Originally there were four episodes planned, but for the fourth, "Rinaldo Rinaldini," there wasn't any money left.
The "Harun al Raschid" episode reportedly inspired Douglas Fairbanks to make The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
The film received a restoration in 2019 funded by the German Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) with new music commissioned by ZDF/ARTE. Since no original German version of the film survived, the digital restoration used nitrate prints of the English, French, and Czech language versions, as well as additional elements drawn from them. For the cooperative project of the Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna, L'Immagine Ritrovata digitized the film in 4K resolution and restored it in 2K. The color concept, as well as the English title cards are based on a tinted and toned nitrate print from the British Film Institute (BFI) that served as the primary element for the restoration. The restored film premiered with live music as the opening film of the Berlinale Classics series, as part of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, before airing on Franco-German TV channel Arte three days later.
In 2013, vocalist Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Fantômas, Peeping Tom) and three percussionists: Matthias Bossi (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Book of Knots, Skeleton Key, Fred Frith), Scott Amendola (Scott Amendola Trio, Nels Cline, Jeff Parker, Charlie Hunter), and William Winant (John Cage, Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Lou Reed, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jim O'Rourke) performed a live score at the San Francisco Film Festival.
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