Thief of Baghdad, The, a title which has been used by a cluster of oriental fantasies exploiting the iconography of The Arabian Nights—winged horses, omnipotent sorcerers, magic lamps, jinn in bottles, veiled princesses, precious flowers and, above all, flying carpets. Within this context, each production was inflected to catch the mood of the moment.

The first Thief was that of Douglas Fairbanks who, in 1924, as producer and star, used Baghdad as a setting for spectacle, morality, and his personal athleticism. The arrogant, flamboyant thief flouts religion and all forms of authority until he sets forbidden eyes on the Princess. Then, pretending to be a prince, he wins her love but is driven to confess the truth to a Holy Man, who sends him on a long, hazardous journey for a magic chest. Only through struggle and penitence will he earn happiness. Finally overcoming all obstacles, he returns on a flying carpet just in time to rescue Baghdad and the Princess from a Mongol invasion.

In 1939, 15 years later, work began on another Thief. This was intended by the producer Alexander Korda to show the world that the UK could make films just as colourful and enchanting as those from Hollywood. One of the rivals in Korda's mind was Snow White; he boasted that he could do with living actors what Disney had done with drawings. Korda's thief is Abu, a boy of the Baghdad streets who helps a young king, Ahmad, escape the wicked schemes of Jaffar, the Grand Vizier. In Basra, Ahmad sets forbidden eyes on the Sultan's daughter, and they fall in love, but she has been promised to Jaffar. Through Jaffar's magic Ahmad is blinded, and Abu turned into a dog, until the Princess releases them from the spell by agreeing to marry Jaffar. With the help of a giant jinni, Abu steals the All‐Seeing Eye and returns to Baghdad on a flying carpet just as Ahmad is about to be beheaded. Ironically, this film that sought to outdo Hollywood had to move there when the outbreak of war made continued shooting in England impossible. Despite this rupture, the finished film won an Oscar for its achievement in creating Technicolor opulence, magical feats, and the djinni's enormous size.

The start of the 1960s saw a third foray into Thief territory, Il Ladro di Bagdad, an Italian‐French co‐production shot in CinemaScope using Tunisian locations, had an American director, Arthur Lubin (who had made the wartime version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). The reason for the film's existence was, however, not Lubin but its muscleman star, Steve Reeves. In the early 1950s Reeves got into films through winning the titles ‘Mr World’ and ‘Mr Universe’. Before taking on the role of Karim the thief, he had appeared variously as Hercules, Goliath, and other giant characters. The storyline harks back to Fairbanks in that it gives Karim a series of redemptive tests of character and skill to undergo—hostile trees, burning swamps, sudden floods, a beautiful nymphomaniac—as he searches for the Seven Gates where the blue rose grows which alone will restore the princess to health. Unlike Hercules and Goliath, Karim does not triumph through muscle power alone: thanks to his friendship with a magician, he sometimes uses a vanishing cloak to escape danger, and at the climax is able, by rubbing a magic ring, to summon to his aid an army of acrobats.

This periodic appearance of Thief films culminated at the end of the 1970s with a UK–France co‐production in 1978, and a UK‐only variant called Arabian Adventure a year later. Inspired by the recent world‐wide success of special effects movies such as Superman, which was sold on the promise that cinema‐goers would believe a man could fly, these two films used the same techniques to convince audiences that a carpet could fly.

— Terry Staples