Review of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) by Sam C — 04 Dec 2009

I feel this film may not get all the recognition that it deserves. It did, after all, come out a year after The Wizard of Oz, which was still being heralded as the greatest spectacle of color cinema. I haven't visited the land of Oz in years, but I do remember liking it. If people love Oz so much and revisit so much, why not check out this film, which is just as spectacular? The Thief of Bagdad is a very rough adaptation of 1001 Arabian Nights, the same source material that inspired Disney's Aladdin. I admit, I put off seeing this because I thought the Criterion Collection DVD case looked really cheesy, but I gave it a shot since you can stream it on Netflix.

The film itself is absolutely wonderful. From the very first few frames you can tell that your in for a colorful, elaborately decorated theme-park of a ride on sailing galleons and soaring carpets. The sets are beautiful. The costumes fantastic. You can tell that a lot of money was spent on this film, and it was all worth it. There are plenty of fantastic scenes throughout: the djinn ascending from his prison as a giant spurt of black smoke, the princess's beautiful garden, the giant spider in the web. The acting is pretty good, except the relationship between John Justin's and June Duprez's character's are rather underplayed. For that matter, Justin didn't really bring much to the table: he just moped the entire film.

However, did anyone feel that this film was a little racist? The film is full of Middle Eastern people, yet Prince Ahmad, Jaffar, the princess and her handmaidens are all white. The princess's father is even Middle Eastern! Where did this small band of white people appear from? Did they assume that the audience wouldn't be attracted to a group of handmaidens if they were from a different ethnicity? Did they think the film wouldn't sell if the audience couldn't relate to a cast who had a different skin color? Or did they just not care?

The film has its flaws, but who cares? It's just so much fun. Enjoy it.