Watched: February 19 2018
Director: Nathan Juran
Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant, Richard Eyer, Torin Thatcher
Year: 1958
Runtime: 1h 28min
Sinbad the Sailor (Mathews) is doing what he does best: sailing the seas. It’s not his best work though – he and his crew have run out of food and are desperate for land. Luck is on their side, however, and they come upon an island. But what sort of an island is it..?
The sailors save a stranded magician, Sokurah (Thatcher), from the island’s local cyclops, but during the commotion Sokurah loses his magic lamp™ to the monster. Sinbad refuses to go back for it as he has onboard his ship Princess Parisa (Grant) and does not want to risk her life. Especially as he is going to marry her and it would be a shame to be a widower before his wedding.
Sokurah is an unscrupulous bastard, and once they reach the safety of Baghdad he uses his magic to shrink Parisa in order to blackmail Sinbad into going back. Which works, as a marriage to someone 15 cm tall would be somewhat problematic.
Sinbad does not want to risk the lives of his crew and recruits “volunteers” among the prison population of Baghdad, who immediately start plotting a mutiny. After an eventful journey, they eventually reach Colossa and go lamp-hunting. It turns out the island is home to more threats than a cyclops and an evil magician…
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a fun adventure with cool monsters and a simple but sweet princess. There are cyclopes, a genie (Eyer), caliphs, dragons, huge three-headed birds and skeletons. We’re slightly miffed we never watched this as kids, because we would have absolutely loved it. We did now too (though the white people playing Arabs have become a bit dated), we just wish we had watched it back when we used to read and love these stories.
Ray Harryhausen’s “Dynamation” technique is still magical, and we’re very glad we ended up having to buy this DVD. We’ll definitely watch it again, and introduce it to our niece and nephew once they’re old enough.
What we learned: Don’t mess with magicians. Also, what happened to the first 5-6 voyages..?
Next time: The Fly (1958)
I’ve always enjoyed stories about adventures in the Orient like this one! I mostly watched animations like Sinbad or the Disney series about Aladdin though, so I have yet to indulge into actual films in this style. Thanks for the nice pictures and for the interesting review!
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