Editing The Thief of Bagdad (1924 film) (section)

==Reception==
[[Glenn Erickson]] praised the film, writing:
<blockquote>
Every age has its wonder entertainments, and 1924's The Thief of Bagdad transported audiences to a new level of imaginative fantasy. It had the biggest star of the era in a production that dwarfed anything anyone had ever seen ... It has sets bigger than those in Intolerance and costumed crowd scenes to rival the enormous Italian spectacles of the day. What's more, the picture is packed with elaborate special effects, many of which still have the power to impress. ... Some critics prefer Douglas Fairbanks' earlier modern-day adventures to his twenties' costume epics, but this dazzler still takes people's heads off. Simply put, the production's overall design and execution -- sets, costumes, lighting, special effects -- are coordinated so tightly that the illusion of grandeur is complete.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s4109bagd.html |title=The Thief of Bagdad |first=Glenn |last=Erickson |publisher=[[DVD Talk]]}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Darragh O'Donoghue is of the opinion that:
<blockquote>
"The first reel provides some of the purest joy the silent cinema can offer. ... Where initially there had been a satisfying equivalence between the discrete adventures of Ahmed as a psychologically plausible thief in medieval Mesopotamia and Ahmed as a universal Everyman figure, in the film's latter two-thirds, the former distinctive superstructure gives way to a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress in Orientalist drag. ... Adventure sequences are staged like fairground tableaux and have none of the interest in physical process or emotional investment that made the early reels so exciting. ... After promising a dream, this great but flawed film eventually sends its audience to sleep.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2017/cteq/the-thief-of-bagdad/ |title=The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924) |first=Darragh |last=O'Donoghue |magazine=[[Senses of Cinema]] |date=September 2017}}</ref>
</blockquote>

The film along with ''[[The Sheik (film)|The Sheik]]'' (1921) was adapted into a broadway by [[Dardanella]] which was performed on October 12, 1928, in [[Surabaya]], and starred Indonesian actor [[Tan Tjeng Bok]] which later earned him the nickname "Douglas Fairbanks of Java".{{Sfn|Erkelens|2022|p=53}} Future American dancer, [[Devi Dja]], also appeared in the broadway by working behind the stage.{{Sfn|Erkelens|2022|p=53}}