924)

The Thief of Bagdad is a 1924 American silent adventure film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks, and written by Achmed Abdullah and Lotta Woods. This is the restored version released by the Cohen Film Collection in 2013.

Freely adapted from One Thousand and One Nights, it tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph of Baghdad. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Fairbanks considered this to be the favorite of his films, according to his son. Along with his earlier The Mark Of Zorro (1920) and Robin Hood (1922), the film marked Fairbanks's transformation from genial comedy to a career in "swashbuckling" roles. The film, strong on special effects (flying carpet, magic rope and fearsome monsters) and featuring massive Arabian-style sets, also proved to be a stepping stone for Anna May Wong, who portrayed a treacherous Mongol slave.

Douglas Fairbanks encouraged the respected composer Mortimer Wilson to provide a fully-fledged classical score. Wilson composed leit-motifs for each character and developed them symphonically. He also spent many hours in the editing room working on combining his music with the film. The score has been re-constructed by Mark Fitz-Gerald and recorded.

The Thief of Bagdad was one of the most expensive films of the 1920s. Art director William Cameron Menzies was largely responsible for the production design, closely following the requirements laid down by Fairbanks, who acted as writer, producer and star. The Thief of Bagdad is now widely considered one of the great silent films and Fairbanks's greatest work.

Cast & Characters:
Douglas Fairbanks as Ahmed, the Thief of Bagdad
Snitz Edwards as His Evil Associate
Charles Belcher as The Holy Man (Imam) / Narrator
Julanne Johnston as The Princess. Johnston had appeared the previous year in another Arabian Nights fantasy, the now lost The Brass Bottle, directed by Maurice Tourneur
Sojin Kamiyama as Cham Shang, Prince of the Mongols
Anna May Wong as The Mongol Slave
Brandon Hurst as The Caliph
Tote Du Crow as The Soothsayer
Noble Johnson as The Prince of the Indies