For the flying carpet effect, Douglas Fairbanks stood on a 3/4-inch thick sheet of steel attached to 16 piano wires and rigged to the top of a crane, which lifted him above the crowd.
For the scenes in the underwater mermaid kingdom, Douglas Fairbanks had the cameras shoot through a curtain of thin gauze, to give the illusion that the Thief was swimming underwater. The mermaid kingdom scenes were then tinted blue in post-production.
In the scenes with the giant ape, the guards are played by children. When the ape is out of sight the guards are played by adults. It was done to make the normal-sized ape appear bigger.
For the early scene where the Thief leaps in and out of the giant clay pots in the marketplace, Douglas Fairbanks had small trampolines placed inside each pot, allowing him to bounce easily from pot to pot.
In some prints, Mathilde Comont is credited as M. Comont to keep her sex a secret. However, in several scenes in the film it is very obvious that the Persian Prince is being played by a woman.