The Thief of Baghdad (1961) with Steve Reeves

Re: The Thief of Baghdad (1961) with Steve Reeves

I have it on a P&S VHS tape that doesn't do the film justice but is all I've got. It's a great reminder of a film from my youth which I loved, and I wish I could find a good DVD copy of it.

Re: The Thief of Baghdad (1961) with Steve Reeves

Quite a number of the "Peplum" films are not available on DVD. Most of them have fallen into the public domain in the USA, as evidenced by the huge selection of titles available from outfits like Alpha.

There are a decent selection of Pepla being released in Europe and there is actually a fullscreen Spanish disc of 'Thief of Baghdad, but with no English options, so we can only hope that it might get another release at some point.

If you want a Peplum fix, I can recommend a few titles on my website.

Re: The Thief of Baghdad (1961) with Steve Reeves

FWIW I bought a copy of this on VHS on Ebay - turned out it was a bootleg that is barely watchable, contrary to the seller's description. Just a heads up to be careful.

Anyway, I'd love this on dvd if it is ever released. It may be heresy, but I prefer it to the Sabu version.

Re: The Thief of Baghdad (1961) with Steve Reeves

Most of Steve Reeves' films were 'picked up' for distribution by studios like Warner Bros, MGM and United Artists. None of the studios have rights to release these films now and the original materials are probably sitting in Italian vaults. Apart from a few quality PAL transfers (eg. "Last Days of Pompeii") Steve Reeves' films remain to be poorly represented in the US, as previously mentioned, in PD with poorly tranferred video masters from pan & scan and 'Scope prints. Hopefully one day this will change and maybe we will see nice new HD transfers from original film materials.

I know this is an old thread, but I just ordered a DVD of The Theif of Bagdad 1961 Steve Reeves from Sci-Fi Station (scifistation.com). I hope it's a good copy!

Please come back after you've watched it and let us know what you think. Quite a few of us here would be interested.

will do!

Thanks Marty!! - I will be eagerly awaiting your opinion too -- Loved this one when I was a kid!

I don't remember it clearly as I only saw it once as a child, but I will share my opinion as soon as I have one =)

sorry it's taken so long to get back to Home Theater. I watched The Theif of Bagdad a while ago on a not-new standard DVD/VCR player. The quality of the copy at first seemed good (after the VERY uneven trailers, drive-in ads, etc that preceded it), but the movie jumped badly from scene to scene skipping huge sections. I have recently been emailing with Sci Fi Station, where the copy was purchased, asking for a better copy or a refund. I imagine you know how that went, but to summarize they said that the movie is actually a DVD-R and may not be compatible on an older DVD player.

Sci Fi Station have a number of suggestions for better quality play including: viewing on my pc, cleaning my player (normal DVDs play correctly), cleaning the disk, and removing the paper label. They take no responsibility for calling the copy a DVD and failing to mention that it is actually a DVD-R. Apparently there is a site-wide disclaimer about the products they sell, which I did not see as I linked directly to the item from a web search. They feel no need to change the listing of the individual products to DVD-R. They will not refund unless the copy is proven defective on a DVD-R compatible device and after all described methods for play have been exhausted. And of course they take no responsibility for inability to play on devices that are not DVD-R compatible.

So there you have it. I gave the copy to my brother and I am asking to borrow it back to attempt to play it on my pc. I can further update Home Theater after viewing on other devices. Fingers crossed!

I am pleased to be able to report that my brother was able to watch and thoroughly enjoy the DVD-R of The Thief of Baghdad on his DVD/Bluray player. As Sci Fi Station reported, be sure your player is DVD-R compatible before buying as they take no responsibility for your inability to play on your equipment. Or plan on watching on your pc. Enjoy!

Marty,

 

Thanks so much for the tip about "Thief Of Baghdad".  Ordered it last night from that website along with two other Steve Reeves classics "Hercules" and "Hercules Unchained".  They showed pictures of the anaphoric version they offered and even though the price seemed a bit steep ($29 each) I ordered those two as well.

 

I'm assuming that "Thief of Baghdad" was 4x3?

 

Joe

I thought the Home Theater Forum frowned on promoting bootlegs or illegal downloads?

According to the site these are not bootlegs but public domain.  I know both Hercules and Hercules Unchained are public domain and available on many low-budget labels with rather poor quality.   

Got the DVD-R today.  Will admit a bit disappointed that he picture quality wasn't as good as I had hoped, however, it's more than acceptable and would rate the video about a 6 out of ten - worth it if one wants the movie.

It was so nice to see that people are out there like me who love this stuff!! I just got a DVD from Amazon, mine is fine!! Whenever
I mentioned this move to others, they'd think I was referring to Sabu--but low and behold others are out there who knew this movie existed.
I love it from my childhood.