bkoganbing I saw this film first when I was 11 years old and seeing it 59 years later hasn't diminished me enthusiasm. This is some of Ray Harryhausen's best work and first with classical characters as opposed to futuristic science fiction.Playing Sinbad is Kerwin Matthews who seemed to like doing these films, he was so often cast in them. He's getting ready to marry Princess Kathryn Crosby and that's something for even a sea captain to marry into the royal family.But when they're blown off course and come to an island where magician Torin Thatcher headquarters and shares it with a cyclops, a giant flying roc bird and a fire breathing dragon Thatcher keeps to protect his lair it's trouble. Thatcher has possession also of a magic lamp with a boy genie Richard Eyer who like Pinnochio wants to be a real live boy. Watching The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad really takes me back to when I was 11 years old. You can still thrill at my age to what Harryhausen does with those monsters. An 11 year old of any age can still thrill to the dragon and cyclops duking it out while our hero escapes with his lady love.Thatcher's a villain that will give you nightmares. He's pure evil, the kind you applaud when he gets his.After almost 60 years The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad is still a great family film with whole cloth heroes and the darkest of villains.

OllieSuave-007 This is a pretty interesting B-movie with a plot and cast of characters similar to Jack the Giant Killer: Kerwin Matthews stars as the hero of this movie, playing Sinbad who is on a quest to rescue Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) from evil magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher). Sinbad must do so to prevent a war.The movie has the classic rescue-the-princess plot element and was actually somewhat entertaining from what I remembered as a kid. You get a lot of fun good guy vs. bad guy action, rescue-the-princess adventures, magic and monster duels from a cyclops and a dragon. In the mix is a supporting character appearance by a young genie (Richard Eyer), an important ally to the heroes.The acting was decent and special effects were also decent for its time.Overall, it's a pretty good action/monster-packed B-movie! Grade B

classicsoncall Whenever I watch one of these types of movies I'm overwhelmed by the painstaking amount of work that went into creating the 'dynamation' styled creatures, the work of special effects artists like the legendary Ray Harryhausen. You have to remember that the monsters and other fantastical creations were made of clay and repositioned a countless number of times while filming them individually frame after frame until the desired effect was achieved. Then, the film of the inanimate objects had to be blended together with the live action to produce what you see on screen. It's just an incredible amount of manual work that had to go into producing films like these in the days before blue screen and CGI.And the monsters here truly were fantastic. A Cyclops made an appearance on two separate occasions, while the second expedition back to the island of Colossa by Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) revealed a legendary Roc, an enormous two headed hawk-like bird, along with your traditional fire breathing, scaly green dragon. Perhaps the strangest creation was that of the four armed half woman/half serpent conjured up by the magician Sokhura (Torin Thatcher), an ingenious tribute to the power of one's imagination.So with all these mythical creatures on display, one might miss the parallels to one of the all time great sci-fi films made over a decade and a half later, the original "Star Wars". After Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) was restored to normal size after applying the magic potion, she and hero Sinbad did the old rope swing across the gorge to escape the dragon's lair, a neat prelude to Luke and Leia doing the same thing in 'A New Hope'. Sinbad's sword fight with the skeleton of course was recreated any number of times using light sabers by various characters in the Star Wars universe.If there's one thing I thought the film makers might have improved on it would have been the casting of the lamp genie. The young Richard Eyer just didn't seem to have the charisma that was needed to pull off the magic genie theatrics that the story called for. But he's not on screen all that much so I wouldn't consider him an impediment to enjoying the picture.

SnoopyStyle Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) is transporting Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) to Baghdad for their wedding. They stop off at the mysterious Colossa Island to get provisions. They rescue the magician Sokurah escape a Cyclops. Sokurah uses the magic lamp Genie to raise a barrier against the Cyclops. The Cyclops throws a boulder and knocks the lamp from Sokurah. Sinbad refuses to go back and retrieve the lamp from the Cyclops. The Caliph of Baghdad celebrates the marriage which seals a peace between kingdoms. Sakurah again requests a ship to return to Colossa but the Caliph refuses. Sokurah angers everyone when he prophesies war between the two nations and the Caliph banishes him. Later that night, Sokurah shrinks the princess. Sokurah convinces the desperate Sinbad that he foresaw this transformation and they must return to Colossa with the princess to get the necessary ingredients for a magic potion. Sinbad has no crew so he recruits criminals from the prison.This is a B-movie in most aspects. The acting is bad. The dialog is horribly stiff. The action is mostly old swashbuckling affair. The story is simplistic. The only thing worthwhile in this movie is the work of Ray Harryhausen. His stop-motion animation is the best special effects of the era. They are simply works of art. Without them, this is no more than 3/10. This is a showcase of Ray Harryhausen's groundbreaking skills.