Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

UPC: 043396278837

Studio: Sony Pictures

MPAA Rating: G   Contains:[Mild Violence, Excellent For Children]

Summary: Whilst Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) is on his way to Baghdad, transporting the Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant), who is to become his bride and secure peace between her kingdom and his, the ship encounters the isle of Colossa. Sinbad and his men are attacked by a gigantic, bestial one-eyed Cyclops, and are saved only when the mysterious magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) appears and uses a magic lamp to protect Sinbad's men. But in the process of escaping harm, Sokurah loses the lamp to the Cyclops. He desperately wants to retrieve it and tries to persuade Sinbad to put about and return to Colossa -- but the captain won't jeopardize the safety of the princess or the success of his mission, and the Caliph of Baghdad (Alec Mango) feels the same way, even after Sokurah amazes the court by conjuring up a snake-woman. It is only when the princess is shrunk by an evil spell, the breaking of which requires the shell from the egg of the giant Roc -- which resides on Colossa -- that Sokurah can get his expedition mounted, with Sinbad in command. With a crew made up of a handful of his bravest men and some of the most desperate convicts in the Caliph's prison, he has to contend with potential mutiny at every turn, and the men are driven almost to madness before they even reach Colossa. Once there, they find terrors as great as the Cyclops and the treachery of the magician, but Parisa -- in her tiny state -- also discovers the beautiful world inside the lamp, and the lonely boy genie (Richard Eyer) who inhabits it. They strike the bargain that, when Sinbad's bravery is added to the equation, will bring their quest to an end. If, that is, they can all survive the dangers that Sokurah puts in their path. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Category: Fantasy

Features: Standard Definition

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
This is Dynamation Special Effects featurette

Ray Harryhausen interviews by Director John Landis

Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 10/07/2008

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Vistavision

Runtime: 88 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Bruce Eder

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. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Bernard Herrmann  Composer (Music Score) 
Nathan Juran  Director 
Charles H. Schneer  Producer 
Ken Kolb  Screenwriter 
Kerwin Mathews  Actor 
Kathryn Grant  Actor 
Richard Eyer  Actor 
Torin Thatcher  Actor 
Alec Mango  Actor 
Danny Green  Actor 
Harold Kasket  Actor 
Alfred Brown  Actor 
Nana de Herrera  Actor 
Nino Falanga  Actor 
Luis Guedes  Actor 
Virgilio Teixeira  Actor 

Country: USA