The Thief of Bagdad [2 Discs] [Criterion Collection]

Director: Tim Whelan, Sr., Tim Whelan, Ludwig Berger Tim Whelan

Overview

In ancient Bagdad, the young prince Ahmad (John Justin) is betrayed, deposed, and imprisoned by his vizier Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), an evil and calculating man who is also a master of the Black Arts. But Ahmad is saved from prison, and certain execution, by Abu (Sabu), a young thief who has made his way in life by stealing whatever he needs. Together they escape from Bagdad and make their way to the port city of Basra, where they hope to sign to sail with the renowned sailor Sinbad. But Ahmad chances to catch a glimpse of the daughter (June Duprez) of the Sultan (Miles Malleson, who also co-wrote the screenplay), and falls hopelessly in love with her. Sneaking into the garden where she spends most of her days, she meets him and the two are bound together forever in that moment, he the first man she has ever seen, and she the most beautiful woman he has ever beheld. But no sooner have they declared their love for each other then Jaffar arrives in Basra, seeking the princess' hand in marriage -- and to secure the blessing of her father, a fanatical collector of toys, he offers the aging Sultan a fantastic mechanical flying horse that bears him into the clouds at will. The sultan agrees to the marriage, but the princess flees the city. Abu and Ahmad are captured and before either can tell the sultan of their plight, Jaffar works his magic, leaving Ahmad blind and transforming Abu into a dog -- conditions that will remain until he holds the princess in his arms. Everything in the movie up to this point has been told in flashback, by Ahmad, as he is lured to the palace of his enemy. Jaffar has captured the princess, but she has fallen into a deep sleep that will not end -- so his doctors assure him -- until she is reunited with Ahmad. He achieves this goal, and the princess awakens, only to be parted from Ahmad again by Jaffar, who sails for Basra with her as his prisoner. But she won't love him, and the kind of love he wants from her can only be given by her, not taken by him. When Ahmad and Abu -- now restored by Jaffar's regaining the princess -- try to follow him, he calls up a storm that sweeps them from the sea. Abu finds himself on a beach alone, and while searching for Ahmad he finds a strange bottle, which he opens, and out comes a real genie (Rex Ingram), hundreds of feet tall. The genie means to kill him, but Abu outwits the genie and secures from him three wishes. Abu must find Ahmad, but to do that he must go to the Palace of the Goddess of Night, half a world away, and steal the All-Seeing Eye. Abu does this, getting past guards, both human and monstrous, and from there it is on to Ahmad. But a misunderstanding between them leaves the two friends separated, Ahmad captured by Jaffar and sentenced -- along with the princess, who will not love Jaffar -- to death. Meanwhile, Abu is stranded countless miles away. And then one desperate act by the boy suddenly sends Abu into a magical, golden kingdom, the Land of Legend, where he is greeted as their new king. The old king (Morton Selten) shows him the symbols of his rule, which include magical arrows forged to destroy injustice. Abu still must save his friend, and to do it commits one last act of theft -- but can he arrive in time?

Product Details

Release Date:	05/27/2008
UPC:	0715515029926
Original Release:	1940
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:46:00

Special Features

New digital transfer; Two audio commentaries; Optional music and effects track; Theatrical trailer; Visual effects documentary; The lion has wings; Excerpts from the codirector Michael Powell's audio dictation for his autobiography; Excerpts from a 1976 radio interview with compsoer Miklós Rózsa; Still Gallery

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Conrad Veidt	Jaffar
Sabu	Abu
June Duprez	Princess
John Justin	Ahmad
Rex Ingram	Djinn
Miles Malleson	Sultan
Morton Selten	The Old King
Bruce Winston	The Merchant
Hay Petrie	Astrologer
Adelaide Hall	Singer
Roy Emerton	Jailer
Allan Jeayes	The Story Teller
Toni Gable	Lady
Michael Powell	Actor
Robert Grieg	Man of Basra
Miki Hood	Citizen
Tim Whelan Sr.	Actor
Glynis Johns	Princess's Maid
Cleo Laine	Urchin in Bagdad Market
Leslie Phillips	Urchin in Bagdad Market
John Salew	Fish Peddler
Mark Stone	Masrur
Frank Tickle	Citizen
Miklós Rózsa	Composer

Technical Credits

Miles Malleson

Tim Whelan	Director
Ludwig Berger	Director
Miles Malleson	Screenwriter
Alexander Korda	Producer
John Mills	Special Effects

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- The Thief of Bagdad
1. Opening Credits [1:51]
2. The Princess and the Blind Man [6:18]
3. "There Was Once a King" [8:31]
4. Abu the Thief [6:06]
5. Basra [6:35]
6. Djinni of the Pool [6:36]
7. Jaffar's Visit [7:39]
8. The Curse [6:23]
9. Winds of Heaven [10:56]
10. Place of Desolation [:57]
11. "Free!" [3:53]
12. "The All-Seeing Eye" [6:34]
13. Last Wish [13:25]
14. The Land of Legend [7:59]
15. The Arrow of Justice [7:19]
1. Color Bars [5:17]

Menu

Disc #1 -- The Thief of Bagdad
   Play the Movie
   Chapters
   Commentaries
      Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese
      Bruce Eder
   Trailer
   Audio Options
      Dolby Mono Soundtrack
      Coppola and Scorsese Commentary
      Edder Commentary
      Music and Effects
      Movie
Disc #2 -- The Thief of Bagdad
   Visual Efects
      Play
      Blue Screen Demo
   Michael Powell
      Play
         Hired
         Sabu
         The Korda Brothers
         Beach Tests
         Color
         Complex Sequences
         Hitler
         The Lion has Wings
         Balloon Barrage
         First Operation
         Radar
   Miklós Rózsa
      Play
         Beginnings
         Paris: Film Music
         London: Hungarian Ballet
         Meeting Korda
         The Thief of Bagdad
         Los Angeles
      The Miklós Rózsa Society
   Stills Galleries
      Production and Publicity Stills
      Dufayacolor Stills
   The Lion has Wings

Editorial Reviews

The 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad is one of those rare fantasy films that has only improved with age as a dazzling example of the screencraft of the era. If seams and joins show on some of the special-effects work, it doesn't hurt, because we accept the film as a fantasy tale woven before our eyes; just as no one minds the brush-strokes on a painting truly great painting, few object to the sequences that slip ever so slightly in this more than 60-year-old work. Officially credited to Ludwig Berger, Tim Whelan, and Michael Powell, there were at least three additional directors on the film: producer Alexander Korda and his brother Zoltan Korda (who also co-produced), and associate producer William Cameron Menzies, plus special effects director Lawrence Butler, who helmed the flying-horse sequence. The completion of the production was something of a miracle. Producer Alexander Korda, after a search for a director, chose German filmmaker Ludwig Berger in early 1939, but by the early summer found himself dissatisfied with Berger's overall conception of the movie -- which was too small-scale and intimate -- and, specifically, the score that Berger proposed to use. Essentially behind Berger's back, British director Michael Powell was brought in to shoot various scenes -- and Powell's scheduled work grew in amount and importance whilst, in the meantime, Korda himself did his best to undercut Berger on his own set; and while publicly siding with Berger on the issue of the music, he also undercut Berger's chosen composer (Oscar Straus) by bringing in Miklos Rozsa and putting him into an office directly adjacent to Berger's with a piano, to work on a score. Eventually, Berger was persuaded to walk away from the project, and American filmmaker Tim Whalen, who had just finished work on another Korda-produced movie (Q Planes) was brought in to help augment Powell's work. But with the outbreak of the Second World War in September of 1939, work was suspended as Powell was taken off the picture and put to work on a morale-boosting documentary, The Lion Has Wings. By the end of the year, Korda found himself running out of money and credit, and in the spring of 1940 he arranged to move the entire production to Hollywood (where some shots of the movie's young star Sabu, had to be redone since he'd grown more than three inches during the year since shooting had commenced). Powell had remained in England, and so direction was taken up in Hollywood by Menzies and Zoltan Korda during the summer of 1940 -- including shots of the heroes in the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and the Painted Desert; the scenes in the Temple of the Goddess of Light, among the very last to be written, were done late in the summer, and the film was being edited and re-structured into the fall of 1940. None of the convoluted production decisions were apparent, however, when the movie was finally released in December of 1940. Accounts by those involved have varied across the decades, but most maintained that hardly anything directed by Berger made the final cut; the film is considered a prime example of Powell's early output, displaying the wit, flair, and stylish camerawork that would inform his subsequent work. The lush Technicolor photography by Georges Perinal is as overpowering today as it was in 1940, particularly when combined with Vincent Korda's outsized sets and Menzies' grand conception of the film's visuals; and the movie overflows with intoxicating primary colors in a way that is echoed by Miklos Rozsa's music, itself a wonder of wall-to-wall film scoring that was ambitious in scope, even in an era in which movies were filled with music. Other movies, such as Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1957), have tried to weave similar spells, but Thief of Bagdad exists on a completely different scale from any of them, with its incredible cast and opulent production, and also the time in which it comes from. It has endured as an artifact of a lost world of innocence and wonder -- Thief of Bagdad was the last major movie started in England before the outbreak of the Second World War, and the last fantasy film released before America's entry into World War II. And, like Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937) and Mervyn LeRoy's production of The Wizard of Oz (1939), the movie speaks from a time before A-bombs, air-raids, and concentration camps, and as such, provided a two-hour escape for those seeking refuge from the horrors of war, which still resonates seven decades later.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder