The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) Directed by Gordon Hessler
Action / Adventure / Fantasy
Film Review
The long-awaited follow up to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
proved to be yet another triumph for special effects guru Ray
Harryhausen. Whilst the plot has marginally less substance
than a microscopic test tube filled with hydrogen gas and most of the
characters look as if they were (hurriedly) cut out of a cornflakes
box, Harryhausen's effects never fail to impress and keep us
entertained, making this muddled fantasy concoction just about
palatable.
Among the marvels that Harryhausen offers us this time
are an adorable bat lizard (which is so cute that Sinbad immediately
loses our sympathy when he tries to kill it), a walking ship's
figurehead, a sadistic one-eyed centaur and a six-armed statue that
could teach Errol Flynn a thing or two about swordsmanship.
Among the lacklustre cast only Tom Baker stands out, giving a
commanding performance as the deliciously villainous Koura.
Baker definitely deserves an award of some kind for keeping a straight face
whilst delivering some of the most excruciating lines ever to be inflicted on
an unsuspecting cinema audience. It was on the strength of his performance in
this film that the boggle-eyed actor was offered the leading part in
the long-running BBC TV series Doctor
Who - the role that made Tom Baker a household name but
put paid to a promising film career. There are some
people who still believe that Tom Baker is really just a Ray Harryhausen
creation.
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Sinbad is out sailing one sunny afternoon when a strange bat-like
creature appears from nowhere and accidentally drops a gold ornament at
his feet. Never one to look a gift horse, or in this case, a gift
bat, in the mouth, Sinbad claims the ornament as his own and turns it
into a nice necklace. Not a good idea, as it turns out, because
that night the renowned sailor and collector of bling artefacts suffers
a series of horrific nightmares. Premonition or guilty
conscience? A nasty storm then diverts Sinbad's ship to an
attractive seaside resort in the country of Marabia, which offers our
hero even more opportunities for fantastic adventure and illicit bling
accumulation. After a vicious encounter with a sinister looking
man in a dark cloak (an autograph-hunter no doubt), Sinbad arrives at a
city, where the Grand Vizier lets him into a secret or two. The
pretty gold ornament which Sinbad is currently modelling is actually
one part of precious artefact which, when assembled will show the way
to untold wealth and power for anyone who possesses it. The Grand
Vizier takes Sinbad to a dark underground chamber (Sinbad never did
take his mother's advice) where they find an object identical to the
one that the sailor is wearing around his neck. Sinbad picks up a
few additional clues (eat your heart out Miss Marple) and realises that
to find the third piece of the jigsaw he must undertake a fantastic sea
voyage to a far and distant land where he will encounter bizarre
monsters and a very nasty villain. As Sinbad embarks on his
quest, the nasty villain in question, a power-mad fiend named Koura
(who spends so much of his time soliloquising and invoking the demons
of Hell that you could easily mistake him for a career politician or
P.E. teacher) is not far behind. Koura's taste for tacky bling
vastly surpasses that of his young rival and with his talent for
breathing life into inanimate objects Sinbad certainly has his work cut out this time...
Cast: John Phillip Law (Sinbad),
Caroline Munro (Margiana),
Tom Baker (Koura),
Douglas Wilmer (Vizier),
Martin Shaw (Rachid),
Grégoire Aslan (Hakim),
Kurt Christian (Haroun),
Takis Emmanuel (Achmed),
David Garfield (Abdul),
Aldo Sambrell (Omar),
Robert Rietty (Haroun),
Robert Shaw (The Oracle of all knowledge)
Country: USA
Language: English / Arabic
Support: Color
Runtime: 105 min
The very best French thrillers
It was American film noir and pulp fiction that kick-started the craze for thrillers in 1950s France and made it one of the most popular and enduring genres.
Since the 1920s, Hollywood has dominated the film industry, but that doesn't mean American cinema is all bad - America has produced so many great films that you could never watch them all in one lifetime.