The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

An enjoyable fantasy adventure with great stop motion technique and the reason why Tom Baker was hired as Doctor Who. For fans of the Doctor this is interesting trivia as Tom Baker became the best and most cherished actor for the titular role. Rarely another is voted in the first spot for best Doctor. For others or non fans this is uninteresting so lets continue. Sindbad the Sailor is one of the most famous characters from the tales of “One Thousand and One Night” where Scheherazade has to tell her husband Shahryhar the king stories to avoid execution (He was deeply hurt by the betrayal of his former wife and psychologically damaged). Her stories healed him and the lessons made him a wise ruler. Sindbad is a reoccurring character and made several voyages where he had great adventures. It is a timeless story that is adapted in nearly all decades like Robin Hood and the three Musketeers for example but he is not equally famous as them but also well known. The story of the movie begins with an accident as a golden tablet is dropped on Sindbad's ship by a flying creature. Later on the night he has a strange dream about a man in black clothing and a woman with an eye tattoo on her hand. When they arrive at the country of Marabia they find that the tablet is part of a bigger scheme and so starts the adventure. The story works well even if it sounds a bit generic in my set up. It has a lot of unique elements, twists and ideas that make it an enjoyable ride. I praise the creativity here. The actors help to deliver the movie. There is John Phillip Law as Sindbad who nails his role as adventurer and hero of the story. Tom Baker as Prince Koura is a well working antagonist and I fully praise his performance. Like I said this was the full breakthrough of his career and he became the definitive Doctor Who actor. Then there is Caroline Munro as Margianan. She delivered a great and compelling performance. Douglas Wilmer as Vizier, George Aslan as Hakim and Kurt Christian as Haroun are good support characters. Good overall performance and like I always say in this regard I see no missteps. The special effects are amazing for the time and budget of 2 million dollars. The master of stop motion Ray Harryhausen did an amazing job. Just look up how time consuming this is so you can value the efforts even more. Also the sets, consumes and masks / make up hold up pretty well. I know this is far away from modern standards but this means not it is garbage. It was a lot of hard work, creativity and fantasy put into. I honor this deeply and will defend this statement. The soundtrack was fitting but to be honest I forgot most of it. Sneakingly good is a term I use in this regard. Overall this is a good classic of its time and worth watching. Many more modern films fail and are inferior in my humble opinion.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is not a bad adventure film from the 70s. For those years, the film was shot decently, of course the scenes with dolls look ridiculous now. But the film does have a travel spirit that most modern films in the genre don't have