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Oh, what timing, MGM, to have released THE THIEF OF BAGDAD at this very moment in history. Is Conrad Veidt’s evil Jaffar, with his dark demeanor and Lugosi/Dracula hand gestures, a ‘40s premonition of Saddam Hussein? Here’s the actor who played the menacing creature in Caligari’s cabinet, and the lethal Colonel Strasser in CASABLANCA, embodying yet another arch villain, this one out of a middle eastern nightmare. I had always wanted to remake it with a girl as the titular character, but now even that modern twist has been invalidated by current events. Today the title could only be remade if it referred to a foreign agent come to steal the documents revealing the whereabouts of Saddam’s nuclear weapons. (Prince Ahmed (John Justin), and Abu the thief (Sabu), flee at one point to Basra. Strange to think of that city today, being in the Southern no-fly zone, and that Saddam once drained the marshlands there, robbing the people of all their water, taking away their livelihoods and starving them out, not to mention what his machinations did to the flora and fauna.)

This is the best color I’ve seen on the film short of a 35mm British print several decades ago. Gorgeous rust-reds (Veidt’s turban), lush greens (the pool in the Princess’s garden), and mystical blues (Bagdad in the distance). And the make-up just screams ‘British Technicolor’. It makes one understand why, in the 30s and 40s, audiences actually applauded the color in these films.

Sabu was the only Indian star in Hollywood history. I never tire of watching his Brando-esque facial features, or listening to his Peter Lorre-like voice. He’s a natural actor, and his companion for this adventure is the bizarre John Justin, a visual cross between Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Holmes. Which is not to say I don’t like him; he’s okay for the part, if a bit anorexic. He’s especially good at looking blind, occasionally even when he is supposed to have his sight back. June Duprez, on the other hand, vacillates between looking heavenly and acting quietly. There is a vest she wears which, in this DVD pressing, suggests she was naked underneath it. The screening committee leaned forward in their seats to make a determination about this matter, but none was reached.

Miklos Rozsa’s expansive score is magnificent, despite a few instances of cheap mickey-mousing. The songs hold up far less well, however. In fact they stink. Only when Sabu sings “ I Want to Be a Sailor” out of fear, and it echos in the cavernous domain of the all-seeing eye, does one finally work. But the soundtrack was to result in Rozsa’s first Academy Award nomination. (And he met his wife at a party thrown by Ms. Duprez.)

The special effects, Academy Award winners in 1940, must have looked fake even then. The matte lines are large enough to have been smeared on by a child with finger paints. My advice to you: try to live with it! The film is so wonderful, and the acting around the effects is so inspired, you can afford to let it roll off your back. For instance, Sabu’s scenes with the Genie. Now, those are some miserable effects. And yet, the conception is brilliant. The genie comes out of the bottle mad as hell, gets duped by Sabu which only further infuriates him but he’s got to (barely) keep his cool for the duration of three wishes, and after their dealings are over, off he flies, liberated and arrogant as ever. You’ve got to love this misanthropic fifty foot pain in the ass; a shame if you let the effects kill it for you.

I am sorry to admit it, but the film’s pace has slowed, and not all of its jewels shine as resplendently as they did throughout the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. The negative has suffered – the film was made in war time, and some damage may even have occurred as far back as then. Frames have been removed, and the image jumps forward to make up for the deletions on several occasions, though no sound is disrupted. There also seem to be Technicolor matrix misalignments (55 mins, 8 secs in you will find the most glaring example), but none that is more than slightly or momentarily distracting.

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD has been done several times. The best version, debatably, is the 1924 Raoul Walsh epic starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., available from Kino with tinting and score. It’s a great companion piece to this one, and a great idea for a dual gift. Christopher Lee played the evil vizir in 1979’s ARABIAN ADVENTURE. And there was also a Fairbanks-inspired version in 1961 starring Steve Reeves, and guess what, it was stylish, well scored, and the former Hercules, though at times moving like a Harryhausen model, was nonetheless admirably effective portraying the lead. I once spoke with Reeves about it, and he had fond memories of the film, (and utterly putrid memories of producer Joseph E. Levine), but didn’t own a print.

Sadly, this DVD treasure comes with no extras. The film had a troubled history worthy of at least a commentary track. Bruce Eder could have done a bang-up job. Four directors laid their hands on the production, the great designer Willian Cameron Menzies was involved. But we must look elsewhere for background material. Try, for instance, Michael Powell’s autobiography, Book One: “ A Life in Movies”.

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How about a box of Rambos? Artisan has the three escapist action films nicely packaged. But first, a moment’s silence for Sylvester Stallone. Once the biggest action star, no… the biggest star… in Hollywood’s far-reaching universe, Stallone has gone into eclipse to the degree that his last theatrical feature, DRIVEN, was driven by advertising that avoided promoting his presence in the movie, and his new film, EYE SEE YOU, will premiere directly on video and DVD.

Which I don’t entirely understand. But I guess the public does, and they demonstrate their knowledge by not buying his heroics anymore. Still, when he was on top, he was the charismatic everyman who whipped any adversary life threw at him, and he summoned large budgets and all the stuntwork and explosions money could buy.

FIRST BLOOD, the original ‘Rambo’ exercise, was adapted from a novel by David Morrell, who supplies the delightful commentary on this disc. RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II was shot by the great color cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and is radiant to behold. According to Cardiff, Stallone tried to suggest camera angles to him one day, and the DP warned him never to make another such suggestion, to which threat the actor instantly acquiesced. Director George (THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, also from Artisan) Cosmatos does the commentary honors here. And the third installment, RAMBO III, released in 1988, is set in, of all locales, Afghanistan, and is the most rugged and documentary-like of the tryptich, with commentary by director Peter MacDonald. Rambo’s nemesis in this outing is Steven Berkoff , who played Hitler so menacingly in MPI’s release of WAR AND REMEMBRANCE (see below).

All three films have new documentaries, and have been remastered in 9X16 and 3X4 formats. And there is a fourth disc devoted to RAMBO supplemental materials including a doc on the Green Berets, another called “The Real Nam: Voices From Within”, and a trivia game.

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