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8
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9 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
There
are some movies that, when mentioned, cause a
spontaneous smile. The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad is certainly one of these
beloved films, able to generate big smiles and
warm remembrances. Many a rainy afternoon has
been whiled away absorbing Sinbad’s adventures
of sailing the high seas, battling evil sorcerers
and escaping from dreadful gigantic beasts bent
on eating our brave hero. I'm sure everyone reading
this has a childhood memory of being glued to
the screen (big or small) and seeing the fantastic
sights that it seemed only Ray Harryhausen could
bring to life. In the course of 35 years and 16
movies Mr. Harryhausen made some of the best and
most successful fantasy films in the history of
cinema. Anyone who loves cinema fantastique
has a favorite even if they don’t love them all.
In addition to the three Sinbad movies, there's
20 Million Miles
To Earth, Jason And
The Argonauts, Mysterious
Island, First
Men In The Moon, One
Million Years B.C.,
The Valley
Of Gwangi, The
Golden Voyage Of Sinbad and Clash
Of The Titans, to name the most popular.
Personally I love Harryhausen's movies with the
joy of one who senses a kindred spirit. His films
always delight me and leave me feeling good about
the world and hopeful for the future. 7th
Voyage Of Sinbad wasn't the first of Harryhausen's
movies I ever saw, but it is a good place for
anyone to start.
As the film begins Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews)
is sailing to Baghdad with his fiancée
after a successful peace mission to the neighboring
kingdom of Chandra. He and his betrothed, Parisa
(Kathryn Grant), a royal princess of Chandra,
are very much in love. Mysterious winds have blown
the ship off course for a week when they finally
make landfall on Colossa, a legendary island.
When Sinbad and some of the crew disembark to
gather provisions they encounter Sokurah, a magician,
being chased by a 30-foot tall Cyclops! Sokurah
(Torin Thatcher) has taken a magical lamp containing
a genie from the treasure hoard of the Cyclops
and is attempting to escape. Sinbad, Sokurah and
the landing party get off the island unharmed
but the monstrous one-eyed beast reclaims the
lamp. The wizard begs Sinbad to return immediately
to steal the lamp but he declines, sailing on
to Baghdad. Once there, Sokurah petitions the
Caliph to finance an expedition to Colossa to
slay the Cyclops and obtain the lamp. When the
Caliph refuses, Sokurah secretly casts a spell,
shrinking Parisa down to doll size. He then offers
his "help", claiming the only way to
restore her to normal is by means of a magic potion
—
the main ingredient
of which exists only on Colossa. With no alternative
if he's to aid the woman he loves, Sinbad agrees
to return to the island. For a such a dangerous
voyage he must enlist a group of cutthroats, saved
from the headsman's axe, to crew his vessel. When
all is ready the ship sets sail. While Sinbad
cares only for the restoration of the Princess,
the evil Sokurah naturally has other plans...
I
truly love this movie and my one fear on buying
this DVD was that my memories of it would prove
better than the film itself. Luckily my fears
were groundless! More than 40 years after its
original release, 7th Voyage
is still able to excite and entertain like few
films ever could. It's a lovingly crafted work
of cinema magic that I can easily imagine thrilling
audiences for decades to come. It takes itself
(and its audience) seriously and knows that we
want to see the monsters just as much as we want
to see them defeated by the hero. Harryhausen
never slights us in our desire for adventure and
spectacle. He was making movies he wanted to see
himself and that wide-eyed love for what he was
doing is in every frame. If you can't enjoy this
movie, I feel just a little sorry for you. It's
not Harryhausen’s best film but it is very
good.
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Columbia's
DVD release of 7th Voyage
is quite a package. It was the first of a series
called "The Ray Harryhausen Signature Collection"
and contains enough to satisfy most fans. First,
the transfer of the movie is very good with clarity
missing from previous videotape transfers. I could
wish for a slightly sharper picture but overall
I'm happy with the way it looks. The picture is
letterboxed at 1.85:1 —
here is my only real complaint. I firmly believe
that the movie was shot with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio
in mind; this is born out by statements made by
Harryhausen that his effects were photographed using
the entire 1.33:1 frame. As soon as I saw that this
DVD was 1.85:1, I panicked. I just knew that heads
were going to be lopped off and set design was going
to be lost all in the name of over-matting the image
to meet an artificial concept of "Original
Aspect Ratio". But strangely enough I only
found three shots in the movie that looked the least
bit cramped and the worst of them was of a human
actor, not a special effect! 99% of the movie looked
correctly presented with the non-FX scenes looking
perfectly framed. The audio track is presented in
English, Spanish or Portuguese and retains the original
Mono mix without the dubious addition of a 5.1 retrofit.
Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese,
Chinese, Korean and Thai.
There
are a number of extras on the disc. First up is
a 12-minute short called Look Behind the Voyage
that seems to be transferred from videotape. It's
fairly interesting as a brief look at the making
of the film and it does build excitement for the
movie but to judge by the shirt that Ray is wearing
it seems to have been made in the 1970s! Second
is an 11-minute long piece in which Harryhausen
is interviewed by director John Landis about Jason
And The Argonauts. It's a little too brief,
seeming to end just as it gets rolling, but it gives
a good overview of Ray's techniques for creating
special effects.
The biggest of these extras is a 50-minute documentary
called The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles. Narrated
by Leonard Nimoy, it covers the high spots of Ray's
life and career and had the effect of making me
wish for a really good biography of the man. For
most fans the real draw of this extra will be the
large amount of very rare footage from Harryhausen's
aborted film projects and early experiments in stop
animation that are just not easy to find elsewhere.
They are fascinating and now we have them in digital
form so we can replay them again and again. Also
included are trailers for seven of Harryhausen's
other movies, talent files and a look at the original
poster art.
Altogether
a satisfying disc and one I'm proud to own. If you're
curious about old school special effects or just
have fond memories of a fantastical adventure on
the island of Colossa with Sinbad the sailor, this
is a DVD you will enjoy. 6/14/02 |
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