Review of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) by Veronique K — 01 Dec 2007

The best vintage flick ever made upon the theme of arabian nights, and it integrates several mythical tales such as the most well-known "djinin in the bottle" into one kaleiscopic story of sinister magician, conspiracies, pure first love, and junvenile adventurousness which is appropriate appetizer for minor audience. despite some techniques might be primitively edited, but the visuality has enough fodder of eye candy to be intriguingly dreamy.

The best creative device would be the murderous lutist siren with mutiple hands, such a feast for the sight, and the nuance of the exotic cosmetic design is admirable tinted with allure of mystica. it's the story of a legendarily chivalric thief who rescues bagdad with the stolen flying carpet and the allah-conferred arrows of justice. some king with ingenuin-alike male beauty falls head over heels in love with a princess who has the eyes as fair as the moon.(maybe a bit exaggerated term, if so, this role probably should be played by other actress prettier than fita benkhoff.) it's an escapistic fairy tale of ancient arabianism, plentiful of flat characters such as the king and princess who live for the eternal quest of their one true love, sabu who lives for brotherhood and freedom, only jaffar, the evil vizier, is a round character played by the idiocyncratic conrad conveidt notorious for his role as the casablanca nazi who gets prosecuted by humprey bogart.

"the thief of bagdad" is the perfect showcast for veidt to emit his smoldering sensuality simmering beneath the arabian hood who looks just gorgeously fit with his facial contour, vedit has the most mesmerizing blue eyes ever, enhanced by his virile thick eyebrows, especially as the camera draws near to the close-up of his pupils, you could sense the complicatedly tangled thouths wirling around his mind when he wonders if he would hypnotize the princess into loving him, eventually he chooses not to, then he utters with agony "i'm cursed because my eyes could only see you!"...jaffar is an egoistic opportunist who lives only for his own beneficiariness, a skepist on virtues who taunts the world right under his palm with his power of magicalness, who sneers at the whole universe thru his crystal ball with contempts....but he's a romantic steer, a man with enormously flaming passion to seize what he wants with relentless violence....jaffar seems far more sophisticated than the innocent-eyed rash ahmad...more polished with a shrewd grace of his own, and all the arabian constumes seem to exuberate a particular sense of exotic aura on veidt, and his remnant german accent is so properly tailored for this role....why can't the princess take a second glimpse at this interesting man with dark charisma?

"the thief of bagdad" has the swashbuckler element which serves good retreat for audience who still enjoy the sheer dualistic duel of good and evil, and also exotically bizarre enough to further your wishes of escapism....may you immense your being in the transparently piercing pupils of conrad veidt! recluse among them then linger.