Although it was a remake of a 1924 silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, this film has been highly influential on later movies based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights setting.
Some think that various plot elements of The Thief of Bagdad-most notably, the theft of the ruby from a high place and the battle with the giant spider-derive from the 1928 short story, "The Tower of the Elephant", by Robert E. Howard.