This film has big Sets, elaborate design, true 1920’s Hollywood romance/glamour. This is the stuff of D.W. Griffith’s legacy, an homage to the film Intolerance in creating exotic sets, palaces, middle eastern settings and characters played by white American men.
The movie was very entertaining and the sets themselves were shocking in how large they were. There was a very palpable sense of grandeur that was clearly pushing the envelope of what a “studio” could do.
Definitely a blockbuster of the time, and a film that showed the power of Hollywood. This is an early example of escapist "swashbuckler" films that would come to dominate the cinema of the 1930's. Films like The Mask of Zorro would follow this film and try to create a timeless fantasy adventure following an extremely handsome and charming man risking his life in a variety of ridiculous action sequences to save the girl.
This movie precipitated that trend.