Movie-A-Day #211: The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

The city of Baghdad was founded on this date in 762 A.D. to be the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Although it is struggling to rebuild these days after years of war, it was once the thriving heart of the Ottoman Empire and one of the leading scientific, artistic and cultural center of its day. Baghdad has also been featured in countless Middle Eastern folk tales like “One Thousand and One Nights,” which the 1940 version of “The Thief of Bagdad” captures in all its Technicolor exuberance.