The Thief of Bagdad/Publisher's note

much curiosity has been aroused by the marvellous production of “The Thief of Bagdad,” that we asked Mr. Fairbanks to tell our readers some of the production secrets. This article by Mr. Arthur Zellner is the result of that request.

For an ordinary picture a scenario is written, a cast assembled, a technical staff instructed to prepare plans—scenes taken and film edited all in five to ten weeks, according to conditions under which companies work.

For “The Thief of Bagdad,” twenty-two people spent eight months in research work before a single scene was shot.

This one difference summarizes the vast gulf which lies between programme pictures and a stupenduous production like “The Thief of Bagdad.”

Even to have conceived the idea of filming the Arabian Nights’ stories was considered a bold departure, but Mr. Fairbanks has a penchant for the unusual.

When he first decided to make this picture, he realized that fantasy, being imaginary and elusive, is the most difficult thing in the world to picture, for as soon as you build and photograph a thing you give it substance and reality. This, by the way, was the fundamental problem of “The Thief of Bagdad.”

The old stories of the day of Haroun al Raschid, or Aaron the Just, were in imaginary locales—but being glorious fairy tales in which the story-tellers’ imaginations ran riot, the scenes had to be gorgeous in investiture and of heroic proportions. Here the problem became acute: how could a thing be fantastic and still be of super-substantial size and character? Think of the paradoxical instruction to the technicians—“Make these sets magnificently impressive in size and character, but preserve the idea of unreality.”

How was this finally done?

By constructing for the City of Bagdad a concrete floor six acres in size and giving this floor a highly enameled finish, so that it would reflect light. Then, when the buildings were photographed, light was shot straight against the base lines of the buildings. Naturally, the light source being low, shadows grew darker as they ascended the structures. The light at the bases gave the massive sets the appearance of floating or hanging rather than of resting solidly upon the ground, thus toning down the idea of their bald substantial reality.

The color that would give the best photographic effect with this particular system of lighting was a matter of considerable experiment. Before a single scene was shot a test set was built and every tone and color was tried, including many metallic sheen colorings. A total of 20,000 feet of film was “shot” in these experiments—the equivalent of four complete five-reel pictures.

It was overcoming just such unique problems that gave this production an interest that spread all through the moving picture colony and kept the attention of all Hollywood centered upon the Fairbanks studio during the whole fourteen months of production.

The casting of the picture also presented some queer phases.

It was Mr. Fairbanks’ idea that to use people with whom audiences were too familiar would detract from the value of the characterizations. For instance, if the part of the Princess had been played by an actress associated in the public mind with certain types of parts, the audience would subconsciously have thought of her as they had previously known her. Hence, she would not have convincingly represented a Mesopotamian Princess. That is why a comparatively unknown player was chosen for the part. It was not easy to find her, either.

The Mongol Prince, likewise, was a difficult part to cast. It was what is known in studio parlance as “an acting part,” which means that looking the part is not enough. It required acting of a high order. How to find an actor who could play this difficult part and still not be associated in the public mind as a familiar personality—an actor who would seem to be just what the program called him—a Mongol Prince! Mr. Fairbanks found him in Japan. He was Nippon’s greatest Shakespearian actor whose full name is So-Jin-Hayakama.

Some of the characters were not such as made heavy histrionic demands, for these parts “types” were selected. It is estimated that nineteen different nationalities were represented in the list.

The feature of this production that in the largest sense differentiates it from any picture ever made is the element of magic introduced through the medium of mechanical and photographic effects. I refer to the Magic Flying Carpet, the Winged Horse, the scenes beneath the floor of the sea, the Crystal Realm, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Valley of Monsters and the Sea of Midnight.

To explain in detail the manner in which each of these things was accomplished would not only destroy the illusion to some extent, but would require a heavily technical exposition. However, some of the side fights touching them may be of interest.

It was Mr. Fairbanks’ habit to come to the studio bubbling over with enthusiasm about some idea that had occurred to him the night before. However wildly improbable or infeasible it might seem, our staff was imbued with the idea that “Somewhere there is a way,” and immediately proceeded to find it.

There was that memorable day when the idea of the Winged Horse scenes was born in Douglas’ fertile mind!

A two-ton horse, to fly through the clouds, wings flapping and mane flying, bearing on its back the redoubtable hero! Could it be done? You certainly couldn’t suspend any such weight on a wire that would withstand the movement and vibration of a clumsy gallop, when to snap it meant a fall to death for both horse and rider.

Of course, it was done, and as nearly everybody knows now, the technical staff simply took advantage of the principle that a thing painted black has no actinic value, and by combining this principle with the use of an incline, accomplished the seemingly impossible.

Then there was the Magic Carpet. It was required that a Carpet floating over the heads of the populace should soar with the Thief and the Princess above the housetops of Bagdad, in and out of high arches and finally across the desert and disappear up the silver path to the moon. I remember distinctly that not a single member or the staff said, “It can’t be done.” It was done. Mr. Fairbanks doesn’t like us to speak of cost, because he feels that the loyal effort that went into, this picture cannot be reduced to dollars and cents. I think, however, that merely as an index to the seriousness of the problems involved he will not object to your knowing that it cost over $78,000 to fly the Magic Carpet.

This involved the erection of a specially constructed steel arm working on a revolving base and so built that the rug could describe a full ninety-degree arc within range of the ingeniously placed camera platform.

Perhaps the most extraordinary, though not the most spectacular effect in the picture is the single scene on the magic rope where Mr. Fairbanks on an unsupported rope deliberately turns down the top of the rope showing that it is not hung by a wire. This effect has baffled scores of experts, and one man writing in a scientific monthly explained the trick as having been done by suspending the rope by a wire through the center of the rope and two inches from the top. If this were done, it would been impossible for Mr.Fairbanks to have turned down the top of the rope as he did.

Among the Monsters that the hero is called upon to fight, the Dragon is a live animal, but the Bat and Spider are mechanical. The Spider is a wonderful example of the skill of motion picture technicians. It is built of wood, metal and wire, and eight hundred and forty-six different applications of leverage principles were necessary to give this mechanical spider a life-like propulsion in flying and crawling.

The undersea Realm of Glass was another idea that set the technical brains a mark that was hard to hit.

The design for this was painted by a famous artist and was a highly fanciful scene of lacey patterns varied with stalactites and stalagmites or spun or blown glass; delicate and dainty tracings in parts and heavier fantastic shapes in others. Glass being brittle and easily breakable, it was not practicable to have it blown in a factory in such intricacy delicate patterns and shipped from a distance. Therefore, a family of glass-blowers was installed in a specially constructed building and worked for three months blowing the glass for this setting.

When one sits in a comfortable theatre and sees the beautiful story of “The Thief of Bagdad so smoothly and beautifully unfolded there is nothing to suggest the work and worry and heartache and unceasing effort that made it possible.

Still it accomplishes Mr. Fairbanks’ ambition to attain an artistic success close enough to the hearts of the people to make it also a wonderful dramatic entertainment, it is easy enough to forget the difficulties that beset the accomplishment, for here, indeed, we feel “the end justifies the means.”