Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 02/14/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924)

Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Julianne Johnston, Anna May Wong, Snitz Edwards, Sojin Kamayama, Brandon Hurst, Tote Du Crow, Noble Johnson. Screenplay: Lotta Woods, Douglas Fairbanks, Achmed Abdullah, James T. O'Donohoe. Cinematography: Arthur Edeson. Production design: William Cameron Menzies. Film editing: William Nolan.

Back when Bagdad was synonymous with flying carpets and not prolonged international conflict, Douglas Fairbanks produced what is either a magical romp or an example of Orientalism at its worst, depending on your point of view. But for the purposes of film history, let's suspend political and social consciousness and appreciate The Thief of Bagdad for what it accomplished: an amusing spectacle, with marvelous sets and (for the time) remarkable special effects. Add to that Fairbanks's energetic performance -- if you can endure the balletic pantomime he often slips into -- and you've got a classic for the usual kids of all ages. It holds up well even today, in part because it's all spectacle: Sound would be superfluous. And yes, Sojin Kamayama's Mongol prince adheres to the "yellow peril" stereotype, a foreshadowing of Flash Gordon's Ming the Merciless, with Anna May Wong slinking around as his partner in malfeasance, but we're treating this as camp, right? Julianne Johnston's princess is a little vapid, not quite the astonishing beauty who's supposed to sweep the thief off his feet and turn him away from larceny toward love. The movie is a shade too long, and it loses some momentum when the thief goes off on his quest to find the thing that will win the princess's love. Even though it helps him save Bagdad from the Mongol hordes, I found his box of magic powder (if that's what it is -- the movie is a little vague about it) less impressive than the Persian prince's (Mathilde Comont) flying carpet, the Indian Prince's (Noble Johnson) crystal ball, and the Mongol prince's golden apple that gives him power over life and death. But even when the story lags, there's always something fun to watch.