[photo credit: SAN GABRIEL MISSION PLAYHOUSE]
The Thief of Bagdad opens the 2026 season of Silent Sundays at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse on Sunday, July 26, at 2:30 p.m. The historic theater pairs each film in the series with live accompaniment on its 1924 “Mighty Wurlitzer,” and individual tickets are $12.
For film-minded readers in Pasadena and Altadena, the draw is partly proximity: the Playhouse sits in San Gabriel’s Mission District, a short drive south, making the afternoon screening an easy outing for silent-film and theater-organ enthusiasts across the San Gabriel Valley.
Accompanying the film is organist Russ Peck, who performs for silent-film presentations at the San Diego Symphony’s Jacobs Music Center and serves as house organist at San Diego’s Balboa Theatre. He is also principal timpanist for the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra.
Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film was produced by and starred Fairbanks, who also created the story. Adapted from the Arabian Nights, it follows a thief who resolves to change his ways after falling for a princess and sets out to prove himself worthy. Released by United Artists, it featured art direction by William Cameron Menzies — later the production designer of Gone with the Wind — and cinematography by Arthur Edeson. Its cast included Anna May Wong, among Hollywood’s first Asian American film stars. The film was staged at a reported cost of more than $1.1 million, which film historians count among the most expensive productions of the 1920s. In its own event listing, the Playhouse reproduces period reviews that called it “a feat of motion picture art” and “a triumph of camera magic and regal staging.”
The venue carries as much history as the program. Opened in 1927 for John Steven McGroarty’s Mission Play, the 1,387-seat theater was designed in the Mission Revival style by architect Arthur Burnett Benton and has been owned and operated by the City of San Gabriel since 1945. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The screening is the first of four in the series, which continues with Buster Keaton shorts on August 30, Wings on September 27, and Safety Last! on October 25.
Silent Sundays presents The Thief of Bagdad on Sunday, July 26, at 2:30 p.m. at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, 320 South Mission Drive, San Gabriel, CA 91776. Individual tickets are $12, and a $37 season pass covers all four films. Tickets are available online at missionplayhouse.org and in person at the box office, which sells day-of tickets from 1:00 p.m. The Playhouse can be reached at 626-308-2865 or info@missionplayhouse.org.
A hundred summers after Fairbanks first leapt across the screen, the lights will drop, the projector will start, and the only sound in the room will be an organ built the same year the film was made.
The Thief of Bagdad (Silent Sundays) — San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. Douglas Fairbanks’ 1924 silent classic with live accompaniment on the 1924 Mighty Wurlitzer organ. July 26, 2:30pm. $12 (or $37 season pass). https://missionplayhouse.org/events
