developed them symphonically. He also spent many hours in the editing room working on combining his music with the film. The score has been re-constructed by Mark Fitz-Gerald and recorded. A 1924 Literary Digest article details Wilson's work on the film (and includes a photo of the composer). Wilson also wrote the music for Fairbanks’s next two films, Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925) and The Black Pirate (1926). Reception Glenn Erickson praised the film, writing: Every age has its wonder entertainments, and 1924's The Thief of Bagdad transported audiences to a new level of imaginative fantasy. It had the biggest star of the era in a production that dwarfed anything anyone had ever seen ... It has sets bigger than those in Intolerance and costumed crowd scenes to rival the enormous Italian spectacles of the day. What's more, the picture is packed with elaborate special effects, many of which still have the power to impress. ... Some critics prefer Douglas Fairbanks' earlier modern-day adventures to his twenties' costume epics, but this dazzler still takes people's heads off. Simply put, the production's overall design and execution -- sets, costumes, lighting, special effects -- are coordinated so tightly that the illusion of grandeur is complete. Darragh O'Donoghue is of the opinion that: "The first reel provides some of the purest joy the silent cinema can offer. ... Where initially there had been a satisfying equivalence between the discrete adventures of Ahmed as a psychologically plausible thief in medieval Mesopotamia and Ahmed as a universal Everyman figure, in the film's latter two-thirds, the former distinctive superstructure gives way to a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress in Orientalist drag. ... Adventure sequences are staged like fairground tableaux and have none of the interest in physical process or emotional investment that made the early reels so exciting. ... After promising a dream, this great but flawed film eventually sends its audience to sleep. Honors In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its 10 Top 10, the 10 best films in 10 "classic" American film genres. After polling over 1,500 people from the creative community, The Thief of Bagdad was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the fantasy genre. Preservation status The George Eastman Museum has a 16mm triacetate positive print. Remakes The 1940 film of the same name made the title character, played by Sabu, a sidekick for a handsome prince rather than