Film Review--Thief of Baghdad (1924)

Both Douglas Fairbanks and director Raoul Walsh were a part of plenty of massive productions during the silent film era, but rarely was a production on a more grand scale than their 1924 adaptation of this story from “Arabian Nights.” Costing over $2 million, this was one of the most expensive movies produced in the ‘20s and still clocks in as one of the most (relatively) expensive of all time. But, as everyone knows, money does not make a quality film, and can often hinder an otherwise good idea, and this certainly falls consistently with how I feel about most large-scope productions made since.

Fairbanks plays the thief who, with his assistant, schemes to break into the palace and steal all the treasure that lies within. At this same time, the day has arrived for the princess (Julanne Johnston) to choose a husband and merge two nations. Her disgusting, vile suitors are paraded in front of her, to increasing horror, when Fairbanks comes by pretending to be an obscure prince, and steals her heart. Unfortunately, the Mongol prince (who explicitly wants to marry her to enslave the people of Baghdad) gets wind of Fairbanks’ true identity and succeeds in exposing it to the king, who banishes him. The princess, still in love and not wanting to marry one of these ogres, stalls for time and sets up a contest to find the greatest treasure in the world. He who finds the treasure, gets her. This gives Fairbanks the chance to travel across the uncharted regions of the world and space on a quest to find this treasure so he can be with his one true love (or at least the woman he most successfully scammed).

The sets that Fairbanks jumps around on are outrageous and are absolutely the best part of the movie. For all its faults, Thief of Baghdad is worth watching just to experience the scale of it all. There is nothing in modern film that compares to the vast underwater world or, especially, D.W. Griffith’s rebuilt Babylon from Intolerance (1916). Computer sets, no matter how “vast,” will never hold a candle to the lengths silent producers would go for a shot or two. The acting is pretty mediocre. Anna May Wong, one of the few non-white stars given supporting roles in early Hollywood, got her major break here and is typically good for the material she is typically given; this time, it’s the backstabbing Asian slavegirl to the princess…not the meatiest of all parts. Johnston is almost non-existent as the princess. The only performance of any note at all is from Fairbanks, who was an amazing stuntman by any standards. Always charismatic, he was great in any role so long as it was swashbuckling and he swashbuckles here like it’s going out of style.

Big sets, charismatic actors, and swashbuckling, however, can only go so far in masking what is a truly awful movie. Much like the Armageddons and Pearl Harbors of today, there is no room for character development, emotion, or any substance at all once you pack all that action and money in. By the 150th minute, knowing now that there was actually no reason for the first 45 minutes of the film, the novelty of size wore off and I was left with paper characters, stereotypical action, and a better sense of why very few people have the patience to sit and watch a silent movie.

Pantomime was a necessary skill in the silent era. With nothing more than title cards to tell a story, viewers must essentially guide themselves through what could, sometimes, be fairly complicated stories, especially in a time where knowledge of somebody’s world may well have stretched no farther than the county line. There were some amazing actors from the time who could express so much with their eyes and hands. This movie, and others of the time that forsook story and performance for scale and effects, may have been huge successes on their release, but they become almost unwatchable today. The extent that movies like Armageddon suck is a wonder that I can only this is a huge joke from some celestial being, but I would almost (but only almost) rather watch these than their silent counterparts since I, at least, have bad dialogue to make fun of. By the end, it felt like I’d been watching Thief of Baghdad for days. To boot, I made a poor choice regarding score (the DVD, of course, ha a score, but I find Carl Davis’ hack modern scores reprehensible, so I tend to choose my own, which I will get into at a later date), so the whole experience was pretty disappointing. I’m going to stick to character studies and lurid genre pictures from now on, if I have a choice.