Sinbad y la princesa

After his wife-to-be, Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant), is shrunk by an evil magician, Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) undertakes a perilous journey to a mysterious monster inhabited island, in an attempt to restore her to full size (and who can blame him-she's a total babe and wears the kind of outfit most red-blooded men wish they could get their woman into).

Almost fifty years on, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad may seem dated (particularly for those only familiar with CGI monsters) but, in my opinion, it still has the power to captivate and amaze. With Ray Harryhausen's wonderful stop motion effects (which include a cyclops, a dragon, a snake-woman, a giant two-headed bird and an animated skeleton) and a timeless magical tale of swashbuckling heroics, director Nathan Juran delivers a classic slice of fantasy cinema.

A cracking opening gets straight to the action with Sinbad and his men encountering bad-guy Sokurah when their ship is blown off course and ends up at the island of Colossa. The wicked magician is being chased by a cyclops, but is rescued by Sinbad and his men, who help him to safety aboard their vessel. Sokurah wishes to be returned to the island in order to get his hands on a magic lamp (now in the possession of the cyclops), but Sinbad is headed for Bagdad where he is to be married to the gorgeous Parisa, and ain't nothing going to stop him from tying the knot. Nothing, that is, 'cept for his woman being reduced to the size of a small doll.

Not realising that Sokurah is to blame for her diminutive stature, Sinbad is conned into returning to Colossa, where the nasty magician says he can create a potion which will return Parisa to normal.

Great fun from start to finish, The 7th Voyage is packed full of great scenes (my favourite being the Cyclops preparing a tasty snack--spit-roasted sailor) and is perfect fare for fantasy-loving kids and adults alike. And, if you like this, seek out the Golden Voyage of Sinbad, which I think is even better.

I saw this film first when I was 11 years old and seeing it 59 years later hasn't diminished me enthusiasm. This is some of Ray Harryhausen's best work and first with classical characters as opposed to futuristic science fiction.

Playing Sinbad is Kerwin Matthews who seemed to like doing these films, he was so often cast in them. He's getting ready to marry Princess Kathryn Crosby and that's something for even a sea captain to marry into the royal family.

But when they're blown off course and come to an island where magician Torin Thatcher headquarters and shares it with a cyclops, a giant flying roc bird and a fire breathing dragon Thatcher keeps to protect his lair it's trouble. Thatcher has possession also of a magic lamp with a boy genie Richard Eyer who like Pinnochio wants to be a real live boy.

Watching The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad really takes me back to when I was 11 years old. You can still thrill at my age to what Harryhausen does with those monsters. An 11 year old of any age can still thrill to the dragon and cyclops duking it out while our hero escapes with his lady love.

Thatcher's a villain that will give you nightmares. He's pure evil, the kind you applaud when he gets his.

After almost 60 years The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad is still a great family film with whole cloth heroes and the darkest of villains.

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!

I have long had a soft spot for "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad", and Ray Harryhausen's work in general, ever since I was taken, as a child, as part of a friend's birthday treat, to see the film on a double bill with "Jason and the Argonauts". This would have been in the early seventies, nearly a decade and a half after it was first released in 1958, but in those days children's films seemed to have a longer shelf-life than they do today, and it was quite common for cinemas to wheel out the familiar old classics every school holiday. (My friend's birthday fell in July, so his parties normally included a trip to the movies).

The plot concerns a beautiful princess who has been shrunk to a height of only a few inches by an evil magician. She can only be restored to normal by a magic potion, the ingredients for which can only be obtained by a hazardous voyage to a distant island. Step forward the heroic Sinbad, who has fallen in love with the princess. Once on the island he and his crew must face many dangers, including a cyclops, a dragon and a roc, a gigantic two-headed predatory bird.

This isn't really the sort of film you go to for the acting, so it doesn't really matter that neither the handsome Kerwin Mathews as Sinbad nor the lovely Kathryn Grant (aka Mrs Bing Crosby) as Princess Parisa were the sort of actors who were ever likely to receive Oscar nominations. What matters is that both looked and sounded right in an Arabian Nights fantasy movie.

Monsters were Harryhausen's stock-in-trade, and the monster scenes were filmed using Dynamation, the widescreen stop-motion animation technique which he created. He later worked on two more Sinbad films using the same technique, "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" from 1973 and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" from 1977. I have never seen "The Golden Voyage", but by 1977 (the same year as the original "Star Wars") Harryhausen's work, and stop-motion animation in general, was starting to look a bit retro in the age of CGI.

For me, however, the retro look is part of the charm of this sort of film, and we have to remember that in 1958 it was not retro at all, but cutting-edge film technology. It may look old-fashioned today, but "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" still retains its ability to transport the audience into a world full of wonders. And that is the whole point of films like this. 7/10

This truly action packed fantasy is as fun nearly 50 on from the time of it's making. Out of the films that were produced by Charles H. Schneer and featured special effects by Ray Harryhausen, Jason And The Argonauts is usually named as the best [certainly that was the film where Harryhausen perfected his techniques],but Sinbad is not far behind. It's far simpler but provides just as much entertainment. Of course some of the dialogue is a little hokey, but who watches films like this for their dialogue? Dialogue here exists simply to help propel the plot forward at as fast a pace as possible.

The amount of action scenes crammed into this less-then-90 min. film is astounding, and despite this the film still retains a delightful sense of wonder, as one wonders what fantastic creation will show up next. Yes, some of the matt work looks a bit poor ,and the creatures are a little jerky, but the design and execution of the snake woman, cyclopes, rocs, dragon etc. is still astounding for the time, and some sequences, such as the battle with the the first cyclops and the duel with the skeleton, are still very exciting.

Criticisms of the acting may be partially justified, but Torin Thatcher is as menacing a villain as one can wish for, and of course there's also Bernard Herrmann's extremely inventive score. Schneer and Harryhausen would later make two further Sinbad films, and there was a semi- remake several years later, Jack The Giant Killer. All three are fun, but none have the simple purity of this classic adventure.