Silence & Silver V: The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
Douglas Fairbanks's Swashbuckling Fantasy Epic of Art Deco Bagdad
The Thief of Bagdad is a cinematic epic in every sense.
Douglas Fairbanks, whose company produced and bankrolled the film, set out to create something audiences had never seen before. Filmed on a spectacular budget of more than $1 million1, The Thief of Bagdad was both a vehicle for Fairbanks as a swashbuckling action star and an ambitious act of cinematic worldbuilding and spectacle.
The premise is simple: Ahmed, a selfish and irreverent (but charming) thief, falls in love with the princess of Bagdad, and sets out to win her hand by posing as a wealthy suitor.2 Adventures ensue, and the thief learns that “happiness must be earned.” Fairbanks’s impressive physicality is on full display, first as an acrobatic thief parkouring his way through the streets of Bagdad and later as a fearless adventurer in quest of the rarest treasure in the land. On its own, this would have at best been a retread of Fairbanks’s earlier performances as Robin Hood and Zorro (except this time with no shirt). But the world the thief inhabits—and the diverse cast of characters that fill out the story—draw in the audience to a fantasy land of palaces, bazaars, fortune-tellers, princes, scimitars, exotic beasts, flying carpets, and horrific monsters.
As already mentioned, the story centers around the thief’s quest to win the hand of the princess of Bagdad (Julliane Johnston), who is set to be betrothed to one of three wealthy suitors as part of some bizarre medieval tradition. The princess mainly lounges around looking by turns alluring and distressed—still, you believe in her love for Ahmed, and watching her clasp her face in horror as each new potential suitor swaggers into the palace with his entourage never gets old.
The three suitors—in classic fairytale fashion—seem interested in the princess mainly in hopes of inheriting her father’s kingdom. The Prince of India (played by the ever-versatile Noble Johnson) is tall, grim, and haughty. The Prince of Persia (played by a crossdressing Mathilde Comont) is an obese glutton in an oversized turban. Our main villain, however, is the Prince of the Mongols—a sinister Oriental despot played by Japanese actor Sōjin Kamiyama. The menace in Sōjin’s body language and the freakish, Nosferatu-esque silhouette created by the costume contrasts well with Fairbanks’s wholesome (and frequently shirtless) physicality. Playing as he does into standard Yellow Peril tropes3, the Mongol Prince nonetheless shines as an entertaining and creepy villain. Sōjin makes the most of every moment onscreen, plotting and scheming, becoming a villain you would almost root for—if he weren’t up against the charming Fairbanks, of course.
Anna May Wong, naturally enough, steals the show in her role as the princess’s conniving Mongol slave. If the director of TTOB made one mistake, it was casting Wong to play opposite Johnston—if Wong is on-screen, that’s where the audience is looking. And it’s not just that Anna May Wong is 1) extremely attractive, and 2) wearing a revealing, skintight outifit for most of the film—she’s also a really good actress. I am admittedly biased4, but Wong elevates what would otherwise be a forgettable side character into one of the most memorable roles in the movie. Her facial expressions and body language communicate as clearly as spoken dialogue could, and remind us that acting on the silent screen was not (contra Kathy Selden) “a lot of dumb show.”5
I’ll conclude with the sets and the special effects. The city of Bagdad is stunning in its grandeur, and the framing makes the most of the imposing setpieces. The palace, the banquet hall, the marketplace, the mosque, the princess’s chambers—all are designed to draw the audience into the fantasy with their look and scale. The architecture blends 19th-century Orientalism with the sleek facades of 20th-century Art Deco skyscrapers. Simply put, eveything looks huge. As for the special effects, they make a strong case for the value of old-fashioned wires and camera tricks in our age of CGI.
I suppose you don’t need me to say I think you should watch The Thief of Bagdad, but I will anyways: you should watch The Thief of Bagdad. As with all of the films in this series, there’s a high-quality restoration on Youtube. So get to it. I’ll wait.
Postscript: One element of the film I didn’t touch on is its positive (if stereotypical) portrayal of Islam, with a Muslim cleric serving as Ahmed’s mentor and conscience. Film critic Darragh O’Donoghue dismisses the latter two-thirds of TTOB as “Pilgrim’s Progress in Orientalist drag,”6 but I think the pseudo-Islamic flavor of the film actually works as a way to make the audience step ever-so-slightly out of their comfort zone. Also, anti-Muslim prejudice really irks me, so it's nice to see a movie where the main character finds Allah and that's treated like a normal thing that protagonists sometimes do, and not like he's being radicalized into a dangerous cult.7
Now a paltry $18 million, which I’m sure some skilled Hollywood accounting could convert into a $50 million tax write off.
For those wondering, Disney’s 1992 film Aladdin borrows heavily from this film and its 1940 remake, which made significant changes to the plot (including introducing a genie).
Asian cunning and physical impotence plotting against the purity of white womanhood, etc. There is one scene at the end of the movie when problematic stereotypes cross the line into genuine racial malice: the Mongol Prince’s final comeuppance is being strung up by his queue. Given that the queue was itself a symbol of Chinese subjugation to the Manchus and the hairstyle has a long history in the imagery anti-Asian prejudice, it feels hateful. Anna May Wong, with her growing consciousness of the way Hollywood racism limited her opportunities despite her obvious talent, surely made note of the scene and its implications.
I was really excited to receive two Anna May Wong quarters last Christmas after spending weeks checking every quarter I got back at 7-Eleven.
Have I mentioned before that I love Singin’ in the Rain? Because I love Singin’ in the Rain.
Here’s his review, for what it’s worth: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/cteq/the-thief-of-bagdad/. I can’t take anyone who uses words like “hetereosexist” and “marginality” without a hint of irony that seriously, but it’s an interesting perspective on the film, and the writing is great.
Welcome to footnote 7, where I remind you that the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly upheld laws that discriminate against Muslims by appealing to the “necessary in a democratic society” clause in the European Convention on Human Rights. Blatant anti-Muslim discrimination is the norm in the EU, and the secularity laws in France and Turkey are only the most extreme examples of a continent-wide Islamaphobic consensus.