''The Thief of Bagdad'' is a 1940 British

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

historical fantasy Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those classed as Art ...

film, produced by

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Michael Powell Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a seri ...

Ludwig Berger Ludwig Berger may refer to: * Ludwig Berger (composer) (1777–1839), German composer * Ludwig Berger (director) Ludwig Berger (born Ludwig Bamberger; 6 January 1892 – 18 May 1969) was a German-Jewish film director, screenwriter and thea ...

and

Tim Whelan Tim Whelan (November 2, 1893 – August 12, 1957) was an American film director, writer, producer and actor best remembered for his writing credits on ''Harold Lloyd'' and '' Harry Langdon'' comedies, and his directing of mostly British films (e. ...

, with additional contributions by

William Cameron Menzies William Cameron Menzies (July 29, 1896 – March 5, 1957) was an American film production designer (a job title he invented) and art director as well as a film director and producer during a career spanning five decades. He began his career ...

and Korda brothers

Vincent Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer''). People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor *Vincent van Gogh ...

and

Zoltán Zoltán () is a Hungarian masculine given name. The name days for this name are 8 March and 23 June in Hungary, and 7 April in Slovakia. Zoltána is the feminine version. Notable people * Zoltán of Hungary * Zoltan Bathory, guitarist of heavy ...

. The film stars teen actor Sabu,

Conrad Veidt Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (; 22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German film actor who attracted early attention for his roles in the films ''Different from the Others'' (1919), ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), and ''The Man Who Laughs ...

John Justin John Justin (24 November 1917 – 29 November 2002) was a British stage and film actor. Early life John Justinian de Ledesma was born in Knightsbridge, London, England, the son of a well-off Argentine rancher. Though he grew up on his fathe ...

, and June Duprez. It was released in the US and the UK by

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

. Although produced by Alexander Korda's company

London Films London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included ''The Private Life ...

in London, the film was completed in California due to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Georges Périnal, credited as George Perinal, won the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for

Cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

Vincent Korda Vincent Korda (22 June 1897 – 4 January 1979) was a Hungarian-born art director, later settling in Britain. Born in Túrkeve in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was the younger brother of Alexander and Zoltan Korda. He was no ...

for

Art Direction Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...

, and Lawrence W. Butler and

Jack Whitney Jack Whitney (February 21, 1905 – November 2, 1992) was an American sound engineer. He won two Academy Awards, one for Best Sound Recording and the other for Best Visual Effects. He was nominated six more times in the category Best Soun ...

for

Special Effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...

(marking the first use of the "manual bluescreen technique").

Miklós Rózsa Miklós Rózsa (; April 18, 1907 – July 27, 1995) was a Hungarian-American composer trained in Germany (1925–1931) and active in France (1931–1935), the United Kingdom (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensi ...

was also nominated for Original Music Score, a first for a British film at the Academy Awards. Although this production is a remake of the 1924 version, the two films have differences, the most significant being that the thief and the prince are separate characters in this version. The screenplay is by

Lajos Biro Lajos () is a Hungarian masculine given name, cognate to the English Louis. People named Lajos include: Hungarian monarchs: * Lajos I, 1326-1382 (ruled 1342-1382) * Lajos II, 1506-1526 (ruled 1516-1526) In Hungarian politics: * Lajos Aul ...

and Miles Malleson, who also appears in the film as the Princess's father, the Sultan of Basra.

Plot

In ancient

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

, a blind, young beggar begins telling the film's story in flashback (mimicking the style of the ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

''), revealing that he is really Ahmad, the young, naive Sultan of Bagdad. Wanting to know more about his people, Ahmad is tricked by Jaffar, his evil

Grand Vizier Grand vizier ( fa, وزيرِ اعظم, vazîr-i aʾzam; ota, صدر اعظم, sadr-ı aʾzam; tr, sadrazam) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. The office of Grand Vizier was first ...

, into going in disguise into the city. Jaffar then has him arrested and seizes the throne. In prison, Ahmad meets the young thief Abu, who arranges their escape. They flee to Basra, where Ahmad meets and falls in love with the Princess. Jaffar, however, also journeys to Basra, intent on having the Princess for himself. Jaffar, a powerful sorcerer, provides the toy-obsessed Sultan of Basra with a mechanical flying horse in exchange for the promise of marriage to his daughter. The Princess, now in love with Ahmad, runs away, but Jaffar blinds Ahmad and turns Abu into a dog. The Princess is captured for the slave market and is bought by Jaffar's agent. At the palace, though, she falls into a deep sleep and cannot be awakened. Halima, Jaffar's minion, tricks Ahmad into awakening the Princess. He is then dismissed with the dog to the city's docks, where he concludes his story. The Princess is tricked into boarding a ship, where she is met by Jaffar who tells her that she can cure Ahmad's blindness only by allowing Jaffar to embrace her. She submits and the spells are lifted from both Ahmad and Abu. Jaffar prevents the two from following him by raising a storm that shipwrecks them. Returning to Basra, Jaffar uses a mechanical dancer to kill the Princess's father. He then goes back to Bagdad with the Princess. Abu awakes on a deserted beach, where he finds a bottle and opens it, releasing an enormous

genie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic myt ...

so embittered by his long imprisonment he intends to kill the boy. Abu tricks the genie into submitting to him and granting him three wishes. The first wish is wasted, but the genie helps Abu to steal a magical jewel that enables him to find Ahmad. With his second wish, Abu is reunited with Ahmad. With the jewel, Ahmad sees Jaffar using his magic to make the Princess forget her true love. Despondent, Ahmad quarrels with Abu, who inadvertently uses his third wish to send Ahmad back to Bagdad. In Bagdad, Ahmad is reunited with the Princess who remembers him. They are imprisoned by Jaffar and condemned to death. Abu helplessly witnesses all this with the jewel's aid. In anger, he destroys the jewel, which frees the "Old King" of the "Land of Legend." Abu is given a magic crossbow as a reward. He steals the king's

magic carpet A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its users to their destination. In literature One o ...

and flies on it to Bagdad. Abu's appearance fulfills an ancient prophecy and sparks a revolt against Jaffar by the city's inhabitants. Abu kills the fleeing Jaffar with the crossbow. Ahmad is restored to power and reunited with the Princess. Abu, alarmed by Ahmad's plans to educate him to become the vizier, flies off on the carpet in search of fun and adventure.

Cast

as Jaffar * Sabu as Abu * June Duprez as the Princess *

as Ahmad * Rex Ingram as the Djinn * Miles Malleson as the Sultan of Basra * Morton Selten as the Old King *

Mary Morris Mary Lilian Agnes Morris (13 December 1915 – 14 October 1988) was a Fijian born British actress. Life and career Morris was the daughter of Herbert Stanley Morris, a botanist, and his wife, Sylvia Ena de Creft-Harford. She trained at the Ro ...

as Halima, Jaffar's agent, and the "Silver Maid" * Bruce Winston as the Merchant *

Hay Petrie David Hay Petrie (16 July 1895 – 30 July 1948) was a Scottish actor noted for playing eccentric characters, among them Quilp in ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (1934), the McLaggen in '' The Ghost Goes West'' (1935) and Uncle Pumblechook in ''Great ...

as the Astrologer *

Adelaide Hall Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hal ...

as the Singer *

Roy Emerton Roy Emerton (9 October 1892 – 30 November 1944) was a British film actor. Earlier in his life, he was a sailor, stoker, docker, railway worker, and miner and served in the First World War. He played in a great number of popular London stage p ...

as the Jailor *

Allan Jeayes Allan John Jeayes (19 January 1885 – 20 September 1963) was an English stage and film actor. Jeayes was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, the son of Isaac Herbert Jeayes, archivist and Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum. ...

as the Story Teller *

Robert Greig Robert Greig (December 27, 1879 – June 27, 1958) was an Australian-American actor who appeared in more than 100 films between 1930 and 1949, usually as the dutiful butler. Born Arthur Alfred Bede Greig, he was the nephew of Australian pol ...

as Man of Basra (uncredited) *

Glynis Johns Glynis Margaret Payne Johns (born 5 October 1923) is a South African-born British former actress, dancer, musician and singer. Recognised as a film and Broadway icon, Johns has a career spanning eight decades, in which she appeared in more than ...

as Maid of the Princess (uncredited) Duprez's character is unnamed; she is simply referred to as "The Princess", and addressed as "Princess", "my dear", etc. Korda had intended to cast

Vivien Leigh Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in '' Go ...

as the Princess, but she went to Hollywood to be with

Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...

Production

Producer Alexander Korda, after a search for a director, chose German filmmaker

in early 1939, but by the early summer became dissatisfied with Berger's overall conception of the movie—feeling it was too small-scale and intimate—and, specifically, the score that Berger proposed to use. Essentially behind Berger's back, British director

Michael Powell Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a seri ...

was brought in to shoot various scenes—and Powell's scheduled work grew in amount and importance while, in the meantime, Korda himself did his best to undercut Berger on his own set; and while publicly siding with Berger on the issue of the music, he also undercut Berger's chosen composer ( Oscar Straus) by bringing in Miklos Rozsa and putting him into an office directly adjacent to Berger's with a piano, to work on a score. Eventually, Berger was persuaded to walk away from the project, and American filmmaker

, who had just finished work on another Korda-produced movie ('' Q Planes'') was brought in to help augment Powell's work. However, work was suspended with the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, for Powell was taken off the picture and put to work on the morale-boosting documentary '' The Lion Has Wings''. By the end of the year, Korda found himself running out of money and credit, and in the spring of 1940 he arranged to move the entire production to Hollywood (where some shots of the movie's young star Sabu had to be redone, for he had grown more than during the year since shooting had commenced). Powell remained in England, so direction was taken up in Hollywood by

Menzies Menzies is a Scottish surname, with Gaelic forms being Méinnearach and Méinn, and other variant forms being Menigees, Mennes, Mengzes, Menzeys, Mengies, and Minges. Derivation and history The name and its Gaelic form are probably derived f ...

and

Zoltan Korda Zoltan Korda (June 3, 1895 – October 13, 1961) was a Hungarian-born motion picture screenwriter, director and producer. He made his first film in Hungary in 1918, and worked with his brother Alexander Korda on film-making there and in London ...

during the summer of 1940—including shots of the heroes in the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

Monument Valley Monument Valley ( nv, Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, , meaning ''valley of the rocks'') is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the Utah-Arizona ...

Bryce Canyon Bryce Canyon National Park () is an American national park located in southwestern Utah. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern ...

and the Painted Desert; the scenes in the Temple of the Goddess of Light, among the last to be written, were done late in the summer, and the film was being edited and re-structured into the fall of 1940. At some point during production, the film was being written as a musical. The finished film has three songs, but others were written, with recordings of some surviving, including one verse of Rex Ingram singing a song written for the genie. The film is notable for being the first film Peter R. Hunt worked on, serving as an associate editor at 15 years old. Hunt would go on to work on six ''

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...

'' films, including directing 1969's ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service''.

Reception

The film was Korda's most successful in the US. The film was also a success in Europe, selling 5,135,145 tickets in France and becoming the seventh-most-attended film of the year. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reviewer

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

enthused that the film "ranks next to ''

Fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcor ...

'' as the most beguiling and wondrous film of this troubled season". Crowther praised "its truly magnificent color" and the performances of all five main actors.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

added ''The Thief of Bagdad'' to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "on a level with '' The Wizard of Oz''". According to Ebert, "it maintains a consistent spirit, and that spirit is one of headlong joy in storytelling". He praised the performances of Sabu and Veidt ("perfectly pitched to the needs of the screenplay"), though he was less impressed with the chemistry between Duprez and Justin ("rather bloodless"). While its 1924 predecessor holds a 96% "fresh" rating from the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the 1940 ''Thief of Bagdad'' has a 100% rating based on 29 reviews, with an average score of 8.70/10. Its consensus states, "Dashing, dazzling, and altogether magical, ''The Thief of Bagdad'' is an enchanting fantasy for children of all ages".

Influence

Although it was a remake of a 1924 silent film starring

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thi ...

, this film has been highly influential on later movies based on ''

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'' setting. For example, the Disney film ''

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part o ...

'' borrows freely from it, particularly the characters of the evil Vizier and the Sultan, both drawn with a marked similarity to the characters in ''The Thief of Bagdad''. The villain Jafar is named after the character played by Conrad Veidt, himself named after the historical vizier

Ja'far ibn Yahya Jafar ibn Yahya Barmaki, Jafar al-Barmaki ( fa, جعفر بن یحیی برمکی, ar, جعفر بن يحيى, Jafar bin yaḥyā) (767–803) also called Aba-Fadl, was a Persian vizier of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, succeeding his father ...

, who served

Harun ar-Rashid Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...

. Like the sultan of the earlier film, Disney's Sultan is obsessed with toys. The thieving monkey Abu in the Disney cartoon is based on the boy played by Sabu. Richard Williams, speaking about his film ''

The Thief and the Cobbler ''The Thief and the Cobbler'' is an unfinished animated fantasy film co-written and directed by Richard Williams. Originally conceived in the 1960s, the film was in and out of production for nearly three decades due to independent funding and ...

'', said that one of his interests was in creating an Oriental fantasy that did not copy from it. The ''

Prince of Persia ''Prince of Persia'' is a video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner. It is built around a series of action-adventure games focused on various incarnations of the eponymous Prince, set in ancient and medieval Persia. The first two games i ...

'' video game franchise also shares similar characteristics with the film. Larry Butler invented the first proper

chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...

process for the special effects scenes in this film, a variation on the existing " traveling matte" process. This technique has since become the standard process for separating screen elements and/or actors from their backgrounds and placing them on new backgrounds for special effects purposes, and has since been used in thousands of films. This film later influenced the creation of the Malay film ''

Abu Hassan Penchuri ''Abu Hassan Penchuri'' (Abu Hassan The Thief) is a 1955 Singaporean romantic fantasy film directed by B. N. Rao and starring P. Ramlee, Mariam, Nordin Ahmad. Cast * P. Ramlee Tan Sri Datuk Amar Teuku Zakaria bin Teuku Nyak Puteh (late ...

'' ("Abu Hassan the Thief", 1955) which was based in Baghdad. A number of Indian

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

-language films, were made under the titles of: ''Baghdad Ka Chor'' (''The Thief of Baghdad'') in 1934,

1946 Events January * January 6 - The first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into four occupation zones. * January 10 ** The ...

, 1955; '' Baghdad Gaja Donga'' (''Thief of Baghdad'') in 1968; and ''Thief of Baghdad'' in 1969 and 1977. '' Baghdad Thirudan'', a 1960 Indian

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

-language film by T. P. Sundaram, was directly remade from the 1924 version. A television series, ''Thief of Baghdad'', was also made in India, airing on

Zee TV Zee TV (stylised as ZEE TV) is a Hindi general entertainment pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-ba ...

between 2000 and 2001.

Home media

The film was released on VHS by

The Samuel Goldwyn Company The Samuel Goldwyn Company was an American independent film company founded by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., the son of the famous Hollywood mogul, Samuel Goldwyn, in 1978. Background The company originally distributed and acquired art-house films fro ...

. The film was released on DVD by MGM in 2002. The

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

released a two-disc DVD release in 2008 that includes a commentary track by filmmakers

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, incl ...

and

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

, who are both longtime fans of the film (their comments were recorded separately and then edited together). It has been released on Region B–locked

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

s in Germany (Anolis Entertainment, 2012) and the UK (Network Distributing, 2015). The UK disc also includes image galleries and the original theatrical trailer. The German disc features the same extras, plus additional trailers, an audio commentary and a 53-minute documentary on the film's star, Sabu.

References

Bibliography

* * ''The Great British Films'', pp 55–58, Jerry Vermilye, 1978, Citadel Press,

External links

* * * *
Reviews and articles
at th
Powell & Pressburger Pages

*
''The Thief of Bagdad: Arabian Fantasies''
an essay by Andrew Moor at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thief of Bagdad (1940 film) 1940 films 1940s fantasy adventure films British fantasy adventure films Films shot at Denham Film Studios 1940s English-language films British epic films Films by Powell and Pressburger Films directed by Michael Powell Films directed by Tim Whelan Films directed by William Cameron Menzies Films set in Baghdad Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award London Films films Films based on The Thief of Bagdad Genies in film Works based on Aladdin Sound film remakes of silent films Films scored by Miklós Rózsa British remakes of American films Films produced by Alexander Korda Epic fantasy films Films shot in Utah Films based on fairy tales 1940s British films