Der Dieb von Bagdad

The making of The Thief Of Bagdad is quite a story unto itself, almost as wondrous as the tale told in this film. Alexander Korda nearly went broke making this film.

According to the Citadel Film series Book about The Great British Films, adopted son of the United Kingdom Alexander Korda had conceived this film as early as 1933 and spent years of planning and preparation. But World War II unfortunately caught up with Korda and the mounting expenses of filming a grand spectacle.

Budget costs happen in US films too, only Cecil B. DeMille always had a free hand at Paramount after 1932 when he returned there. But DeMille nor any of his American contemporaries had to worry about enemy bombs while shooting the film. Part of the way through the shoot, Korda transported the whole company to America and shot those sequences with Rex Ingram as the genie in our Grand Canyon. He certainly wasn't going to get scenery like that in the UK. Korda also finished the interiors in Hollywood, all in time for a release on Christmas Day 1940.

The spectacle of the thing earned The Thief Of Bagdad four Academy Award nominations and three Oscars for best color cinematography, best art&set direction for a color film, and best special effects. Only Miklos Rosza's original musical score did not take home a prize in a nominated category. Korda must have been real happy about deciding to shoot in the Grand Canyon because it's impossible to get bad color pictures from that place.

The special effects however do not overwhelm the simple story of good triumphing over evil. The good is the two young lovers John Justin and June Duprez and the evil is Conrad Veidt as the sorcerer who tries to steal both a kingdom and a heart, both belonging to Duprez. This was Veidt's career role until Casablanca where he played the Luftwaffe major Stroesser.

Of course good gets a little help from an unlikely source. Beggar boy and thief Sabu who may very well have been one of the few who could call himself at the time an international movie star. Literally rising from poverty working as an elephant stable boy for the Maharajah of Mysore he was spotted by Alexander Korda who needed a native lead for one of his jungle features. Sabu captures all the innocence and mischievousness of youth as he fulfills the Arabian Nights fantasy of the boy who topples a tyrant. Not a bad message to be sending out in 1940 at that.

The Thief Of Bagdad holds up remarkably well today. It's an eternal tale of love, romance, and adventure in any order you want to put it.