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Reviewed by Colin Jacobson
Columbia-TriStar, widescreen 1.85:1/16x9, languages: English Digital Mono [CC], Portuguese & Spanish Digital Mono, subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, single side-dual layer, 28 chapters, rated G, 88 min., $27.95, street date 11/30/99. Supplements:
Directed by Nathan Juran. Starring Kerwin Mathews, Kathyrn Grant, Richard Eyer, Torin Thatcher, Alec Mango, Danny Green. It's an incredible cinematic adventure as the legendary Sinbad sets off on a dangerous journey to the mysterious Island of Colossus. His quest is to break the spell cast over his beloved princess by a diabolical magician. But before he can save her, Sinbad must battle an awesome collections of Mythical monsters - the man-eating Cyclops, a saber-wielding skeleton, a ferocious two-headed bird called the Roc and a fire-breathing dragon.
Yes, I say that from the vantage point of 42 years cinematic development. Luddite film buffs will try to convince you that it's a classic, newer movies are soulless and can't touch it, blah blah blah. You know something? Just because a movie's old doesn't make it good; 7th proves that in spades. Omitting Harryhausen's work from the equation - more about that later - 7th has nothing going for it, and not just because it's dated. It offers extremely poor acting across the board. Stars Kerwin Mathews (Sinbad) and Kathyrn Grant (Princess Parisa) are stiff Valley kids who seem completely out of place in this movie (though I must acknowledge that Grant's quite sexy in an apple-cheeked Fifties kind of way, as Der Bingle obviously agreed, since he later married her). Torin Thatcher is all wild-eyed hamminess as evil magician Sokurah, and the less said about the bizarre casting of thirteen-year-old Richard Eyer as the Opie-esque Genie, the better. I'm sure there are worse-acted movies out these, but I can't think of any right now. The story itself has potential for excitement, but the production values seem so fantastically cheesy that it was impossible to suspend disbelief. I mean, the broad acting makes it hard enough to invest any emotion in the story; the crudeness of the remainder of the film causes it to be virtually impossible. Add to this some pathetic dialogue and you have a true loser of a movie. Is it unfair for me to slam this movie because its Fifties standards don't match those of today? Perhaps, but lame is lame is lame; I can allow for difference in standards all I want but it won't make this stinker any more entertaining. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this single-sided, dual-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Although the picture presents a large number of flaws, it actually looks pretty good for its age. Sharpness generally seems relatively crisp, though it's inconsistent. Closeups and two-shots always appear fine, but anything wider than that becomes a crap shoot; some of those scenes look good but many seem soft and fuzzy. I noted to moire effects or artifacts from the anamorphic downconversion. The print used generally seems clean except for one major problem: grain. This movie's got more grain than a loaf of wheat bread! This problem, as with many of the others, is exacerbated during the film's many special effects scenes, but the grain is definitely not limited to those segments; it shows up frequently in a variety of different circumstances. In fact, low-light shots often look best because they hide the grain. Other than this frequent hindrance, though, the print looks surprisingly fresh; I noted occasional spots and speckles, but very few. Colors are also a mixed bag, but they usually seem pretty solid and accurate. Hues occasionally appeared a bit muddled and thick, but they generally look decent. Black levels are actually quite good and shadow detail is fine. As I earlier mentioned, the heavy usage of then-pioneering special effects definitely harms the image much of the time. These shots often look much worse than the regular scenes and almost always display at least one flaw, if not many. Non-effect shots also have the problems I list, but they don't appear as consistently. It's not a great image, but it's pretty decent. 7th offers a passable monaural sound mix that, as with the picture, does some things right but nonetheless has a fair number of flaws. Actually, only one major problem affects the audio: the fact that all dialogue is so obviously and poorly dubbed. I can't recall the last time I heard such artificial-sounding speech; it seems so fake that it sometimes resembled the stereotypically bad dubbing of foreign martial arts films. While the dialogue is always intelligible and lacks other problems, I couldn't help but feel extremely distracted by how poorly it got integrated into the action. Overall quality for the sound is relatively decent for the film's age. Dialogue, effects and music seem thin and shallow, and the mix lacks balance - speech really dominates - but the track almost completely lacks any hints of distortion or any other tape flaws. To be honest, I don't ask much of soundtracks for 40+ year old movies, so as long as they are clean and clear, they're acceptable, and that's the case here. But boy, does the dubbing bite! The one saving grace of this DVD comes from its fine assortment of supplements. The prime attraction is a terrific 58 minute documentary called the "Ray Harryhausen Chronicles". The program features narration from Leonard Nimoy and also presents interviews with Harryhausen, producer Charles Schneer, Ray Bradbury, George Lucas, special effects master Dennis Muren, and stop motion filmmaker Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach and Nightmare Before Christmas). We also see a lot of great archival footage from literally every stage of Harryhausen's career, including some wonderful material he created as a teen. This program offers an excellent chronological history of Harryhausen's career (and essentially the evolution of movie effects, as well). It's very nicely paced and quite charming; overall, it's an absolutely terrific feature. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad DVD provides a few other shorter programs also. We get "Interviews: A Look Behind the Voyage", an eleven minute and 40 second piece that features comments from Harryhausen, Schneer, and actor Kerwin Mathews. This is a pleasant and entertaining feature that offers some interesting details about the creation of the film. "This Is Dynamation!" is a three and a half minute featurette that comes from the era in which the movie was released. It's short and frothy fun, in a campy way. Jason and the Argonauts is another documentary, but this one focusses on the film of the same name. Director John Landis interviews Harryhausen and has him demonstrate some aspects of his effects work. The piece lasts for almost 12 minutes and essentially provides an abridged history of Harryhausen's career. It shows nothing particularly crucial that we don't hear elsewhere, but Landis' obvious affection and semi-awe help make it entertaining; ultimately, it helps give us a better appreciation for Harryhausen because we can see him through the eyes of those who really learned from him. In addition to all these features, we receive an abundance of trailers. We get promos for all these films: 7th Voyage of Sinbad; 20 Million Miles to Earth; Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers; The 3 Worlds of Gulliver; Jason and the Argonauts; It Came from Beneath the Sea; and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (not to be confused with the porno film, The Golden Showers of Sinbad). Talent files for Harryhausen, director Nathan Juran, and actors Mathews, Grant and Thatcher appear; as is typical of CTS DVDs, these offer very little information and are nearly useless. The DVD also shows a reproduction of the theatrical poster and contains a booklet with basic but interesting information. Is it worth buying a DVD when you don't like the movie? Sometimes, yes. In the case of Spielberg's 1941, I loathed the movie but I kept the DVD because it offered a wonderful documentary. Such is the same for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. I seriously doubt that I'll ever want to watch the film itself again; it's presented with acceptable sound and picture, but I found the movie to be a campy trifle that didn't entertain me in the least. However, the DVD presents some fantastic video documentaries about one of Hollywood's great innovators and talents, Ray Harryhausen. Although the movie bites, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad belongs in the collection of any fan of special effects because of the fine history it offers.
Current as of 1/17/2000 The Ray Harryhaussen Creature List--"A complete source of imformation about Ray Harryhausen's brilliant stop-motion animation."
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Would anyone not actually involved with the project remember 1958's The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad were it not for the involvement of legendary special
effects creator Ray Harryhausen? Not a chance! Harryhausen's
groundbreaking work aside, this movie's an absolute stinker.