The Thief of Bagdad (United Artists) (1924)

Advance and During Run Stories of Director find Star FAMOUS INDIAN ROPE TRICK Douglas Fairbanks Performs What No Magician Has Ever Been Able to Accomplish magic or legerdemain, there is no single trick that has occasioned so much speculation and controversy as the famous Indian Rope Trick. It con¬ sists of the magician, logi, or what you will, throwing a rope in the air and then having a boy scamper up the rope and disappear. All writers on magic deny that this trick was ever performed. Yet, if he does not actually accomplish this trick, Douglas Fairbanks, in “The Thief of Bagdad,” which comes to the ...—•—gives an amazing imitation of it. Were it not for one circumstance, it might very well be said that the rope is. pulled and held up by an invisible wire; but those who have seen “The Thief of Bagdad” will recall that when Doug climbs the rope, he takes hold of the end of it, in the air, and twists it into a knot. So that disproves the idea that the rope was held up by a wire. While not setting up any claim to magic powers, it would appear, then, that Doug had outdone all magicians whatsoever. You actually see him per¬ form, this trick in broad daylight, and that is more than other wizards have ever been able to accomplish. A writer in the New York “Times,” of September 30th last, stated that in a conversation he had with the late Harry Kellar, the magician, the latter had stated that, while in India, he saw this trick performed, but the. photo¬ graphs he had taken showed that noth¬ ing of the sort had occurred,—thus in¬ dicating mass hypnotism. Harry Kellar was evidently spoofing the writer of this letter. In point of fact, about thirty years ago, an English journalist wrote from India to the effect that he had seen the Rope Trick and had taken snapshots of the same, which revealed the fact, that there was no boy, no rope, and so no trick—hence hypnotism. This yarn was published throughout the entire world. Those acquainted with hypno¬ tism at once pointed out the absurdity of this fiction; it being quite impos¬ sible to hypnotise an entire audience. The author of it finally confessed that it was a mere invention gotten up to test public credulity. So that does away with Harry Kellar’s story. The fiction as to the Rope Trick dates back, as far as I can discover, to the fourteenth century, and has been told of by travellers from time to time dur¬ ing these passing centuries. The fable, as ordinarily related, corresponds close¬ ly with the account as given by the no¬ torious Madame Blavatsky, who pre¬ tended to have seen it in Thibit. It may be just as well to repeat the Blavat¬ sky story: “In full sight of a multitude, com¬ prising several hundred Europeans and many thousand Egyptians and Afri¬ cans, the juggler came out on a bare space of ground, leading a small boy, stark naked, by the hand, and carry¬ ing a huge roll of tape, that might be twelve or eighteen inches wide. After certain ceremonies, he whirled the roll about his head several times, and then flung it straight up into the air. In¬ stead of falling back to the earth after it had ascended a short distance, it kept on upward, unwinding and un¬ winding interminably from the stick, until it grew to be a mere speck, and finally passed out of sight. The jug¬ gler drove the pointed end of the stick into the ground, and then beckoned the boy to approach. Pointing upward, and talking in a strange jargon, he seemed to be ordering the little fellow to ascend the self-suspended tape, which by this time stood straight and stiff, as if it were a board whose end rested against some solid support up in mid¬ air. The boy bowed compliance, and began climbing, using his hands and feet as little ‘All Right’ does when climbing Satsuma’s balance pole. The boy went higher and higher, until he too seemed to pass into the clouds and disappear. The juggler waited five or ten minutes, and then pretending to be impatient, shouted up to his assistant as if to order him down. No answer was heard and no boy appeared; so finally, as if carried away with rage, the jug¬ gler thrust a naked sword into his breech-cloth (the only garment on his person) and climbed after the boy. Up and up, and hand over hand, and step by step, he ascended, until the straining eyes of the multitude saw him no more. There was a moment’s pause, and then a wild shriek came down from the sky, and a bleeding arm, as if freshly cut from the boy’s body, fell with a horrid thud on the ground. Then came an¬ other, then the two legs, one after the other, then the dismembered trunk, and last of. all, the ghastly head, every part streaming with gore and covering the ground.” The chief point of this story is that it has been conclusively proven that Madame Blavatsky’s assertion that she had gone to Thibit to be instructed by the great Mahatmas, Morya and Koot Hoomi, is utterly false. During the time she was supposed to be in Thibit, she was, in fact, wandering about Europe, leading a questionable life and at times suspected of being a Russian spy. It is rather curious, too, that the account of the rope trick, as given by Madame Blavatsky, is practically iden¬ tical with the narration of Ibn Batuta, who in 1348 was entertained and pre¬ tended to have seen the trick performed at the court of the Viceroy of Kahonsa. It appears, according to Ibn Batuta, that the Kaze Afkharrudin, who was present at this supposed exhibition of the Rope Trick, remarked: “Wallah! ’Tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor mending: ’tis all hocus-pocus.” Three centuries pass when we find Edwin Malton, an Anglo-Dutch trav¬ eller who, about 1670, at Batavia, pre¬ tended to have seen this trick after the manner narrated by Ibn Batuta. We come down to the “Times of India” which, on September 15, 1859, printed an account of a traveller who reported having seen the trick performed by jugglers “In the next county.” Com¬ mending on this story the “Times” said: “Is not this rather a severe strain on one’s credulity, even for an Indian jug¬ gler story?” Various writers on magic, as well as acting magicians, have, while visit¬ ing India, made earnest efforts to un¬ fathom the tales of the famous Rope Trick. So far as any of these could discover, the trick was always to be seen at the end of the rainbow, in the next county! When the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edwards, vis¬ ited India, Captain Wertzler, who had served thirty years in the British army in India, was selected as the chief di¬ rector of the party. He was instructed, in advance, to secure the very best Indian magicians, and to provide par¬ ticularly an exhibition of the famous Rope Irick. The Captain made every effort to secure a magician who could present this latter trick, and failed. If the British government could learn nothing of it in India, it is rather singular that so many casual travellers had been able to see it performed. King Edward, according to Captain Wertzler, was greatly disappointed that he was unable to witness this trick, and that nothing better than the time-worn man¬ go and basket hocus-pocus, could be pro¬ vided. . The Rope Trick, then, is not a trick, it is a prevarication. If it was ever performed as described, it was not a trick or a feat of jugglery, but an amaz¬ ing miracle. The fairy tale of Jack climbing the beanstalk is not more fab¬ ulous, and it oddly bears a close re¬ semblance, and might very well have been the origin of the Rope Trick Prestidigitators have vainly attempted to give at least a semblance of this trick on the stage, in their performances. It is an easy matter, by the use of Prof. Pepper’s famous device, called the Ghost Trick, to have people appear and disappear on the stage; so also Harry Kellar’s famous Blue Room, in which he appeared and disappeared at will. But to have a boy or man climb a rope several feet in the open air and disap¬ pear, is quite a different matter, and has never been successfully accomplished. Present day theatre-goers, are ac¬ quainted with the trick of having a girl disappear from a swing, at the shot of a pistol. This feat is easy of accom¬ plishment, owing to the fact that there are two wooden posts that held up the swing these posts hiding the edges of the black curtain, which, upon being released, hide the girl on the swing. But there can be no posts near at hand to hide a black curtain, masked against a black back-drop, in the case of a boy climbing a rope. The suggestion of the superhuman enters into all the tricks of the Indian juggler, even to his rag baby. The burial alive hocus-pocus is another ex¬ ample of the effort of the jugglers to overcome the laws of nature. In the same line , is the growth of the mango tree, a trick so transparent that it is amazing that it has prevailed. It is quite natural, then, that credence should have been, given to the famous Rope Trick, which Douglas Fairbanks does actually perform in “The Thief of Bag- Exceptional Cast in Doug’s New Film picture, “The Thief of Bagdad,” which commences an engagement at the_ .. _— —, f represents every coun¬ try in the world with the exception of biam and Greenland, and one of the three extras who claimed to be from Iceland admitted having spent two years in Greenland. •?u C1 ? g !^ 1C ! in . an im aginary locale with fanciful settings and environment it was essential that this picture include as many bizzare personalities as possi¬ ble Mere types would not answer this need, for, strangely enough, every prin¬ cipal character in the production is what casting directors call “an acting part.” his means that actual histrionic ability was as much a requirement as unusual cast of feature. Doug is said to have spared no ex¬ pense in finding the right people and the result is as polyglot a gathering of people as ever embarked upon common enterprise. p Fil ?\w , a !!’ th ^ re is an Irish director, Raoul Walsh. This was a good start, for it required real Irish fighting quali¬ ties to control the battle of diverse tem¬ perament that raged very wildly at times. I he leading woman was Julanne Johnston, a Swedish girl, recruited from the ranks of the Morgan troupe of dancers. quired emotional subtlety and balance was played by Anna May Wong, a Chinese girl, educated in America. Her Chinese name is Lew Wong Song, and means two yellow willows. When the picture was being filmed, Miss Wong almost walked out on her job because an enthusiastic press agent misunder- s , the translation of her name and published it as “two yelling widows.” Ihe other two . slaves were played by Etta Lee and Winter Blossom, both of Mongolian extraction, while the Mongol magician was played by Sadakicbi Hart¬ mann, whose mother was Japanese and whose father was German. The evil man was played by Snitz Edwards, of German parentage, and the Caliph by Brandon Hurst, an English- m a m The soothsayer was characterized by loto du Crow, an Alsatian. In the part of the awaker was Charles Stevens a Scotchman. Thus down the list, the leading char¬ acter check off nation after nation, un¬ til we reach Noble Johnson, a full- blooded Sioux Indian, and M. Comont French to the core. The difficult and important character¬ ization of the Mongol Prince was the work of So-Jin, a very famous Japanese actor, who is perhaps the only great Shakespearean actor that Japan has pro¬ duced. His counsellor was delineated by Kamayama Nambu, who was asso¬ ciated, with So-Jin in his native land. Ihe picturesque sworder was played by Sam Baker, a Senegambian. Of course, being Oriental in atmosphere, the pro¬ duction required many Oriental types for its mass scenes and it was not un¬ usual for little groups to include seven or eight different nationalities of the far East. Moroccans, Tripolitans, Arabs, East Indians and Senegalese predomin¬ ated, but all the eunuchs were Abyssini- ans. There was one player in the cast, by the way, a full-blooded, 100 per cent American, who exemplified the rule set forth in the first paragraph—that acting ability was an essential requirement in the casting of the picture. His name is Douglas Fairbanks and he is quite well known in Hollywood.