General Data:
The Thief of Bagdad
USA, 1924
Directed by: Raoul Walsh,
Duration: 147 minutes
16mm silent film, English intertitles
Short and Sweet:
A clever thief competes with a Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess. However, from the game, true love unexpectedly develops, with adventurous complications….”
About:
Actor Douglas Fairbanks himself came up with the idea for this adventure tale from One Thousand and One Nights, wrote the screenplay, and took on the production. At that time, he was at the peak of his Hollywood career. As a laughing thief and braggart, he roams through the oriental Baghdad, which is under the rule of the Caliph. Skillfully and with muscle power, he uses his diverse abilities to have enough for daily life. However, he eventually wants to prove himself worthy of winning the princess’s heart and masters numerous difficult challenges as a valiant hero. The fantasy adventure, featuring special effects such as the flight on a magic carpet, and stylistic elements of expressionist film, is considered one of the outstanding works of silent film and is absolutely worth watching even after 100 years.
Musical Score:
New musical score by Wilfried Kaets for piano and playback: The music is designed as a reminiscence of the great silent film scores of the 1920s. It ranges between cine-historical and contemporary to experimental sounds, thus on one hand staying close to the opulent film to ‘breathe emotional life’ into the images, and on the other hand giving musical space to the director’s sometimes imaginatively experimental ideas.