Seventh Voyage of Sinbad [50th Anniversary Edition]

Director: Nathan Juran Nathan Juran

Overview

There probably wasn't an American male who was then between the ages of 5 and 15 who didn't fall hopelessly love with the Ray Harryhausen fantasy classic The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad when it was first released in 1958. Sinbad, played by Kerwin Mathews, is forced to embark upon his seventh voyage when his beloved Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) is miniaturized by treacherous sorceror Sokurah (Torin Thatcher). Laboring under the impression that only a potion made from the egg of the giant Roc living on the island of Colossa can restore the Princess to normal size, Sinbad sets sail to Colossa, with Sokurah on board. In truth, Sokurah wants to return to the isle to plunder the riches he'd discovered during a previous trip there. All the sorcerer had been able to make off with during his earlier visit was a magic lamp, containing an adolescent genie (Richard Eyer). With the help of the lamp, Sinbad meets and masters such dangers as the Roc, a cyclops, a dragon, and, best of all, a sword-wielding skeleton (this particular bit of stop-motion wizardry was elaborated upon in Jason and the Argonauts, wherein Jason did battle with a battalion of bony opponents). The breathtaking wonders of Ray Harryhausen's Dynamation process is enhanced beyond measure by the thrilling musical score of Bernard Herrmann. Seventh Voyage of Sinbad was not only a hit during its first theatrical run, but also in its subsequent reissues, not to mention the ancillary profits accrued by TV rentals, the many 8-millimeter home movie versions, and the soundtrack album.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/07/2008
UPC:	0043396257320
Original Release:	1958
Rating:	G
Source:	SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMT
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:28:00
Sales rank:	17,101

Special Features

Closed Caption; ; Audio Commentary with Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects experts Phil Tippett and Randall William Cook, author Steven Smith, and Arnold Kunert; ; Remembering The 7th Voyage of Sinbad; The Harryhausen Legacy; The Music of Bernard Herrmann; Photo Gallery; "Sinbad May Have Been Bad, But He's Been Good To Me" music video; ; A Look Behind The Voyage; Ray Harryhausen Interviewed by Director John Landis; This is Dynamation Special Effects Featurette

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Kerwin Mathews	Sinbad
Alec Mango	Caliph
Kathryn Grant	Princess Parisa
Richard Eyer	Baronni the Genie
Torin Thatcher	Sokurah the Magician
Danny Green	Karim
Harold Kasket	Sultan
Alfred Brown	Harufa
Nana de Herrera	Sadi
Nino Falanga	Gaunt Sailor
Luis Guedes	Crewman
Virgilio Teixeira	Ali
Bernard Herrmann	Composer

Technical Credits

Ken Kolb

Ray Harryhausen

Nathan Juran	Director
Ken Kolb	Screenwriter
Charles H. Schneer	Producer
Ray Harryhausen	Special Effects,Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The '50s were not a good decade for fantasy films. Ever since The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing (both 1951), science fiction had dominated the realm of fantastic cinema. What's more, there had not been a truly good Arabian Nights-type fantasy movie made since Alexander Korda's 1940 production of The Thief of Bagdad. Enter Ray Harryhausen, the special effects designer and stop-motion animation specialist who had just come off of a string of successful science fiction films, all but one made in association with producer Charles Schneer. All of those movies had been built on notions of monsters on the loose and threats to the safety of the Earth, and had been shot in black-and-white. By 1957, Harryhausen was ready to try shooting his stop-motion work and his movies in color, in England, where a new, more advanced form of special effect processing technique had been devised, and in keeping with the availability of color, he also had a different, bigger goal in mind. Ever since he'd seen both the silent 1924 Douglas Fairbanks Sr. version of Thief of Baghdad and the 1940 Korda Thief of Bagdad, Harryhausen had wanted to make an Arabian Nights fantasy film -- several Sinbad movies had been made in the time since Korda's movie, but none had utilized any real fantasy elements; they'd mentioned the Roc and other apparitions, but had never shown them because they couldn't be realized on the screen. That was no problem for Harryhausen, however, who had been creating fantastic apparitions in feature films for a decade. He and Schneer, working with director Nathan Juran, created an Arabian Nights film that could not only promise high-adventure and fantastic visions, but deliver them -- in fact, deliver a bumper-crop of them. Juran didn't have much to do beyond moving the actors around in front of the camera and directing consistent performances from the cast, but coupled with Harryhausen's special effects and Wilkie Cooper's photography, and Bernard Herrmann's music, the result was one of the three finest live-action Arabian Nights movies ever made, and a worthy successor to the two versions of The Thief of Baghdad that had inspired Harryhausen in the first place.