CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Lawbolisted Powerful

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

krocheav With so much incredible talent gathered together for this film, it must have left audiences of the 40s and 50's spellbound and breathless!Directorial greats (several!) weave an endless trail of eye popping treats throughout a well written screenplay. This fantasy adventure is crammed with colour and movement of the more intelligent kind. Completed within two continents, after a great deal of difficulty ~ during a time when the world was embroiled in the stupidity of WW11 ~ this film still offers an abundance of thrills. Audiences used to looking at today's C.G.A. may find the special effects lacking, but hey, this is pioneering movie making of the best caliber. Look, and see where Harryhausen got much of his inspiration (and copied some characters I'm sure) Look, at the magnificent visual design, striking sets, fluid camera, and glowing 3 strip Technicolor (no color ever looked as good as this and it never faded). Names like William Cameron Menzies, Michael Powell --too many to name-- created one of the first all time great Arabian stunners...But wait there's more! This work features one of the most impressive of all Miklos Rozsa's music scores....dare I ask if he ever bettered it??Can't overlook a marvelous cast, remarkable Dog, Oscar winning photography of Georges Perinal and Osmond Borradaile, topped off with Rex Ingram's damned scary Genie ~ even more physically menacing than Conrad Veidt's terrific Jaffar. It could be said that this set-the-scene for so many fantasies that followed... The re-issue print I was kindly given by a good friend (The Korda Collection series from Magna Pacific) is a little unkempt, with much neg dirt left to show as white dots on the image and yet, while not a digitally re-mastered DVD transfer, the image is thankfully quite sharply focused. I see that Criterion (and maybe another) may have given this masterpiece a serious clean up, so shop around before buying. Highly recommended to all appreciators of classic cinematic milestones... Young, Old, and Indifferent! KenR...............

Umar Mansoor Bajwa It was really a feast for my eyes to watch this wonderful, amazingly interesting, magically charged Arabian Nights adventure after so many years. I really enjoyed it and felt the beauty of the golden age of Hollywood unleashing before me like some dream come true. This is a superb Technicolor movie sporting special effects of those seminal times of motion picture technology. The story and the plot is extremely well scripted and filmed. The characters of Jaffar, Princess and the thief played by Sabu, all perfectly get under the skin of their respective roles. Considering the year 1940, it was a far cry for even big Hollywood productions like Casablanca(1942) and Citizen Kane (1941) to be filmed in Technicolor. The special visual effects are more catchy, attractive and thrill oriented than those filmed today with computer aided technology of the 21st century. I, therefore pay my glowing tributes to the producers and directors who endeavored to magically enthrall their audience well over half a century ago. The bewitching music score by Miklos Rozsa adds stymieing ambiance to this fine episode of One Thousand and One Nights. A must see for all the sci-fi crazy generation of this computer graphics age.

joenook As with most highly rated IMDb titles, majority rule typically connotes an undeserved rating based on highly flawed perspectives of nostalgic praise, and, unfortunately, the 1940 remake of The Thief of Baghdad deserves such insinuation. As with most Technicolor films, each shot is a display of vibrant beauty and the marvelous colors that made the Technicolor process such a joy to look at; however, here is where the admiration begins and simultaneously ends, for this is a film that seems so highly ambitious that it forgets what truly counts in adventure films: the adventure! A very loose remake of the Douglas Fairbanks 1924 masterpiece of the same name, based on the writings of One Thousand and One Nights, one would imagine that a film with the credit of three(!) directors, 16 years of (presumably) increased talent in special effects, and the marvelous aesthetic of Technicolor would be such a film to behold! I can only surmise that such ambition and the seemingly unnecessary amount of directorial credit is the consequence of a rather insubstantial and insipid adventure.By far one of the most egregious anomalies in the film is the odd bisection of the thief/prince protagonist into two separate entities, rather than the use of the singular archetypal "rags to riches" character of Fairbanks' character. Here the character is split into the prince, played by John Justin, and the thief, played by Sabu, as seen and often credited in first name only. While Justin's character plays the love interest and naïve prince to the isolated damsel-in-distress, Sabu seems almost relegated to the simpleminded thief, partly playing the lead to what little on screen adventure happens, but almost ostensibly as a vehicle of the noble savage that constantly and selflessly gets in harm's way to the benefit and protection of Justin's prince.While there are other flaws both in characters and on screen chemistry, the narrative and pace also suffers from an odd mixture of overly long flashbacks. Nearly half of the almost two hour runtime consists of a broken up flashback in the prince's perspective, and when finally told, accomplishes almost nothing but poor storytelling. The actual adventure of the film begins too late in the film to really accomplish anything, and while some of the sets are a wonder to behold, little excitement takes place to warrant the long and convoluted buildup to a weak finale.One can see a very liberal amount of "inspiration" here that would later serve Disney's Aladdin (1992), including almost identical representations in both the diabolical Jafar (here Jaffar,) and the bumbling Sultan, amongst other small details. While I don't consider it entirely fair to keep comparing it to the Fairbanks film, or even films after, I do not understand how this film is not considered an objective failure on many levels, both in direction and purely in entertainment value. Previous reviews tout a generous gaze of rose colored glasses under the guise of nostalgia, with a seemingly unanimous majority unaware of the previous silent film, while others seem to claim that such a film is nothing short of a technical and aesthetic masterpiece, and in summation should be considered a great film as a whole. Furthermore, past praise by Ebert and a generous DVD release by The Criterion Collection further project the idea that such a film is a deserved masterpiece, despite such obvious shortcomings.In conclusion, while my review may seem at times harsh, it is not a complete failure. It's certainly a lavish and pretty production with a few notable things of interest, but I would seek elsewhere in need of adventure, starting with the Fairbank's 1924 film of the same name, and especially the special effects wonders of Ray Harryhausen, be it the Arabian Nights themed Sinbad films, or the more mythological Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts. As for another film by a 1/3 of the directorial effort starring Sabu, there is always Michael Powell's (and Emeric Pressburger's) Black Narcissus, a wonderful film both technically and cinematically.

A_Different_Drummer Yet another film where reviewers seem a bit shy about going for the high numbers. This production came out of left field even by the standards of 1940 and was not only brilliant then, it is brilliant now. How is it possible for a project almost a century old to hold up against CGI today? Maybe it really is magic. There are elements here that are unforgettable -- the genie, who yearns for nothing but to be free ... free ... free. The evil magician who does hesitate to kill or tamper with the mind of the heroine. The use of mechanical/magical devices is especially memorable because these paradoxes were indeed part and parcel of the "arabian nights" mythology and remain as big a mystery today as they were centuries ago. Agree with those reviewers who insist that this movie has never been equalled. True. A one-of-a-kind, fun for old and young, and highly recommended.