The Thief of Bagdad (United Artists) (1924)

Advance Publicity and Story About the Players Heart and Soul in Doug’s New Film Douglas Fairbanks’ “The Thief of Bagdad,” which has been generally ac¬ cepted as being the most amazing de¬ velopment in the moving picture dra¬ ma, will be presented at the._._._ The sales of seats will open_ and mail orders will be filled in the order of their receipt. In “The Thief of Bagdad” there has been realized the most extraordinary happenings, so amazing that the thought of picturing them had not heretofore been thought possible. In this picture, founded upon the Arabian Nights, Douglas Fairbanks seems pretty nearly to have covered the uni¬ verse, both of fact and fancy. There will be discovered in it scenes under the sea, on the earth, and in the air— including many imaginary places that exist only in fantastic dreams. It has been said that when Mr. Fairbanks, as the Thief of Bagdad, sails the Ma¬ gic Carpet, you shout; that when he rides the Winged Horse in the clouds, you laugh; that when he kills a Drag¬ on, you applaud; that when he wears the Invisible Cloak, you cheer; that when he raises the Magic Army, you gasp; that when he wins the Princess, you sigh—as well might be expected under the circumstances. There have been such wild and pre¬ varicating statements as to the cost of the making of pictures—a few millions more or less, not being thought wor¬ thy of consideration—that Mr. Fair¬ banks has refrained from disclosing any figures as to “The Thief of Bag¬ dad.” Were they known, however, the cost of this picture would seem be¬ yond belief. With “The Thief of Bag¬ dad,” or indeed with any picture, it is not a question, however, of how much it cost, but what intelligence was put in it; what has been achieved! Flaunt¬ ing the cost of a picture is very often a mere ruse to cover up an absence of imagination in the making of it. The cost, after all, is nothing; the heart and soul that went into the picture is everything. “The Thief of Bagdad” has a heart and a soul! Therein lies its greatness. The more important members of the cast are Julanne Johnston, formerly a member of the famous Morgan Danc¬ ers, who impersonates the Princess; So-Jin Kamayama, imported from Japan, where he has been the leading Shakepearean actor, who impersonates the Mongol Prince. Anna May Wong, a charming little Chinese flapper, is seen in the part of the slave. Snitz Edwards, is the Thief’s evil associate; Brandon Hurst is the Caliph. Long Journey for Art’s Right Hand Arthur Edeson, cameraman for Douglas Fairbanks, figured that this year his right hand traveled more than 284 miles further than the rest of his high-salaried self. No, it isn’t an ar¬ tificial hand; it’s all muscle and bone, equipped with five agile digits that helped to “put over” the astounding feats of photography featured in “The Thief of Bagdad,” which comes to the Here’s how Edeson explains the journey his good right hand took, showing that a cameraman can be a good mathematician as well. “In the past year, I’ve ground 480,- 000 feet of film. Each foot means two turns of the camera crank, or 960,000 turns. The length of the crank is 6 inches, which makes each revolution over 18.85 inches. Multiply this by the 960,000 and we have 18,096,000 inches or over 284 miles.” Man’s Life Saved by Jagged Stick “Can an alligator reason?” “He can,” says the keeper in charge of Old Tom at the Pickford-Fairbanks studio. Tom is a big alligator used in “The Thief of Bagdad,” which comes to the ---------—., and the only thing his potential suitcase fears is the long jagged stick his keeper carries. Re¬ cently, the keeper came into the ’ga¬ tor’s pen with a different stick and immediately Old Tom became un¬ manageable. Without warning, he pulled his deadliest tactics; the tail switch in which his corrugated tail scrapes its victim cruelly. The keeper dodged just in time and from the cor¬ ner of the pen grabbed Tom’s own stick. Instantly, Tom’s tantrum sub¬ sided. The keeper insists that if any¬ thing happens to that stick, the ’ga¬ tor will be uncontrollable and the time will have arrived for his transforma¬ tion into a traveling bag. Glorious Fantasy in Doug’s New Film Douglas Fairbanks in “The Thief of Bagdad” will have its presentation in this city at —... It is signifi¬ cant that those interested in this new Fairbanks picture have not resorted to the use of adjectives that have become nauseating to moving picture devo¬ tees,^ such phrases as the “super-pic¬ ture,” “super-special,” “classical master¬ piece of filmdom,” “superlative achievement of ultra-supremacy.” “The world’s first example of artistic perfection,” and all that sort of thing. Here is a picture that does not call for sesquipedalians to describe it. It is something so new and heretofore un¬ dreamed of in picture making, that it requires no absurd overstatements. It is what was heretofore thought be¬ yond the camera’s capacity to realize. The moving picture here reaches its apex. Yet, one might well imagine that when the critics of such cities as have seen “The Thief of Bagdad,” have come to write of it, they had first swallowed a bushel of alphabets and crammed down all the various books of synonyms on the market,—so rhap¬ sodical have they been in describing it. And all this goes to prove that when a great picture comes along it is wise not to make too big a brag about it in advance; that is, give those who are invited to see and judge a chance to venture an opinion. As to the sub¬ stance of the story; it is a glorious fantasy of the Arabian Nights,—a fanciful story of love and adventure, laid in an imaginary world of fancy, and abounding in amazing happenings, —or as one scribe has put it, “unbe¬ lievable wonders,” such, for instance, as the Flying Carpet; the Winged Horse, that flies through the clouds, and numerous other like flabbergast¬ ing conceptions, actually brought to life. And for its presentation in this city, “The Thief of Bagdad” will offer all the atmospheric effects, a sym¬ phony orchestra, trained by the com¬ poser of the music; full scenic and stage effects, a band of Arabian musi¬ cians, with the instruments of their native country, as well as a Moham¬ medan Prayer Man. When “The Thief of Bagdad” is shown here, there will be brought into use all the late inven¬ tions of motion pictures, including Edison’s newest high-tension lamps, as well as the newly invented silk and rubber screen. This latter device holds the illumination, with less reflection, providing a clearer picture than here¬ tofore. “Bagdad” Surpasses all Other Films Douglas Fairbanks’ glorious fantasy of The Arabian Nights, “The Thief of Bagdad,” will be the attraction at the -----—. This photoplay, ac¬ cording to all accounts, surpasses any¬ thing heretofore seen on the screen. This extraordinary picture has upset the equilibrium of the critics in every city in which it has been presented. It is the crescendo photoplay. It is a fantastical story of love and adven¬ ture laid in an imaginary world of fan¬ cy, abounding with amazing happen¬ ings, and what critics generally have called unbelievable wonders. If you still believe in love, if adventure still stirs you, if you like your heart to miss beats in ecstatic moments of ex¬ citing suspense, if you enjoy the sur¬ prise of seeing things that heretofore you thought were impossible—here in “The Thief of Bagdad” are all these things, in the background of beauty and splendor. In this picture, a Winged Horse flies up to and through the clouds, a Magic Carpet soars over the house-tops and into the sky; wonder after wonder, surprise after surprise, are here revealed in amazing abund¬ ance. To depict such happenings on the screen has never been considered within the bounds of possibility. This crowning achievement has been ac¬ complished by Douglas Fairbanks. It has received the highest endorsements that any picture has ever received. In this particular, it will be well to repeat what Robert L. Sherwood wrote in his department in “The Silent Dra¬ ma,” in “Life,” April 3, 1924. “After seeing ‘The Thief of Bagdad,’ I am more competent to understand the motives which inspired the sturdy Bri¬ tons who have been struggling for years to reach the peak of Mt. Ever¬ est. I know now what it means to be able to say, ‘Well, I’ve been to the top.’ Standing at the point marked by this Arabian Nights’ entertainment which Douglas Fairbanks has fash¬ ioned, I can look down to the lesser summits of ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘Broken Blossoms,’ ‘Passion,’ and the rest, sev¬ eral miles below, and barely discern¬ ible from this dizzy altitude, lie ‘Where is My Wandering Boy To¬ night,’ ‘Rags to Riches,’ and ‘The Old Nest.’ There may well be higher peaks than that achieved by ‘The Thief of Bagdad’; but if there are, they have not as yet been chartered on any of the existent contour maps.” The Cloak of Invisibility If a thing is invisible, can you see it? Sounds silly, perhaps, but it repre¬ sents a job that required a great deal of ingenuity on the part of the Fair¬ banks Technical staff in making “The Thief of Bagdad,” which comes to the The Cloak of Invisibility, which has caused a great deal of comment, is supposed to render its wearer invisi¬ ble. It was necessary, however, that the audience have some idea of the ex¬ act location of this cloak even during the moments that it is invisible. How this could be done, presented a pretty problem. The solution of it is an en¬ trancing optical subtlety. You see the cloak thrown over the shoulder of its owner, and lo! he disappears, but as he moves about, under the cloak, there is a vague shadowy shape which you can follow with your eyes, but it is so elusive and ethereal a thing that you cannot be sure even of what you see. Art Leaders Come to Cinema Field The influx of leaders of other arts into motion pictures seems to reach its height when a single production engages the services of America’s foremost composers, poets, and poster artists. The musical background of Douglas^ Fairbanks’ “The Thief of Bagdad,” which comes to the.... is a symphonic work by Mortimer Wilson, whose New Orleans prize ov¬ erture emphasized his versatility. Pre¬ vious to this, the whole world of mu¬ sic knew him for his chamber music, symphonies, and other classic works. Wilson’s published works are the ba¬ sis for degrees in leading musical con¬ servatories of this country. In titling this picture, Douglas Fair¬ banks, wishing to preserve the fantas¬ tic spirit of the story, sought the as¬ sistance of George Sterling, the poet. While England has long looked upon Sterling as America’s greatest poet, it is only in the last few years that he has come into his own at home. The lyrical quality of his work proved es¬ pecially effective in the romantic speeches. Ancients Had Peculiar Gift Brandon Hurst, who impersonates the role of Caliph with Douglas Fair¬ banks in “The Thief of Bagdad,” which will be the attraction at the ..is a student on optical illu¬ sions. In delving into the history of optics and their illusions, he found things credited to the ancients which make our modern trick stuff in the same class as Pussy-wants-a-corner when compared with auction bridge. “In olden times,” he says, “spectacles were visioned out of the thin air by means of very clever trickery never entirely explained by historians. Gre¬ cian and Roman priests produced re¬ markable optical illusions, the princi¬ pal one being to throw spectral images upon the smoke of burning incense, it is thought by means of concave metal mirrors. These images were represen¬ tations of divinities passing before the spectators in carefully darkened cham¬ bers. In the fourteenth century re¬ flections of moving objects similiar to those of motion-picture work were produced, and Sir John Mandeville writes that he saw these pictorial illu¬ sions at the court of “The Great Khan” in Asia. In the middle of the sixteenth century Benvenuto Cellini saw phantasmargoric specters project¬ ed upon smoke at night seances in the Coliseum at Rome. “The existence of the camera at that time is established as a fact in a good description written by Baptista Portia and published in 1558 under the name of ‘The Magic Naturals.’ Magic-lantern effects were common back in the 14th century, when glass lenses were more or less generally known. Roger Bacon, about the year 1260, wrote of glass lenses so made as to give good telescopic and microscopic effects. So we are not so advanced after all. If you delve into the ancient sciences and arts, you will discover that there is really nothing very new and we have even lost some of the things known in the past. Re¬ member, Leonardo da Vinci made sketches that were forerunners of the modern flying machines. So it is pos¬ sible that The Winged Horse, The Fying Carpet, The Cloak of Invisibil¬ ity, and The Magic Rope in ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ may not have astonished our earliest ancestors as much as we think. They had some wonderful tricks of their own that might be won¬ derful even to our sophisticated eyes.”