My earliest memory is sitting in the back seat of my grandfather’s orange station wagon at a drive-in movie theater, terrified that Darth Vader was coming to get me, making lightsaber sounds with my mouth and cheering along with Grandpa when the Death Star blew up. The magic of Star Wars has long faded, but my love of the movies sprang from that sense of fun and adventure.
Which is why for the longest time I figured anything made before 1977 must be slow, boring, stodgy, and dated beyond all entertainment value. Black-and-white movies? Forget it. And silent movies? Please.
Then something happened. I’ll tell you about that later — but suffice to say I ended up with a list of must-see movies put together with input from professors, screenwriters, and friends in the movie business. I took this list and started watching the movies, one after another, chronologically.
And you know what? It changed my life.
This column is about my journey from only enjoying blockbuster movies from the present to digging on blockbuster movies from the past. This isn’t a history of film — these are the movies that changed my idea of what a movie can be, movies that told me a bit of the human story, and, of course, movies that, in the words of Ted Mosby, absolutely blew my mindhole.
Case in point: 1924’s The Thief of Baghdad.
Nowadays, anything having to do with Baghdad takes on a complicated meaning, but in 1924, for America, the Middle East was all Arabian Nights, curly toed slippers, and flying carpets. So much so that a guy from Denver named Douglas Fairbanks could put together a movie in which he gets to play a shirtless Persian thief roaming the streets of Baghdad — Jake Gyllenhaal notwithstanding.
It’s hard to describe Fairbanks’ screen presence. Fairbanks uses his whole body to embody the character — his performance is a monumental athletic feat, pure and simple. Why just hand someone the coins and gems you’ve got stuffed down your pants when you can do a handstand and shake it all to the floor? Because you’re Douglas Fairbanks, that’s why, and Douglas Fairbanks doesn’t mess around.
Fairbanks’ performance aside, it’s the visual storytelling that blows away your idea of a silent film, and that’s all due to the genius of production designer William Cameron Menzies. Menzies was so respected that David O. Selznick, control freak of all control freaks, told the crew of Gone with the Wind that Menzies was “the final word” on all design elements of the production. That’s how good this guy was.
Menzies secured the largest lot in film history, six and a half acres, to create his fantasy version of Baghdad. He oversaw the creation of huge castles, cities and caverns filled with fire, oceans, and staircases to the stars. Many of the effects seem quaint to us now, but some, particularly those in the second half of the movie, can still take your breath away. In the underwater sequence, my personal favorite, Fairbanks swims into the depths of the ocean. When you figure out how they did it, post to the comments. Cause it’s insane.
The Thief of Baghdad is a triumph in the history of entertainment, and forever altered my notion of silent film. It taught me that old movies can be just as entertaining, funny, sexy, action-filled, and downright fun as anything you’ve seen recently.
Join us next week when we’ll meet the guy who inspired Jackie Chan to become Jackie Chan.
Check out this clip from Thief of Bagdad, below:
