{"id":71511,"date":"2015-01-29T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T17:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=71511"},"modified":"2015-01-29T17:54:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T17:54:06","slug":"thief-of-bagdad-blu-ray-review-the-film-that-inspired-aladdin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/thief-of-bagdad-blu-ray-review-the-film-that-inspired-aladdin\/","title":{"rendered":"Thief Of Bagdad Blu-ray review: the film that inspired Aladdin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans of a certain classic Nineties animated feature will find a lot that\u2019s familiar in The Thief Of Bagdad: from the titular street rat and flying carpet to the \u2018djinn\u2019 and nefarious grand vizier, it\u2019s plain to see where Aladdin drew much of its inspiration from.<\/p>\n

A remake of Raoul Walsh\u2019s 1924 silent feature, this sees Prince Ahmad (John Justin) and earnest young thief Abu (Sabu) looking to win back their freedom after it is stolen from them by usurping sorcerer Jaffar (Conrad Veidt). It was producer Alexander Korda\u2019s most successful film in the US, and it\u2019s pain to see why: its tale of lost romance and the underdog triumphing is pure classic Hollywood era.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s cynicism-free, if at times jarringly violent for its age rating (it\u2019s unlikely that any film culminating in a guy being shot in the head with an arrow would pass as a U nowadays), but unavoidably endearing in the way it charges headlong into each scene, only armed with a disarming sense of fun. It\u2019s like a boys\u2019-own adventure with all the darker moments left in, and all the better for it. The majority of today\u2019s equivalent films are generally tales of innocence brutally shattered and irreparably lost: here, a sense of optimism is prevalent throughout the feature.<\/p>\n

\"Thief<\/a>It helps that the performances all-round are generally excellent: Justin shines as the well-meaning but na\u00efve young king, and Veidt adds the sort of layers not normally reserved for what is traditionally a cackling-bad-guy role. Easily stealing the show is Indian child actor Sabu (who went on to play Mowgli in the live-action version of The Jungle Book).<\/p>\n

With a glint in his eye and an irrepressible penchant for mischief, he owns every scene he\u2019s in, and his influence on the Disney film \u2013 both via Aladdin and Abu \u2013 is clear to see.<\/p>\n

Putting aside the of-its-time instances of Hollywood whitewashing \u2013 with all the main cast apart from Sabu being Caucasian \u2013 The Thief Of Bagdad passes the acid test of timelessness by remaining just as entertaining now as it was when it was made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journey into a whole new world with Aladdin forebear The Thief Of Bagdad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":71516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[4328,4327],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Thief-Of-Bagdad.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}