The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) – G. Hessler

Amon continues to ask for more Ray Harryhausen films and he reckons that this is his favourite so far – mostly because of Kali swinging six swords at a time and fighting off Sinbad and his men (until finally pushed off a ledge and broken “by a kid”).  I’m not so sure this beats out either 7^th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) or Jason and the Argonauts (1963).  Probably the acting by John Philip Law (as Sinbad), Caroline Munro (of Hammer Horror fame as a “slave girl”), and Tom Baker (yes, that Tom Baker, as another evil magician, Koura) is on par with the acting from the previous pictures.  The plot is similarly convoluted. Sinbad needs to find three pieces of a broken golden tablet in order to stop the evil magician from securing some more powers and instead give these to a good king whose face has been horribly burned.  The magician does everything he can to stop Sinbad and there are some fearsome (dynamation) creatures to behold, for example, a griffin fights a one-eyed centaur (both gigantic, of course). Most of the stopmotion seems devoted to Koura’s little homunculus goblin though.  Slightly more “adult” content (some very tame off-colour jokes and Munro’s barely dressed outfit) place the film squarely in the Seventies.  Start with the earlier films, if you are interested (but we will likely move onward to Eye of the Tiger, 1977).