The Thief of Bagdad
Starring: Sabu, John Justin, Conrad Veidt
Directors: Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan
The film: Hong Kong audiences were already familiar with the story of The Thief of Bagdad when it arrived here in January 1941. The 1924 silent version, starring Douglas Fairbanks, had played at local cinemas on and off well into the 1930s, long after the arrival here of sound films in late 1929, so the new British Technicolor version was keenly anticipated. A special week-long Lunar New Year roadshow screening at the King's Theatre on Wyndham Street preceded a lengthy run at the Oriental in Wan Chai three months later, and the film broke box office records for a foreign production (as it did across Asia, from Colombo to Shanghai).
Filmed in three-strip Technicolor - still a novelty in 1941 - and using blue-screen backdrop technology for the first time, Alexander Korda's spectacular production was just the sort of escapist fantasy that audiences needed, with war in Europe well under way and the Japanese military rattling its sabres up north.
Almost two years in the making, and with six directors at the helm at one time or another, The Thief of Bagdad's troubled production was saved by a string of groundbreaking special effects and some fine performances. Most notable among them were the charismatic Indian actor Sabu as the thief, Conrad Veidt as the evil Jaffar and John Justin as Ahmad, the king of Bagdad, whom Jaffar blinds with a magical curse and sends, unrecognisable to his people, into exile.