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Simply A Masterpiece

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINDBAD is a fantasy adventure film, which is remembered for impressive special effects (stop motion animation) and a pretty good soundtrack. Stories from the ancient Arab collection are always interesting.A famous sailor plans to marry a beautiful princess. An evil magician has spoiled his plans. The magician reduces sailor fiancée to the size of her thumb. The sailor has been forced to go to an island full of mythical monsters, to find a secret, which would nullify the evil spell.Special effects by Mr. Harryhausen represent a kind of revolution in the creation and presentation of huge animated monsters. The fight scenes are really impressive. It is difficult to create a "pleasant" illusion with giant Cyclops, a cobra-woman, a legendary bird of prey, a fire-breathing dragon and possessed skeletons. Scenery corresponded very well with the visual illusion.Kerwin Mathews as Sinbad is famous sailor and adventurer. He is brave and fearless character. A little heroic charm would not hurt him. Kathryn Grant as Princess Parisa is a pretty candy for our eyes. However, the characterization is much better in the second part of the film (when she is shrunk). Torin Thatcher as Sokurah is the evil magician who has stolen the show in some scenes.Nothing spectacular, but some segments are very interesting.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a superb adventure film, as well as an influential classic, which still ranks as one of the best films from late-great Ray Harryhausen - cinema's foremost master of stop-motion photography. As it's title implies, this film is based upon the mythical Arabian character of Sinbad the sailor, played by the English actor Kerwin Mathews and for the next an hour and a half, he spar's against the inspired, stop-motion, wizardry of Ray Harryhausen in this classic tale of good and evil. As one would expect The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a film that's steeped in wizardry, ancient lore and "main-stream mythology", but best of all, it also happens to be over-flowing with Harryhausen's marvelous stop-motion magic. In the form of an exotic cavalcade of mythological creatures, which are to be found on the shores and in the caves on the mysterious Island of Colossa. Indeed The 7th Voyage of Sinbad comes loaded with an impressive arsenal of wondrous Harryhausen creations such as: Cloven-hoofed cyclops', four-armed serpent women, Rok's (giant two-headed birds), fire-breathing dragons and saving the best for last, an evil sword-swinging skeleton, that which is summoned to animated life by the treacherous wizard in black, Sokurah. The films plot, not surprisingly, revolves around Sinbad having to save the princess, but there's a unique twist to that part of it, which makes this movie that much more unique. Upon it's release over the Christmas holiday season of 1958 Harryhausen and company made quite a splash with their monster-filled fantasy film and it was the first (and perhaps the best) of several forays, that stop-motion master made into the medieval times of swords n' sorcery.This classic of fantasy was efficiently produced on what looks like a pretty modest budget and it's cast, with the exception of Kerwin Mathews and Torin Hatcher (in the role of Sokurah the Magician) is, regrettably, adequate at best. Unfortunately that's something that's consistent with ALL of the Harryhausen films - they never could afford A-list acting talent. But the way I see it, the real stars behind this fantastic fantasy are, Ray Harryhausen with his patented "Dyna-mation" (stop-motion animation) and the Bernard Herrmann for his rousing film score. Maestro Herrmann was at the height of his career in 1958 and near the peak of his creative powers and his score for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, ranging from the exotic - to the bombastic, has long been among his best and most popular works (I myself own 3 different recordings of it). Supposedly Harryhausen's producer Charles Schneer, pursued the characteristically cantankerous composer for six whole months, in an epic campaign which eventually coaxed the hesitant Herrmann aboard the production. If that's really true then I certainly applaud his efforts. Harryhausen would eventually go on to make two more Sinbad films in the 1970's, but neither of them seem to "have it" like this movie does; in fact the last film pretty much sucks and was a lame and sour note to end his Sinbad trilogy with. But as time marches on, over the past nearly six decades, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad a true gem of the fantasy genre, continues to be frequently sighted as a highly influential source of inspiration in the eyes of many of the greatest directors and special effects artists of today; and just to name a few, the likes of: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Dennis Muren, etc. Not to forget the striking "Herrmann-esque" musical aspect, which imbues virtually ever minute of the movie."Herrmann-esque" a little more on that note. This film also proved to be the starting point for Bernard Herrmann's other significant long-term collaboration, a creatively fruitful partnership that always brought out the best in the brilliant, but temperamental composer. This partnership would last from 1958 to 1964, in that time the esteemed trio of Herrmann, Harryhausen and Schneer would collaborate on several occasions and produced a string of several well received fantasy films. They are in order: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Three World's of Gulliver (1960), Mysterious Island (1961) and lastly 1963's Jason and the Argonauts, which in my opinion is Herrmann's career best - his magnum opus. After the creative high-point of Jason and the Argonauts, the relationship between Herrmann and Harryhausen's long-time producer Charles Schneer, had deteriorated beyond repair, largely due to Schneer's penny-pinching way's, in regards to how the recording sessions were arranged. Which frustrated Herrmann as he thought that Schneer's stinginess undermined his ability to create the type of music that the films demanded. Things ended acrimoniously in 1964 - after Herrmann, ever so subtly, doubled his fee, which by doing so, priced himself out of their league, effectively ending a most remarkable partnership.Lastly, what's unique about this particular chapter of the Sinbad saga, is that fact that it's the first Sinbad film, to actually bring those storied and mythical beasts to the screen. It wasn't UNTIL this Ray Harryhausen classic came to be, that these fantastical beasts were actually seen; before that merely mentioning them in passing would, lamely, have to suffice. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad changed all that - for the better.

Whenever I watch one of these types of movies I'm overwhelmed by the painstaking amount of work that went into creating the 'dynamation' styled creatures, the work of special effects artists like the legendary Ray Harryhausen. You have to remember that the monsters and other fantastical creations were made of clay and repositioned a countless number of times while filming them individually frame after frame until the desired effect was achieved. Then, the film of the inanimate objects had to be blended together with the live action to produce what you see on screen. It's just an incredible amount of manual work that had to go into producing films like these in the days before blue screen and CGI.And the monsters here truly were fantastic. A Cyclops made an appearance on two separate occasions, while the second expedition back to the island of Colossa by Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) revealed a legendary Roc, an enormous two headed hawk-like bird, along with your traditional fire breathing, scaly green dragon. Perhaps the strangest creation was that of the four armed half woman/half serpent conjured up by the magician Sokhura (Torin Thatcher), an ingenious tribute to the power of one's imagination.So with all these mythical creatures on display, one might miss the parallels to one of the all time great sci-fi films made over a decade and a half later, the original "Star Wars". After Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) was restored to normal size after applying the magic potion, she and hero Sinbad did the old rope swing across the gorge to escape the dragon's lair, a neat prelude to Luke and Leia doing the same thing in 'A New Hope'. Sinbad's sword fight with the skeleton of course was recreated any number of times using light sabers by various characters in the Star Wars universe.If there's one thing I thought the film makers might have improved on it would have been the casting of the lamp genie. The young Richard Eyer just didn't seem to have the charisma that was needed to pull off the magic genie theatrics that the story called for. But he's not on screen all that much so I wouldn't consider him an impediment to enjoying the picture.

Of course this film is "dumb and dated." It was made in 1958, for crying out loud. Hence the title of my post.I saw this when I was in school and for the time, it was riveting. I grew up reading Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, and 1001 Nights (the kiddie version, you understand), so films like this one were catnip to me.This is not for young people used to Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and computer games. And I understand that.But if you were a kid way back in the *cough* 20th century, you might enjoy this, if only for nostalgic reasons. I had the chance to see this again on TV, a couple of days ago, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Dated dumbness and all.