The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Story

A wicked sorcerer tricks Prince Ahmed into riding a flying horse to his death. The Prince subdues the horse and instead rides it on adventures including meeting Aladdin, befriending a witch, falling in love with a Princess and battling the sorcerer’s evil army.

Why we chose it

This is one of the first examples of an animation and one of the oldest surviving animated feature films.

Where it came from

It took more than 3 years to create and is made using a silhouette animation style invented by Reiniger, which is similar to shadow puppetry.

Where it went next

The film was restored in colour in the 1990s and is available on DVD.

It is a silent movie but is often accompanied by a soundtrack. The first score was written by Wolfgang Zeller. Recently the film has been shown with a number of different musical soundtracks.

Associated stories

The story is based on One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk stories which were first printed in Europe in the early 1700s but were passed by word of mouth for centuries before.

Prince Achmed features in the Disney film Aladdin. Disney’s The Sword in the Stone film features a duel between a witch and a wizard which is believed to be a reference to the Adventures of Prince Achmed.