The Thief of Bagdad.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

Kino Video/155 minutes/$24.95

Following on the heels of Kino Video's tribute to "The Art of Buster Keaton" comes its loving restoration of many of the films that made Douglas Fairbanks Hollywood's earliest and most-beloved swashbuckler. Grinning in the face of peril, laughing at the villains out to foil him, and acrobatically, albeit sometimes distinctly hammily, filling the screen with derring-do, Fairbanks delighted audiences as Zorro, the Black Pirate, Robin Hood, and many other heroes.

Yet, if there is one of his films that stands out above the rest, it is "The Thief of Bagdad," an Arabian Nights adventure years ahead of its time (1924). Much as "King Kong" holds its own with today's counterparts, the special effects in "Thief" dazzle audiences almost as well as the technical marvels springing out of George Lucast ubiquitous Industrial Light and...