The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Thief of Bagdad |
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1947 theatrical re-release poster
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| Directed by | Michael Powell Ludwig Berger Tim Whelan Uncredited: Alexander Korda Zoltan Korda William Cameron Menzies |
| Produced by | Alexander Korda |
| Written by | Lajos Bíró Miles Malleson |
| Starring | Conrad Veidt Sabu John Justin June Duprez Rex Ingram |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | George Perinal |
| Editing by | Charles Crichton |
| Studio | London Films |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | 5 December 1940 (US) 25 December 1940 (UK) |
| Running time | 106 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Money made | over $1 million (US/Canada) 5,134,653 admissions (France, 1946) |
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British Technicolor historical fantasy film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan, with additional contributions by William Cameron Menzies and Korda brothers Vincent and Zoltán. The film stars child actor Sabu, Conrad Veidt, John Justin, and June Duprez. It was distributed in the US and the UK by United Artists.
Although produced by Alexander Korda's company London Films in London, the film was completed in California due to the outbreak of World War II.
Georges Périnal, credited as George Perinal, won the Academy Award for Cinematography, Vincent Korda for Art Direction, and Lawrence W. Butler and Jack Whitney for Special Effects (marking the first use of the "manual bluescreen technique"). Miklós Rózsa was also nominated for Original Music Score, a first for a British film at the Academy Awards.
Although this production is a remake of the 1924 version, the two films have differences: the most significant is that the thief and the prince are separate characters in the 1940 version. The screenplay is by Lajos Biro and Miles Malleson, who also appears in the film as the Princess's father, the Sultan of Basra.
Plot
In ancient Basra, a blind, young beggar begins telling the film's story in flashback (mimicking the style of the Arabian Nights), revealing that he is really Ahmad, the young, naive Sultan of Bagdad. Wanting to know more about his people, Ahmad is tricked by Jaffar, his evil Grand Vizier, into going in disguise into the city. Jaffar then has him arrested and seizes 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.
The Princess is promised in marriage to Jaffar by her father, the toy-obsessed Sultan of Basra, in exchange for a mechanical flying horse. The Princess, now in love with Ahmad, runs away, but Jaffar blinds Ahmad and turns Abu into a dog. The Princess is captured for the slave market and 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, tricked into boarding a ship, where she is met by Jaffar, who tells her that she can cure Ahmad's blindness only by allowing Jaffar to embrace her. She submits, and the spells are lifted from both Ahmad and Abu. Jaffar prevents the two from following him by raising a storm that shipwrecks them. Returning to Basra, Jaffar uses a mechanical dancer to kill the Princess's father, then goes back to Bagdad with the Princess.
Abu awakes alone on a deserted beach, where he finds a bottle and opens it, releasing an enormous genie intent on killing the boy. Abu, though, tricks the genie into submitting to him and granting him three wishes. The first wish is wasted, but the genie helps Abu to steal a magical jewel that enables him to find Ahmad. With his second wish, Abu is reunited 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 Bagdad, alone.
In Bagdad, 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 results in his freeing the "Old King" of the "Land of Legend." Abu is given a magic crossbow as a reward, but he also steals the king's magic carpet and flies on it to Bagdad. Abu's appearance sparks a revolt against Jaffar by the city's inhabitants, and Abu kills the fleeing Jaffar with the crossbow. With Ahmad restored to power and reunited with the Princess, Abu avoids the sultan's plans for his future by hopping back on the carpet and flying off in search of fun and adventure.
Cast
- Conrad Veidt as Jaffar
- Sabu as Abu
- June Duprez as the Princess
- John Justin as Ahmad
- Rex Ingram as the Djinn
- Miles Malleson as the Sultan of Basra
- Morton Selten as the Old King
- Mary Morris as Halima, Jaffar's agent, and the "Silver Maid"
- Bruce Winston as the Merchant
- Hay Petrie as the Astrologer
- Adelaide Hall as the Singer
- Roy Emerton as the Jailor
- Allan Jeayes as the Story Teller
- Robert Greig as Man of Basra (uncredited)
Duprez's character is unnamed; she is simply referred to as "The Princess", and addressed as "Princess", "my dear", etc.
Korda had intended to cast Vivien Leigh as the Princess, but she went to Hollywood to be with Laurence Olivier.
Influence
Although it was a remake of a 1924 silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, this film has been highly influential on later movies based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights setting. 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 villain Jafar is named after Jaffar, himself named after the historical (but not evil) vizier Ja'far ibn Yahya, who served Harun ar-Rashid. 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 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 video game franchise also shares similar characteristics with the film.
Larry Butler invented the first proper chroma 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.
This film later influenced the creation of the Malay film Abu Hassan Penchuri ("Abu Hassan the Thief", 1955) which was based in Baghdad.
A number of Indian Hindi-language films, were made under the titles of: Baghdad Ka Chor (The Thief of Baghdad) in 1934, 1946, 1955; Baghdad Gaja Donga (Thief of Baghdad) in 1968; and Thief of Baghdad in 1969 and 1977. Baghdad Thirudan, a 1960 Indian Tamil-language film by T. P. Sundaram, was directly remade from the 1924 version. A television series, Thief of Baghdad, was also made in India, airing on Zee TV between 2000 and 2001.
See also
In Spanish: El ladrón de Bagdad (película de 1940) para niños
