Running time 88 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $650,000 Box office $3.2 million (est. US/ Canada rentals) The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a 1958 from, produced by, directed by, that stars,.
Feb 8, 2017 - The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was the first of Harryhausen's work to be filmed in colour. However, the two elements of the film that excel are the excellent monsters and a superb score composed by Bernard Herrmann. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a 1958 Technicolor heroic fantasy adventure film from Columbia Pictures, produced by Charles H. Schneer, directed by Nathan H. Juran, that stars Kerwin Mathews, Torin Thatcher, Kathryn Grant, Richard Eyer, and Alec Mango.
This was the first of three from Columbia, the later two from the '70s being (1973) and (1977). All three Sinbad films were conceptualized by using, the full color technique that he created. While similarly named, the film does not follow the storyline of the tale ' but instead has more in common with the and voyages of Sinbad. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was selected in 2008 for preservation in the United States by the as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. Sinbad and his men confront the.
After reaching Baghdad, Sokurah performs at the pre-wedding festivities, temporarily turning Parisa's handmaiden into a. Despite his prowess and a dark prophecy about war between Baghdad and Chandra, the Caliph of Baghdad refuses to help the magician return to Colossa.
Later that night, Sokurah secretly shrinks the princess, enraging her father, the Sultan of Chandra , who declares war on Baghdad. Sinbad and the Caliph give in to Sokurah, who explains that the eggshell of a is needed for the potion that will restore Parisa, and it can be found only on Colossa. Sokurah provides Sinbad with the plans for a for protection against the island's giant creatures. Sinbad recruits additional crewmen from among the convicts in the Caliph's prisons.
Before they reach Colossa, the cutthroats mutiny and capture Sokurah, Sinbad, and his men. During a violent storm, the sounds of keening from a nearby island drives the crew nearly mad, endangering the ship. One of the men releases Sinbad so he can save them, after the mutineers' leader falls to his death from the crow's nest. On Colossa, Sinbad, Sokurah, and six of his crew enter the valley of the cyclops, followed by Sinbad's loyal aide Harufa (Alfred Brown).
Sinbad and Sokurah split their forces. Sinbad and his men find the cyclops' treasure cave, but are captured by one of the creatures and locked in a wooden cage. Sokurah, in the meantime, retrieves the magic lamp, but is chased by the cyclops, who kills three of the men. With Parisa's aid, Sinbad manages to escape, then blinds the one-eyed creature and lures it off the edge of a cliff to its death. Sinbad decides to hold on to the lamp until Parisa is returned to normal size.
Sokurah leads Sinbad and his starving men to the nesting place of the giant Rocs. Out of hunger, Sinbad's men try to break open a Roc egg, causing it to hatch, but the newborn chick is killed by the men and fire-roasted for food. While the men are eating, Parisa enters the magic lamp and befriends the childlike inside, Barani , who tells her how to summon him in exchange for her promise of his freedom. The parent Roc returns and slays the men.
Sinbad tries to summon the genie, but he is grabbed by the Roc, who takes flight, and drops him, unconscious, into its nearby nest. Sokurah kills Harufa and abducts the princess, taking her to his underground fortress. Sinbad awakes and rubs the magic lamp, summoning Barani, who takes Sinbad to Sokurah's fortress and helps him evade the chained that stands guard.
Sinbad reaches Sokurah, who restores the princess to normal. When Sinbad refuses to hand over the lamp, the magician animates a, which Sinbad sword-fights and destroys. With the help of the genie, Sinbad and Parisa make their way out of the cave, stopping to destroy the lamp by throwing it into a pool of lava, thus freeing Barani. Leaving the cave, they encounter another cyclops. Sinbad releases the dragon, which fights and kills the creature. Sinbad and Parisa make their escape, but Sokurah orders the dragon to hunt them down.
Sinbad heads to the beach, where his men have readied the giant crossbow, and they use it to kill the dragon. The dying dragon collapses on Sokurah, crushing him to death. Sinbad, Parisa, and the remaining crew depart for Baghdad. They are joined by Barani (now human), who appoints himself as Sinbad's cabin boy and, in a final act of magic, presented Sinbad and Parisa with the treasure from the cyclops' cave as a wedding gift. as Sinbad. as Princess Parisa. as Barani, the.
as Sokurah. as the of. as the, Parisa's father. Alfred Brown as Harufa, Sinbad's loyal right-hand man. Nana DeHerrera as Sadi (as Nana de Herrera). Nino Falanga as Gaunt Sailor. Luis Guedes as Crewman.
as Ali. as Karim Production It took Ray Harryhausen 11 months to complete the full color, widescreen stop-motion animation sequences for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Harryhausen's 'Dynamation' label was used for the first time on this film. Harryhausen gave the cyclops a horn, legs, and cloven hooves, an idea based upon the concept of the. He lifted much of the creature's design (for example the torso, chest, arms, poise and style of movement) from his concept of the (the creature from his earlier ).
He used the same armature for both figures; to do this, he had to cannibalize the ymir, removing the latter's latex body. Harryhausen researched the -woman sequence (when Sakourah entertains the and the ) by watching a belly dancer in,. During the performance, Harryhausen says, 'smoke was coming up my jacket. I thought I was on fire!
It turned out the gentleman behind me was smoking a hookah!' The cyclops is the film's most popular character, but Harryhausen's personal favorite was the cobra-woman, a combination of Princess Parisa's maid, Sadi, and a cobra. The film's original script had a climax that involved two cyclops fighting. In the final version, however, the climactic battle featured a single cyclops versus a dragon. The model of the dragon was more than three feet long and was very difficult to animate; the fight sequence took nearly three weeks for Harryhausen to complete.
Originally, it was planned to have the dragon breathing fire from its mouth during the entire sequence, but the cost was deemed too high. So the scenes where it does breathe fire, Harryhausen used a, shooting out flames 30 to 40 feet against a night sky, then the filmed fire very near the dragon's mouth. The sword fight scene between Sinbad and the proved so popular with audiences that Harryhausen recreated and expanded the scene five years later, this time having a group of seven armed skeletons fight the Greek hero Jason and his men in 1963's. The stop-motion cobra-woman figure used for the film was cannibalized 20 years later in order to make the figure in Harryhausen's final film,.
Film score The music score for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was composed by, better known at the time for his collaboration with the director. Herrmann went on to write the scores for three other Harryhausen films:,.
Of the four, Harryhausen regarded the score for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad as being the finest, due to the empathy Herrmann's main title composition evoked for the subject matter. The soundtrack producer Robert Townson, who re-recorded the score in 1998 with the, described the music as rich and vibrant, commenting 'I would cite The 7th Voyage of Sinbad as one of the scores which most validates film music as an art form and a forum where a great composer can write a great piece of music. As pure composition, I would place Sinbad beside anything else written this century and not worry about it being able to stand on its own'.
Reception The 7th Voyage of Sinbad continues to be well-reviewed by critics, with many holding the opinion that it is the best film of the 'Sinbad' trilogy. The film carries a 100% approval rating at the website, with several reviewers citing its nostalgic value. Critic Ken Hanke calls it 'Childhood memory stuff of the most compelling kind.' Lists. Nominated.:. Sinbad - Nominated Hero. Nominated Fantasy Film Producer, impressed with the film's success, produced a on his own in 1962, titled, using the principal cast members of The 7th Voyage, as and as the evil Pendragon, reuniting as the starring characters.
Comic book adaptions. #944 (September 1958). #25 (December 1975) See also. References Notes. from the.
'1959: Probable Domestic Take', Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34. Swires, Steve (April 1989). Starlog Magazine. Library of Congress.
Retrieved 23 January 2017. The Official Ray Harryhausen Website. Retrieved 23 January 2017. Johnson, John (1996).
McFarland and Company, Inc. Retrieved 23 January 2017. Dalton 2003, p. Dalton 2005, pp.
Monstervision, 2000. Retrieved: January 29, 2015.
Luchs, Kurt. The Bernard Herrrmann Society, October 1998. Retrieved: January 29, 2015. ^ at.
AFI. Retrieved: January 29, 2015. Retrieved: January 29, 2015. Retrieved: January 29, 2015. at the Comic Book DB.
Buttery, Jarrod (April 2014). 'Ready for the Spotlight'.
Raleigh, North Carolina: (71): 8. Bibliography.
The original soundtrack to Ray Harryhausen's classic fantasy film The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), composed by Bernard Herrmann, has had numerous incarnations - a soundtrack LP at the time from Colpix Records, and a reissue from United Artists Records during the mid-'70s, plus a re-release from Varese Sarabande in 1980, produced by Richard Kraft and Tom Null, and its CD issue in 1986. In the years since, it has been supplanted in the Varese catalog by a modern re-recording of a larger portion of the score as originally composed, by John Debney and the Scottish National Orchestra. This recording was, by contrast, limited to under 35 minutes of music, which was considered sufficiently generous on a 1959 LP, and the music encompasses the score as edited for the final cut of the picture.
The Debney re-recording of the score has its virtues, including all-digital audio, but Herrmann's original recording is still essential listening - no one conducted Herrmann's music like Herrmann himself, especially in his prime, which is precisely when this album captures him at work. The fine little nuances in the playing and the recording, in tracks such as 'Cobra Dance' (which, here, is paired off with 'Sultan's Feast'), and the use of the close timbres of the winds, are something that not even the newest digital technology can capture properly - and depend upon it, those are elements in the music that one does perceive, somewhere above the subliminal level, in watching the movie. Additionally, the score itself depicting Herrmann having fun at his work - he evidently reveled in the images and action he was being asked to accompany and orchestrate, and adding in his conducting to the mix only heightens the impact of the music, which is highly expressive to begin with. This score represented Herrmann going wild in the studio, cut loose to entertain his most unorthodox musical impulses, and his conducting makes the experience totally enveloping of the listener. Further, the then 40-year-old master tapes have held up remarkably well, and there is no loss of fidelity anywhere in the playback - just a little more hiss in the quietest moments than we would expect of a modern recording.
And to top it off, this may well have been the first Herrmann score released commercially in stereo, and the separation between the two channels works perfectly, even by modern standards, thanks to Null and Kraft's care and the contribution of engineer Danny Hersh. The Debney recording may have more of the score, but this original release better captures the beautiful elegance, romance, richness, and inventiveness of the man, the conductor as well as the composer. And for those who appreciate the Film Score Monthly releases of Herrmann's work at Twentieth Century Fox from this same period, this CD slots right in alongside all of those and helps completes the picture of his work from that part of his career.
Bruce Eder.