The Golden Voyage of Sinbad | John Phillip Law, Caroline Munro

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad | John Phillip Law, Caroline Munro | watershed

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The Golden Voyage ...

	The Golden Voyage of Sinbad John Phillip Law, Caroline Munro Sony Pictures, 2000 average customer review:based on 34 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

6 arms and six swords...

The scenes with Kali, the 6 armed goddess, are enough to make this movie worth buying. A good story line, several other monsters, and Caroline Munro (the movie's other goddess - WOW!) also make this a keeper.

I enjoy Golden Voyage as much as 7th Voyage.

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Golden Voyage of Sinbad was a landmark movie for reasons not known to many movie buffs. It was the first time a major studio--Columbia--decided to advertise a movie on television, saturating local and network stations with :30 second spots. It was a trial run to see whether expensive advertising on TV would pay off--and it did. Movies do not benefit so much these days from TV ads, but Golden Voyage opened the gates back in 1973.

Now to the movie itself--a masterpiece of modest budgeted economy. A great cast, including the incomparable Martin Shaw as Sinbad's right-hand man, and Tom Baker making one of the most memorable (and sympathetic) villains in the history of cinema. John Phillip Law gets Sinbad just right--meaning he exudes confidence, doesn't overdo the accent, and has the right amount of humor to go along with his character.

While Harryhausen's griffin and centaur have not aged well, the homunuculus remains a masterful creation of his stop-motion animation technique. Cameo appearance by Robert Shaw as the mysterious oracle rounds off this excellent movie--great for all ages.

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Where Good And Evil Battle Eternally

Ask any male who went through adolescence in the '50's and 60's for the one word that was synonomous with special effects and they will all answer, Harryhausen.

'The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad' was the second in a series of three Sinbad movies highlighted by the clay models of Ray Harryhausen. It was also the best. Yes, it's true that by todays standards the stop-action techniques used back then to provide the illusion of movement by Ray's fantastic creations was slow and cumbersome compared to what we can accomplish today with computer-generated images. However for us old-timers who didn't know any better it was absolutely magical.

'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' was a classic of the genre in '73 and can still be enjoyed by the younger, albeit more visually sophisticated generation if they are willing to overlook some of the inherent flaws from a time before computers forever changed the cinematic landscape.

While somethings constantly change, somethings remain forever constant. No special effects are necessary to enjoy the ravishing Marigiana (Caroline Munro), looking better than any woman has ever looked on film.

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"Every voyage has its own flavor."

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), the second film in the Ray Harryhausen/Charles H. Schneer trilogy, the other two being The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), all available in a three DVD boxed set available as I write this...when I say `trilogy', I mean three films featuring the character of Sinbad, as they are not one, continuous storyline, but three, separate tales, so there is no necessity to watch them in any particular order. Co-written by Brian Clemens ("The Avengers") and Ray Harryhausen, and directed by Gordon Hessler (Scream and Scream Again, `KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park'), the film stars John Phillip Law (Danger: Diabolik), Caroline Munro (At the Earth's Core, Maniac), and Tom Baker, who would find his niche in his next role as the lead character (played by many over the years) in the long running BBC television series "Doctor Who". Also appearing is Douglas `Nayland Smith' Wilmer (The Brides of Fu Manchu), Kurt Christian (Horror Hospital, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger), and Robert Shaw (From Russia with Love, Jaws) as the floating, larger than life, gangrenous, disembodied, riddle speaking, horned head of The Oracle of all knowledge...seriously, you have to see, fizzy bubbles and all, it to believe it...

The film opens with a ship sailing the ocean, those aboard spotting a mysterious-looking flying creature overhead, carrying a shiny object, which it ends up dropping. Sinbad (Law) picks it up and has visions of a hot babe (Munro) dancing about in I Dream of Genie garb...the crew thinks it's bad mojo (they're idiots), but Sinbad decides to keep it (hey, if it provides visions of Miss Munro just by touching it I'd keep it too). Later that night, after Sinbad has some strange and seemingly prophetic dreams, he and his crew narrowly avoid complete destruction during a harrowing storm, and end up finding themselves off course, near a kingdom named Marabia. Sinbad goes ashore, to which he has a run in with some a-hole named Koura (Baker), a meddler in the black arts and someone desperate to get the golden object Sinbad found earlier at sea. Turns out the object is part of a map, one leads to untold wealth, power...and danger. The Grand Vizer (Wilmer), who rules the land, requests Sinbad's help in that if this prize were to fall into Koura's possession, Marabia (and eventually the world) would suffer greatly, so begins a race against evil to a mythical island named Lemuria, where a fortune the likes never seen before await, along with some really nasty, ill-tempered creatures one would normally expect to see in a film like this...

While The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is my favorite of the Sinbad films, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (Filmed in Dynarama!) is really pretty decent and shouldn't be neglected. The weakest element in this film for me was it took so very long for things to really get going. The first third of the film sort of drags its feet, but it does pick up eventually. On thing that annoyed me was the writing, particularly the way nearly every, stinkin' character regurgitated proverb after proverb after proverb..."Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel."..."A live dog is better than a dead lion." and my personal favorite "He who walks on fire will burn his feet."...can anyone tell me what was the point of the character played by Kurt Christian, named Haroun? Sinbad ends up taking a merchant's worthless son at the merchant's behest (to make him a man, I suppose), but it seemed only a plot contrivance to work Munro's slave girl character into the film (Sinbad decline, but then agreed when the merchant tossed in the girl as part of the bargain). Yeah, Haroun took part in a number of sequences later on (mostly as a comic relief), but my point is he was pretty much a worthless and unnecessary character, cluttering up the landscape, and taking screen time away from the others, particularly Caroline Munro, who, thankfully had very few speaking lines (Think I'm kidding? Check out her 1979 film Starcrash and get back to me)...don't get me wrong, I love her to death, but she just can't act...but then neither can I, so we're even. I though Law did very good job portraying and embodying the swashbuckling Sinbad, but his crew didn't fare as well. Instead of harden, sea weathered sailors, they appeared to be a bunch of longhaired dudes pulled in from off the street and dressed as sailors...at least they were better than the goofy dancing tribe of green meanies that populated the Temple of the Oracle. Also, I thought the quest itself got a bit convoluted...every time one aspect would be completed, like three more things would need to be done to move on...the mythical island of Lemuria, Temple of the Oracle, The Oracle of All Knowledge, The Great Eminence, the Fountain of Destiny, Crown of Wealth, Cloak of Darkness...where does it end? By the way, did anyone else notice how similar the Fountain of Destiny was to Stonehenge? Baker did very well as the villain, as by the end of the film you really wanted to wring his neck. An interesting aspect was that every time his character called upon his magics, he got a little older as his delving into the black arts require a physical payment of sorts. And I have a question...when Sinbad and his men were trapped in the cave, they made a rope out of clothes...how come Caroline Munro's character was the only one not to contribute to the cause? Missed opportunities...so what about the creatures? Well, let's see...there's a homunculus (a tiny, winged demon looking creature), a lively ship's masthead, a six-armed statue of Kali a sickly cycloptic Minotaur (half humanoid, half bull), and a griffon (wings and head of an eagle, body of a lion). The homunculus is probably the best looking in terms of detail and movement, but in terms of actually blending it into the live action, it probably looks the most awkward...but that's all right because I've got imagination, and I can make exceptions when the effort is obviously there, even if the results are less than ideal. The coolest sequence involved Sinbad and his men fighting the six-armed (six swords) Kali to the death...it didn't look as good as when Sinbad fought the skeleton in the first film, but still, it is exciting and completely worthwhile viewing, underscored well by Miklós Rózsa's adept musical scoring. Overall strong production values, great settings, decent acting, decent directing add up to a fun and enjoyable adventure for all...three stars for the movie, plus one extra for Caroline Munro's heaving cleavage.

The film is presented in both widescreen anamorphic (1.85:1) and fullscreen format, both looking very clean and clear. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio comes through well enough to satisfy most. There's a good amount of special features available, including three featurettes titled `Mysterious Island' (9:04), `The 3 Worlds of Gulliver' (5:21), and `Earth vs. the Flying Saucer" (8:37), vintage advertising, an original theatrical trailer, and production notes in a insert booklet.

Cookieman108

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information on 'full frame' golden voyage

just so you know people. the full frame version is not pan & scan, but the original edit before the top and bottom of the frame were matted out for theatrical release. that's right the top and bottom of the frame is cut for the widescreen version unlike the more common cutting at the sides known as pan & scan. Harryhausen was aware that his films were going to be shown on tv so he tried to keep the original films unmatted for future tv showings. So far this movie is the only one that I know of that carries this version. My advice is if you have a 4:3 tv set then I highly recommend watching it in full frame. however if you 16x9 set then it would propably be better to watch it in the matted widescreen 'anamorphic' version to get more detail & better picture.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7

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