Review of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) by Jamie T — 30 Apr 2010

It would be wrong to call The Thief of Bagdad (1940) a remake of the 1924 movie with the same name. I was a little bit confused at the beginning but soon the story became more and more familiar to me. Actually it is very much the same story and characters as in Disney's Aladdin!

An english production of an arabian fantasy tale;.

After being put in prison, accused by the evil Grand Vizier Jaffar, Prince Ahmad with a little help from the thief Apu (the best thief in Bagdad!) find their way out to regain the throne and win back the beautiful princess. Jaffar is not only a evil Grand Vizier of the Sultan, he is a wizard as well but no magic spells were needed when convincing the infantil Sultan to get approval to marry his daughter, just a flying horse (!). But the princess of course is in love with prince Ahmad, but what does it help when Jaffar is putting spells on her to love him. But this movie contains a lot more then that; giant spiders, flying carpets and a Djinn in a bottle just to mention some more.

This is certainly one of the better movies made in 1940. It's incredibly wellmade, in techicolor, and it almost has a disney-label on it. Conrad Veidt is excellent as Jaffar and it's always fun to watch Sabu. It's really worth a look unless you have a big problem with special effects that today feels somewhat...aged?