WONDROUS ROMANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1941, Page 2

WONDROUS ROMANCE

IN A MARVELLOUS WORLD OF MAGIC. Against backgrounds which have never before been equalled for magnitude, pictorial brilliance and sweeping spectacle, the great technicolour adventure romance, “The Thief of Bagdad,” stars Sabu, Conrad Veidt, June Duprez and John Justin. Filmed at a cost exceeding £400,000, “The Thief of Bagdad” is a picture filled with sense-stirring action, fabulous adventure, Arabian Nights romance. William Cameron Menzies, who won an Academy Award for designing the “Gone with the Wind” sets, acted as production designer. The story of “The Thief of Bagdad” takes place in the cities of Basra and Bagdad in Persia. Basra, many hundreds of years ago, was the most important town and seaport of Persia. Oriental merchandise of 1 every description was brought by camel caravan from Bagdad, making it a seething, colour-splashed seaport, swarming with Chinese, Arabs, Egyptians, Turks, Hindus and African negroes. Its busy waters were filled with all kinds of junks, painted in dazzling colours. A part of Basra, in all its Eastern glory, was reconstructed by Alexander Korda's technical experts, shewing its many waterways, its crowded bazaars and coffee houses, its strange conglomeration of nationalities. But of all the exotic sets built for the production, none equals in pure beauty and splendour the Sultan’s palace. “The Thief of Bagdad” abounds in scenes unwinding breathtaking magic —magic which transforms a stony desert into an Enchanted City; a Flying Horse which flies into the clouds and returns to the spot whence it took off; a Djinni, who is released from a tiny bottle, and becomes, as high as the highest mountain and towers over the city of Bagdad; the Black Galleon, a mystery ship sailed by a wicked magician; the Flying Carpet, which goes from city to city like an air-plane; the “All-Seeing Eye,” a ruby stolen from a giant goddess, which gives its owner power to see whatever he wishes to see. no matter how far away. The picture will open its Masterton season on Friday at the State Theatre, with three sessions on Saturday at 10.30 a.m., 2.15 p.m., and 8 p.m. There will be no increase in prices.