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The Thief Of Bagdad (1924 Film)
''The Thief of Bagdad'' is a 1924 American silent swashbuckler film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks, and written by Achmed Abdullah and Lotta Woods. Freely adapted from ''One Thousand and One Nights'', it tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph of Baghdad. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Fairbanks considered this to be the favorite of his films, according to his son. The imaginative gymnastics suited the athletic star, whose "catlike, seemingly effortless" movements were as much dance as gymnastics. Along with his earlier ''Robin Hood'' (1922), the film marked Fairbanks's transformation from genial comedy to a career in "swashbuckling" roles. The film, strong on special effects of the period (flying carpet, magic rope and fearsome monsters) and featuring massive Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh (born Albert Edward Walsh; March 11, 1887December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent film ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and for directing such films as the widescreen epic ''The Big Trail'' (1930) starring John Wayne in his first leading role, ''The Roaring Twenties'' starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, '' High Sierra'' (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and ''White Heat'' (1949) starring James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. He directed his last film in 1964. His work has been noted as influences on director such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jack Hill, and Martin Scorsese. Biography Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman. Walsh was part o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One Thousand And One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition (), which rendered the title as ''The Arabian Nights' Entertainment''. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central and South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic literature, Arabic, Egyptian literature, Egyptian, Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit, Persian literature, Persian, and Mesopotamian myths, Mesopotamian literature. Many tales were originally folk stories from the Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid and Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Middle Persian literature#"Pahlavi" literature, Pahlavi Persian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic Carpet
A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its users to their destination. In literature One of the stories in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' relates how Prince Husain, the eldest son of Sultan of the Indies, travels to Bisnagar (Vijayanagara) in India and buys a magic carpet. This carpet is described as follows: "Whoever sitteth on this carpet and willeth in thought to be taken up and set down upon other site will, in the twinkling of an eye, be borne thither, be that place nearhand or distant many a day's journey and difficult to reach." The literary traditions of several other cultures also feature magical carpets, in most cases literally flying rather than instantly transporting their passengers from place to place. Solomon's carpet was reportedly made of green silk with a golden weft, long and wide: "when Solomon sat u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crystal Ball
A crystal ball, also known as an orbuculum or crystal sphere, is a crystal or glass ball and common fortune-telling object. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying in particular. In more recent times, the crystal ball has been used for creative photography with the term lensball commonly used to describe a crystal ball used as a photography prop. History In the first century CE, Pliny the Elder describes use of crystal balls by soothsayers (''"crystallum orbis"'', later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as ''orbuculum''). By the fifth century CE, scrying was widespread within the Roman Empire and was condemned by the early medieval Christian Church as heretical. Dr. John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which the use of crystal balls was often included. Crystal gazing was a popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haroun Al-Rashid
Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn al-Rashīd) was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 until his death. His reign is traditionally regarded to be the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age. His epithet "al-Rashid" translates to "the Orthodox", "the Just", "the Upright", or "the Rightly-Guided". Harun established the legendary library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom") in Baghdad in present-day Iraq, and during his rule Baghdad began to flourish as a world center of knowledge, culture and trade. During his rule, the family of Barmakids, which played a deciding role in establishing the Abbasid Caliphate, declined gradually. In 796, he moved his court and government to Raqqa in present-day Syria. A Frankish mission came to offer Haru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salat
(, plural , romanized: or Old Arabic ͡sˤaˈloːh, ( or Old Arabic ͡sˤaˈloːtʰin construct state) ), also known as ( fa, نماز) and also spelled , are prayers performed by Muslims. Facing the , the direction of the Kaaba with respect to those praying, Muslims pray first standing and later kneeling or sitting on the ground, reciting prescribed prayers and phrases from the Quran as they bow and prostrate themselves in between. is composed of prescribed repetitive cycles of bows and prostrations, called ( ). The number of s, also known as units of prayer, varies from prayer to prayer. Ritual purity and are prerequisites for performing the prayers. The daily obligatory prayers collectively form the second of the five pillars in Islam, observed three or five times (the latter being the majority) every day at prescribed times. These are usually (observed at dawn), (observed at noon), (observed late in the afternoon), (observed after sunset), and (observed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, including outdoor courtyards. The first mosques were simple places of prayer for Muslims, and may have been open spaces rather than buildings. In the first stage of Islamic architecture, 650-750 CE, early mosques comprised open and closed covered spaces enclosed by walls, often with minarets from which calls to prayer were issued. Mosque buildings typically contain an ornamental niche ('' mihrab'') set into the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca (''qiblah''), Wudu, ablution facilities. The pulpit (''minbar''), from which the Friday (jumu'ah) sermon (''khutba'') is delivered, was in earlier times characteristic of the central city mosque, but has since become common in smaller mosques. Mosques typically have Islam and gender se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Vance
Jeffrey Vance (born May 21, 1970) is an American film historian and author who has published books on movie stars including Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Career While working as an archivist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists he met Eleanor Keaton, Buster Keaton's widow, and began organizing her collection of photographs, leading to the illustrated biography ''Buster Keaton Remembered'' (2001). He later served as archivist for the Chaplin family's Roy Export S.A.S., The Harold Lloyd Trust, and the Mary Pickford Foundation where he helped preserve both film and photographs from these important collections. As a producer, he packaged the ''Harold Lloyd Classic Comedies'' for Turner Classic Movies, later released to home video. As a filmmaker, he produced and directed the short film ''Rediscovering John Gilbert'' (2010) which aired on cable television as well as released to home video. Publications *''A Star Is Born: Judy Garland and the Film That Got Away'' (TCM/Running ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Rope Trick
The Indian rope trick is a magic trick said to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. Sometimes described as "the world’s greatest illusion", it reputedly involved a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy assistants. In the 1990s the trick was said by some historians to be a hoax perpetrated in 1890 by John Wilkie of the ''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper. Peter Lamont has argued that there are no accurate references to the trick predating 1890, and that later stage magic performances of the trick were inspired by Wilkie's account. Lamont, Peter. (2005). ''The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History''. Abacus. pp. 80-95, 208. There are old accounts from the 9th century (by Adi Shankara), the 14th century (by Ibn Battuta), and the 17th century (by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir) of versions of the trick, but this is denied by Lamont as the accounts described are different from the "classic" Indian rope trick. Lamont, Pete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic Carpet
A magic carpet, also called a flying carpet, is a legendary carpet and common trope in fantasy fiction. It is typically used as a form of transportation and can quickly or instantaneously carry its users to their destination. In literature One of the stories in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' relates how Prince Husain, the eldest son of Sultan of the Indies, travels to Bisnagar (Vijayanagara) in India and buys a magic carpet. This carpet is described as follows: "Whoever sitteth on this carpet and willeth in thought to be taken up and set down upon other site will, in the twinkling of an eye, be borne thither, be that place nearhand or distant many a day's journey and difficult to reach." The literary traditions of several other cultures also feature magical carpets, in most cases literally flying rather than instantly transporting their passengers from place to place. Solomon's carpet was reportedly made of green silk with a golden weft, long and wide: "when Solomon sat u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Hood (1922 Film)
''Robin Hood'' is a 1922 silent adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Wallace Beery. It was the first motion picture ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922. The movie's full title, under which it was copyrighted, is ''Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood''. It was one of the most expensive films of the 1920s, with a budget estimated at about one million dollars. The film was a smash hit and generally received favorable reviews. Plot The opening has the dashing Earl of Huntingdon besting his bitter enemy, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, in a joust. Huntingdon then joins King Richard the Lion-Hearted, who is going off to fight in the Crusades and has left his brother, Prince John, as regent. The prince soon emerges as a cruel, treacherous tyrant. Goaded on by Sir Guy, he usurps Richard's throne. When Huntingdon receives a message from Lady Marian Fitzwalter, his love interest, telling him of all that has transpired, he requests permis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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