The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

Those were the days! I loved these kind of movies when I was a kid. These kind of movies remind you that you have imagination and that means a world where anything is possible. There's plenty of action, cool animations, extremely cool characters and settings. There's no problem with this one. Heck I was even scared by the beasts from the caves! To be honest, this is in my opinion the best Sinbad movie. Makes you feel powerful because of Sinbad's hero attitude. He even has time to save the ladies! ;) This kind of cinema reminds you that the simple things are the best ones.

When Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) refuses to help the sorcerer Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) retrieve his magic lamp from a Cyclops, Sokurah shrinks Sinbad's love Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) to the size of a doll. The potion to restore her to her natural size requires the shell of a bird's egg from the island of Colossa where the Cyclops lives. Now Sinbad has no choice but to journey to Colossa and face the monster to save his lady. Fantasy adventure classic from director Nathan Juran and featuring the awesome stop-motion special effects from legendary Ray Harryhausen. Torin Thatcher is great as the nefarious wizard. Child actor Richard Eyer as the genie in the lamp is goofy but amusing. The leads are both fine. It's the special effects that are the real star with the justifiably famous climactic battle between Sinbad and a skeleton warrior a highlight.

After rescuing Sokurah the Magician (Torin Thatcher) from an angry cyclops, Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) and his crew set sail for home. Unfortunately, Sokurah has lost something very valuable to him, and will do anything to retrieve it. Thus, his treachery unfolds, forcing Sinbad to return to the mysterious island where it all began. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is a great story of adventure, romance, and derring-do, full of magic and monsters. This movie is a showcase for the stop-motion genius of Ray Harryhausen, who provides not only the cyclops, but also a dragon, a two-headed Roc, a four-armed snake woman, and a sword-swinging skeleton man! The dead-on choreography for the ensuing sword fight between Sinbad and the animated skeleton is astonishing! Loved it as a kid, still love it as an adult!...

Arguably, Harryhausen's finest moment. I can't off the top of my head nominate one that was better! It had it all, adventure, fantasy, heroics, monsters, and Harryhausen's stop-frame wizardry that puts half the CGI effects right out of business. I too, saw it as a child and along with JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and CLASH OF THE TITANS, bought it years later and played it to standing room only, in our lounge throughout the kids childhood. Lucky aren't they? The cyclops was the ultimate magic and I only wish my children could have seen the original theatrical screening with which television cannot compete. The film is still there but the sense of impending wonder (sitting there in a blackened theater) cannot be replicated on the small screen. What a legacy to leave the world!

One of the nice things about being a little older is that I can remember the first time I saw movies like this and not think of them as schmaltzy or tacky. They were the state of the art in special effects (thanks to the likes of Ray Harreyhausen) and they were absolutely captivating. With computer generated creatures, we have gone so far beyond these things, but when I go to a Harry Potter movie or a Lord of the Rings movie (wonderful films), I look at the faces of the kids. There seems to be no wonderment at all. We have been fed such a constant diet that we don't look beyond the magic. This is a great story with wizards and heroes and mythical monsters and skeletons fighting. I know the Sinbad stories from the Arabian Nights and there is a lot of borrowing from every avenue of folklore and mythology. They really don't follow the book. But when I was in seventh grade, I couldn't care less. This is a quest and they made the getting there a real treat.