The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
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| The 7th Voyage of Sinbad | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Nathan Juran |
| Produced by | Charles H. Schneer Ray Harryhausen |
| Written by | Kenneth Kolb |
| Starring | Kerwin Mathews Torin Thatcher Kathryn Grant Richard Eyer Alec Mango |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Wilkie Cooper |
| Editing by | Roy Watts |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 23, 1958 |
| Running time | 88 min. |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a Technicolor 1958 fantasy film directed by Nathan Juran, and the first of the "Sinbad trilogy" conceptualized and animated by Ray Harryhausen.
While similarly named, the film does not follow the plot of the tale "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor".
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Kerwin Matthews stars as the legendary sailor Sinbad. To save a princess (who has been shrunk down to the size of a thumb) from the evil wizard, Sakourah (Torin Thatcher), Sinbad must battle several fabulous monsters. The monsters include Cyclops, a two-headed Roc (a giant bird), and a dragon.[1] He also fences against an animated skeleton! The Dragon Was Arrowed and Died. Sinbad rescued The Princess and the roc ended up featherless.
- The term "Dynamation" was first used for this film.
- A soundtrack album of Bernard Herrmann's score was released on Columbia's record label, Colpix. In later years it would become one of the most sought after albums by soundtrack collectors.
- Alfred Brown is dubbed.
- The film's original script had a climax that involved two cyclopes fighting. However in the final film, The climactic battle featured a cyclops fighting a dragon.
- To overcome this concept animator Ray Harryhausen gave the Cyclops furry goat legs and cloven hooves, an idea lifted from his first concept of the Ymir (the monster from 20 Million Miles to Earth). Interestingly, he used the same armature for both creatures.
- Originally it was planned to have the Dragon breathing fire out of its mouth during the fight sequence with the Cyclops but the cost to do this would have been too high. For the scenes where the Dragon does breathe fire, Harryhausen used a flamethrower against a night sky and shot it at about 30 to 40 feet, then he superimposed the shot in the area close to the Dragon's mouth.
- The actual model of the Dragon was over three feet long and very difficult to animate, this made the fight between him and the Cyclops very difficult for Ray Harryhausen, which took him two to three weeks to complete.
- It took Ray Harryhausen 11 months to complete the entire animation sequences for the film.
- Harryhausen researched the cobra-woman sequence by watching a real belly dancer in Beirut, Lebanon. During the performance Harryhausen says "smoke was coming up [his] jacket. [He] thought [he] was on fire! It turned out the gentleman behind [him] was smoking a hookah!"
The Cyclops is the film's most popular character, but Ray's personal favorite was the snakewoman, a combination of Princess Parrissa's maid, Sadi, and a cobra.[citation needed]