Pop Art: Coloring Books (Planet of the Apes Edition)

Collectible of the Week: Micropolis (1978; Mego)

This is the Micronauts “building set that never stops growing” from Mego  As the box art suggests: “Make this and dozens of fantastic space age structures for your micronauts.” 

These space-age construction sets “enable your child to build any number of different toys that can be taken apart and put together over and over again.  Using a simple five millimeter plug and receptacle system, Micropolis building sets will adapt to all Micropolis figures and accessories."

I have two Micropolis sets in my collection, the Interplanetary Headquarters and Mega City (which consists of 579 parts).  

Joel and I have a lot of fun building new configurations together, but the "plug and receptacle system" can really, really hurt your fingers...

Model Kit of the Week #19: Star Probe

50th Anniversary Doctor Who Blogging: Series Primer

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November of 2013 brings us the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC science-fiction adventure, Doctor Who (1963 – 1989; 1996; 2005 - ), and I’ll be featuring here a retrospective of several serials from all eleven eras of the program.

Writing a primer for a series that has endured for so long and featured so many different actors, writers, and directors isn’t exactly a simple proposition. 

But even with all the cosmetic changes and twists-and-turns in terms of story arc and intent, Doctor Who is essentially the tale of one very unique and mysterious character.  The Doctor is a (time) traveler, renegade and crusader.  Sometimes -- especially of late -- he even seems a little bit like an adrenaline junkie.   

An alien with the power to regenerate and thus alter his physical appearance and even personality, the Doctor’s true identity is shrouded in secrecy.  Is he representative of alien royalty?  Is he God Himself?  Is he a Loki figure of mischief and chaos?

We don’t exactly know the precise answer, even after fifty years.

What we do know (pretty much) is that the Doctor universally seems to be on the side of the weak and endangered (even if he is playing a long game…), that he universally travels with one or more companions…often human, and that his mode of transportation is a time-ship called a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) which is stuck in the shape and blue coloring of an early 1960s British “police box.”

The classic series (1963 – 1989) and new series (2005 - ) have tended to follow two particular paradigms or models in terms of narrative or storytelling. 

The first is the “invasion” story. 

In this brand of tale, the Doctor prevents a hostile alien force from taking over Earth.  When I wrote my book, A Critical History of Doctor Who in 1996 (published in 1999), I estimated that a full sixteen percent of Doctor Who serials involved nefarious plots of alien invasion.  The invaders have been, amongst others, Autons, Cybermen, Daleks, Sycorax, Carrionites, Sontarons, and the Master.  The new series follows a similar pattern.

The second type of story featured by Doctor Who is what I term The Time Machine Dynamic. 

In both the H.G. Wells novel and the George Pal film of The Time Machine (1960), the premise is identical: a traveler in time arrives in new environs (Earth of the future, for instance…) and finds that two cultures are locked in Darwinian combat. 

One culture -- the Eloi -- is more human, but weak in some critical way. The other culture -- The Morlocks -- represents a perversion of humanity or human values, and is a threat to its survival as well.  The time traveler chooses side and selects morality and humanity over…monsters.   

This is very much the premise of many of the Doctor’s adventures set on other worlds.  He defends the kindly Thals from the Daleks in “The Daleks,” the innocent Gonds from the robotic Krotons, the awakening humans from the Wirrn in “Ark in Space,” and so on. 

Over and over again, the Time Machine Dynamic repeats on the series, and in virtually every case, the Doctor utilizes his superior intellect and knowledge of history and/or science/time to stop the unjust, and free the enslaved or oppressed.

There are other inspirations and sources for Doctor Who storytelling too.  The period of the third Doctor (played by Jon Pertwee) closely resembles the Quatermass serials and movies of the 1950s-1960s.  In other words, these tales involve a very intelligent Earth-based scientists reckoning with some kind of alien incursion on Earth.

Lastly, many Doctor Who stories have been out-and-out pastiches of other popular forms.  “Voyage of the Damned,” for instance in the era of the Tenth Doctor is a delightful and unexpectedly moving take on sea-going disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure or Titanic (1997)…only set in orbital space, not in an Earth ocean.

In American terms, a quality that makes Doctor Who so unique in the cult-television pantheon is the fact that the lead character is not part of some quasi-military hierarchy, as we witness on Star Trek, Space:1999, Sea Quest DSV, Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5. And furthermore, The Doctor travels unarmed.  His sonic-screwdriver may help him unlock doors or short-circuit a computer, but it is only rarely deemed an actual weapon (“The Doctor’s Daughter,” for instance).

Thus far, there have been more than a dozen actors who have played the time traveling Doctor (if one counts Peter Cushing in the movies, and Richard Hurndall, who played the first incarnation in “The Five Doctors”), and it useful to categorize the series’ eras by lead actor.   In each era, there is a different Doctor with a different personality. He faces different enemies and is accompanied by different companions.  Importantly, however, story-style is also a bit different in various eras.

I have been catching up with the current series at night (I’m currently at the beginning of Series 7) while revisiting the classic series with my son Joel for our weekly movie nights and Sunday afternoons.  It has been a tremendous pleasure to witness classic Doctor Who as seen through Joel’s eyes.  He is six years old, and as I have written before, no other series that I watch (Star Trek, Space: 1999, Land of the Lost) has captured his imagination in the way that Doctor Who has.

It sounds simplistic to pin this fascination on the aliens or monsters, but Joel is absolutely taken with the aliens on Doctor Who.  To my eyes, some of these alien costumes may not hold up too well, but Joel loves them without reservation.  We recently watched “The Curse of Peladon” and “The Monster of Peladon,” and he was so taken with the creatures -- the Ice Warriors, Alpha Centauri, Aggedor, and the Arcturians -- that we had to build him an Arcturian costume out of a cardboard box and tin foil.  And sometimes Joel also pretends to be Aggedor…and I have to practice my Venusian lullabies before bedtime.

I think it is worth noting that Doctor Who began as a program for kids, and that the classic shows really work so well for that age group.  Joel actually prefers the black-and-white episodes, and has veritably been mesmerized by serials such as “The Chase,” “The Space Museum,” Tomb of the Cybermen,” “The Mind Robber,” and “Seeds of Death.”  I love seeing how Doctor Who sparks Joel’s imagination (not to mention his vocabulary…).

We’ll begin next week with the First Doctor, Wililam Hartnell, and his landmark story “The Daleks.”

I’ll try to cover before November at least two serials per Doctor.  I don’t want to give anything way, but my favorite Doctors are: Patrick Troughton, Tom Baker and -- to my complete and total delight and surprise -- Matt Smith.

Next Tuesday: “The Daleks.”

Theme Song of the Week: Blackstar (1981)

Ask JKM a Question: Most Overrated Cult-TV Series?

A reader, Jason, writes:

“Here's an Ask JKM that might stir the pot a little: what genre TV show and / or series do you think is the most overrated?

Granted, this is a matter of opinion.  It's my experience every show or movie is someone's favorite.  I certainly know that some of my favorites will never grace a serious critic's Top Ten.  Nonetheless, there are some projects whose importance is blown way out of proportion.

Personally, my vote for most overrated genre TV series is "The X-Files."  I know it's a favorite of yours, but I just couldn't get into it.  For me, it will forever be a monster-of-the-week show wrapped in an overly dense mythology.  Plus, it spawned a series of imitations that cluttered the airwaves for years. 

I'm very curious to hear what you have to say on the matter.”

All right, Jason, you are trying to stir the pot.  You’re going to get me in trouble!  But that’s okay.  It’s actually a great question, and I’m glad you posed it.

You’re right, of course, that I have a high opinion of The X-Files.  It’s one of my favorite series of all time for many reasons, and I encourage you to stick around for my 20^th anniversary blogging celebration, and re-consider your own assessment of it.  I’ll be tackling “Gender Bender,” at long last this week. 

For me, the series offers qualities that earn it the stellar critical reputation, namely the two-lens view-point of every episode (belief vs. skepticism).  Secondly, I appreciate the program's reassertion of the Gothic Paradigm (as a Romantic response to Enlightenment/rationality) but for the Clinton Age rather than the Victorian one.

But okay, your question wasn’t really about The X-Files.

The question of “overrated” is an intriguing one because there’s actually some nuance to it. 

First: a work of art can be overrated without necessarily being bad. 

So being “overrated” sounds like a colossal insult or put-down, when in fact what is being expressed is the notion that the critical response is out-of-proportion to the actual value of the art in question.

For me, the most overrated cult-television series in history has to be the remade Battlestar Galactica of last decade, from producer Ron Moore. 

Again, I’m not saying that the series itself is terrible, or without value and merit. 

I’m saying that the critics rated it too highly, given the actual value of the thing.  I mean, this program, while still on the air, was termed the greatest science fiction series in history by many respectable critical outlets.

Battlestar Galactica was, before the historical tally could be considered, thus termed superior to The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, and Doctor Who.   

As I've written here before, I find the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica to be a very entertaining program, one that I happily put on a par with something like 24 (2001 - 2010).  In other words, Battlestar Galactica is extremely addictive and engaging, but in the final analysis not much more than a great thrill ride.  I enjoy watching the series, but I can't, frankly, understand why it has been raised to such a rarefied, over-hyped pedestal among genre fans and critics.

In the first place, the series boasts an utter lack of imagination about the universe at large.  In the world of this Galactica, it's just us (humans) vs. them (Cylons), with nothing in between.  No alien beings, and no truly alien environments.  Personally, I find that worldview extremely depressing.   If we reach the stars and find out there are only liberals, conservatives, and religious zealots, then the human adventure isn't just beginning...it's over.

Alas, the visualizations of Battlestar Galactica's world share the program's thematic dearth of imagination.  Human beings half-a-galaxy away drive Hummers, wear business suits and tank-tops and quote lines from old Earth movies ("I feel the need...the need for speed.") 

The aesthetic strategy of the re-imagined series seems to be "world-building is notoriously difficult, so we're not even going to try."  Is this approach really worthy of praise, even if it is true?

I can fully understand and appreciate the budgetary and creative reasons driving this production philosophy, but that still doesn't make the strategy any more noble or efficacious. Whatever their relative flaws, series such as Star Trek, the original Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Space:1999, Babylon 5, and Farscape at least attempted to imagine what other worlds and alien cultures might look like.  They didn't always succeed, but the effort was made to transport audiences to new, imaginative realms.  Not so here.

The much-ballyhooed social commentary of the Ron Moore-developed Battlestar Galactica is also a bit too on the nose.  With talk of "no fly lists," and politicians telling other politicians to "go frak themselves," the series makes no attempt to cloak its War on Terror political sensibilities behind imaginative or timeless metaphors.  What you see on the surface is all there is.  No analysis, interpretation, or deciphering is really necessary.  Everything is spelled out.  

Then spelled out again.  

But here's the biggest problem: This is a series that ended a four year long, very intricate sweeping mystery with the simple cliché “God works in mysterious ways,” essentially, and the fact of a technologically-advanced, star-faring people accepting a life-style without indoor plumbing.    Next to Lost, this may be the biggest "fuck you" to dedicated fans in sci-fi history.

There are many, many fine episodes of the series, of course. 

I’m an absolute sucker for “Scar,” for example, which is a kind of outer-space allegory for World War I aerial combat, or the Red Baron milieu.  I think that episode, and many others, work like gangbusters.

But every week a title card comes up on-screen as Battlestar Galactica opens.  It re-affirms that the Cylons have a plan. 

By the end of the series, it’s clear that the Cylons may have had a plan, but the writers did not.  

And since Battlestar Galactica is a serialized program, unlike a standalone program for example like Star Trek, any critical evaluation of the series must factor in how successfully all the elements are brought together at the series’ conclusion. 

I would submit that Battlestar Galactica failed this test in terms of believability, and in terms of fidelity and consistency to the clues presented along the run of the series.

Thus, Battlestar Galactica is my choice for most overrated genre TV series.

The Cult-TV Faces of: Mad Scientists

Identified by SGB: Cliff Robertson in The Outer Limits: "Galaxy Being."

Identified by SGB: Martin Landau in The Outer Limits: "The Bellero Shield."

Identified by SGB: John Hoyt in The Twilight Zone: "The Lateness of the Hour."

Identified by SGB: Michael Dunn as Dr. Lovelace in "The Wild, Wild West."

Identified by SGB: Dr. Korby (Michael Strong) in Star Trek: "What are Little Girls Made of?"

Identified by Carl: Solon (Philip Madoc) in Doctor Who: "The Brain of Morbius."

Identified by Carl: Simon Oakland in The Starlost: "And Only Man is Vile."

Identified by Carl: Davros in Doctor Who "Genesis of the Daleks."

Identified by SGB: Dr. Ernst Queller (Jeremy Kemp) in Space:1999 "Voyager's Return."

Identified by SGB: Brian Blessed as Mentor in Space:1999 "The Metamorph."

Identified by Carl: Dr. Manheim (Rod Loomis) In Star Trek: TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris."

Identified by Carl: Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) in Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Identified by Hugh: Dr. Polidori (John O'Hurley) in The X-Files: "The Post-Modern Prometheus."

Identified by woodchuckgod: Farscape: "DNA Mad Scientist."

Identified by Carl: Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Identified by Carl: Adam Busch as Warren Meers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

17

Identified by Carl: John Noble as Walter Bishop in Fringe.

19

Television and Cinema Verities #60

"Frankly, my favorite shows are all those we did in the first season. Those had a lot of integrity; they were uniformly well written, I thought, and for the most part very thought-provoking. We tried hard to come up with stories that, despite their futuristic, outer-space setting, would have some relevance. In fact, we used to take items from the newspapers and adapt them to our storyline. I'm very proud of Space 1999. It was something I enjoyed doing, and its success paved the way for other sci-fi shows to follow.."

Martin Landau discusses Space:1999 (1975 - 1977)

From the Archive: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

I first saw Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) in theaters when I was seven or eight years old.  I absolutely loved it as a kid, and have thought of the film fondly for decades since...but without actually re-visiting it.

A recent re-screening of the film, however, for this Saturday series, reveals Eye of the Tiger to be the least successful of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad trilogy.

In Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sinbad (now Patrick Wayne) must stop a diabolical sorceress -- "as malicious as a shark" --  named Zenobia (Margaret Whiting), who has turned the soon-to-be-coronated Caliph, Prince Kassim, into a baboon.  She has done so in hopes that her own son may assume the throne in Kassim's place. 

Engaged to Kassim's sister, Farah (Jane Seymour), Sinbad sets sail to find a cure for the transformed Kassim.  He meets up with a legendary Greek scientist, Melanthius (Patrick Troughton) and his lovely daughter, Dione (Taryn Power), and together they make for the foreboding ice cliffs of Hyperboria, where a cure may await. 

Meanwhile, Zenobia pursues Sinbad with her frightening automaton, the Minoton...

Directed by Sam Wanamaker, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger was released in American theaters just six weeks after Star Wars premiered in 1977, and so it's clear that a dramatic shift was occurring in terms of movie fantasies.  Unfortunately, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger looks old and tired compared to Star Wars, with several disastrous scenes featuring unnecessary rear projection. 

I'm not certain what occurred here, but in several scenes it looks as though the major cast members (Wayne, Seymour and Troughton) never went on location, and so all of the exterior scenes on Melanthius's island reek of visual phoniness.  It's so bad as to take you out of the movie's reality for several minutes.

Secondly, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is the only Sinbad movie where the stop-motion animation itself proves a little tiresome.  The first fight in the film -- Sinbad against three insectoid/skeleton creatures from the underworld -- is dire. 

As Clash of the Titans also revealed, stop motion animation works less well in night-time settings (something about the mismatch in lighting between live and animated elements, I presume...). 

But what makes this battle with the insectoids worse than anything in Clash is the monsters' relative size compared to Wayne's.  They look just a tad shorter and smaller than Sinbad.  Not small enough to be homunculi or some other diminutive fantasy creature, mind you, but just short enough to make it appear as though the perspectives in the mating of the footage are wrong.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger would have also worked a lot better, in visual terms, if a real baboon had been used as Kassim, instead of a stop-motion figure.  The same thing with the Minoton.  There are instances here wherein a full-scale statue/person-in-suit (seen briefly, I think....) could have more effectively brought the creature to life for longer spells.  The poor visuals involving the baboon and the Minoton give one the impression that the Sinbad movies have fallen into a creative rut; one where the creators seem to think stop-motion animation is the only solution to a special effects problem.  No one was thinking outside that particular box. 

On top of these flaws, we've gone back to the 7th Voyage of Sinbad's non-ethnic, western portrayal of Sinbad, and Patrick Wayne seems to lack the intensity of John Phillip Law.  He's cheery and kind of bland.   This film is also the longest of the Sinbad features clocking it at nearly two hours, and the plot is so simplistic that much of the film feels like a drag.  Then, when we finally get to the happy conclusion (Kassim's delayed coronation), the film displays end credits over the footage so the audience can't make out what's happening.

God, I hate writing any of that, because Joel (my five year old son) enjoyed the heck out of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and it was for kids like him that the movie was made.  I understand that, and I'm thrilled he loved the film.

Therefore, I'm going to try to focus now on the things I liked most about the film.  First and foremost is the  Troglodyte creature of Hyperboria. 

This humanoid "monster" remains one of Harryhausen's greatest efforts, perhaps, and is absolutely brimming with humanity and personality.  The creature gives up its life to save Sinbad and his group in the climax, and it's a sacrifice you really feel.   It's amazing to countenace the idea that a "miniature" or sculpted model can make you feel strong emotions, but that's precisely what occurs with this sympathetic monster.

Secondly, the Minoton is an absolutely awesome villain and creation, and represents Joel's big imaginative "takeaway" from the movie.  More than anything in the world right now, my son wants a Minoton action figure.  The Minoton is actually a kind of golden bull robot, and cuts quite the imposing figure in the film.  But again, I must note that something goes amiss with the character's use: he's killed removing a brick from a pyramid (!) and never given the chance to challenge Sinbad in combat. 

Bummer. 

This is a villain that absolutely required a more fitting and dramatic end.  The film's climax should have involved a brawl between Sinbad and the Minoton.  Even Joel, at five years old, knew something wasn't right.  He kept asking if the Minoton was going to pop up at the end.  But he didn't.

The other monsters in the film are a little underwhelming, a giant bee, a smilodon and a giant walrus, among them.   They look fine, but somehow lack an overt sense of menace.  The scene involving the bee happens to be spectacularly bad.  Troughton's character creates a giant bee to test Zenobia's transformation serum, and then it promptly runs wild, and allows for Zenobia to escape.  Ugh.

After having watched all the Sinbad movies now, I must say that Golden Voyage stands out as the best, with Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger bringing up the rear.   This film's most eye-opening (and unexpected effect), at least for a forty-something dad, is a nude scene by the gorgeous (and apparently never aging...) Jane Seymour.   

Somehow, as a seven year old, I didn't pick up on that.

I must have been too busy ogling the Minoton.

From the Archive: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)

Released in 1974, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, as I wrote last weekend, is my Sinbad movie.  I saw it theatrically as a five-year old, and was absolutely mesmerized by the sword-fights, the Ray Harryhausen monster action (filmed in stop-motion called "Dynarama") and the fantasy setting, on the lost island of Lemuria.

Even though I  boast a strong childhood connection to this film, however, I still maintain that it is actually superior, quality-wise, to both its predecessor, 1958's 7th Voyage of Sinbad and its successor, 1977's Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. 

This is so largely because the screenplay is far more consistent regarding its villain, Koura (Tom Baker) and his powers, and even is largely consistent in terms of the monsters Sinbad encounters: they are manifestations of the sorcerer's power, not just random beasts walking around.

In the film, Koura establishes that to "summon the demons of darkness there is a price...it consumes part of me," and that line is a key to much of the film's action and narrative.  Koura seeks an ancient Lemurian amulet (shattered into three pieces) because by using his dark forces, he has aged himself...his life-force ebbs.  The tablet will lead him to a fountain of youth where he can rejuvenate himself. 

In terms of the monsters, save for a centaur and a griffin, Sinbad battles monsters that Koura puts up to block the sailor's path; to stop him from finding the fountain first.  These monsters include a tiny, flying harpie (shades of Jason of the Argonauts), a ship's mast/statue come to life, and a multi-armed statue of Kali.  The lengthy, incredibly-rendered sword-fight with Kali is the undisputed highlight of the film, a terrific set-piece that still captures the imagination. 

But the point is that Koura's magic is used to a specific end, and consistently so, throughout the film.  If you look back at Sakurah in 7th Voyage of Sinbad (played brilliantly by the great Torin Thatcher), he merely wanted a genie lamp and would stop at nothing to get it, and then happened to keep a dragon as a pet in his subterranean headquarters on the island of the Cyclops. 

These ideas didn't stick together as well as those you find here, and we did not understand the nature of Sakurah's evil; his motivation for it.  His power also seemed to have no downside or cost.  Worse, Sinbad seemed to interact with Sakurah as if he trusted him for much of the film, when it it was obvious to everyone with eyes that he was evil...or at least scheming  There was some screenplay...muddle there.

In The Golden Voyage, Koura's quest is plain, and he even becomes a somewhat sympathetic character because we know and understand what he is after, and what is at stake for him if he fails.  He's a great villain, and Tom Baker is terrific in the role.  After watching Dr. Who for all these years, I had forgotten how masterfully he could turn his charismatic screen presence sinister.

Unlike its predecessor, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad also reveals some of the flavor of Sinbad's ancient world -- like the fact that he is a Muslim -- by allowing him to utter comments about and proverbs from Allah.  This may sound like a small or inconsequential thing, but 7th Voyage of Sinbad essentially made Sinbad an American cowboy in classical Baghdad, one heading-up what became a 1950s American nuclear family.  He had no colors, no shades, no sense of being from somewhere other than America.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad isn't about Islam in any meaningful way, but it acknowledges at least, the truth that Sinbad originates from a different cultural tradition than many of those in the audience.  Today, with all the rampant Islamophobia, I doubt even the harmless mentions of Allah and religion in Golden Voyage of Sinbad would be permitted in a mainstream film, which is a sad development.    The history of the world, and the history of mythology, shouldn't be a football for contemporary ideological differences...but they are.  Sinbad comes to us from a defined time, place and tradition in the world, and to ignore his place of origin is like ignoring the fact that Clark Kent was raised in Smallville, or that James Bond is English.

I also appreciate The Golden Voyage of Sinbad more than the other Sinbad films for two further, specific reasons.  First, it actually differentiates between the crew men on Sinbad's vessel, offering us some comic relief in the form of one man.   This is important. In the other two Sinbad films, the crew men have no personalities, no differentiation, and no memorable identities.

And secondly The Golden Voyage allows Sinbad -- this time John Phillip Law -- to be a little less wholesome and pure.  Here, he brings Caroline Munro's slave girl, Margiana, along to Lemuria, and it's not because she plays a good game of chess, if you know what I mean.  There's some (harmless) sexual innuendo, obviously, and as an adult, that's far more interesting to watch than the innocent, "pure" love of Sinbad and his betrothed (nowhere in sight here, by the way....) in 7th Voyage.  

What I'm getting at in this review, without offending anyone, I hope, is that The Golden Voyage of Sinbad -- perhaps owing to its post-James Bond milieu -- is a bit less simplistic in narrative, in style, and in detail than its esteemed and rightly-appreciated predecessor.  

The message here is that evil -- though powerful in allure -- carries a "weight" or "cost," and that's a terrific message to impart to children learning the differences between right and wrong.   The sub-plot involving a prince in a mask, Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), also conveys a nice little lesson.  Though ugly on the outside (because of burns inflicted by Koura), Vizier is beautiful on the inside...and that beauty eventually comes to the surface. 

And by the way, I noted with interest that the moment here wherein Vizier removes his golden mask and stuns the hostile natives of Lemuria was repeated hook, line and sinker in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Journey to Oasis," with Mark Lenard. 

Good ideas in the genre never die...they just get recycled.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is my five year old son's favorite Sinbad movie too, and it was easily his favorite Harryhausen fantasy until last night when he encountered -- and fell head over heels in love with -- Jason and the Argonauts. 

This morning, he and I have already re-enacted -- with toy swords -- Jason's climactic fight with a skeleton army (spawned from hydra teeth...).   I have the bruises to show for it.

From the Archive: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

"When I started out, the amazing image on the screen was quite rare. Today, spectacular and amazing imagery is so profuse that it's commonplace. The astounding is no longer astounding, because you're inundated on television and on the movie screen with the most amazing visuals."

- Ray Harryhausen, in an interview at Bright Lights Film Journal with Damien Love, entitled "Monsters Inc." (2007)

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For a certain generation of filmmaker and film-goer, special effects artist and art director Ray Harryhausen remains a seminal influence. 

Talents as diverse as Tim Burton,  Dennis Muren, Steven Spielberg, Phil Tippet, and Sam Raimi count the gentleman as such, and have honored Harryhausen's impressive career and talent in numerous cinematic tributes and homages across the years. 

What is Army of Darkness (1992), after all, but a twisted appreciation of Harryhausen-esque tropes and techniques?

Harryhausen himself has given the world such memorable fantasy films as Mysterious Island (1961) and Clash of the Titans (1981), but for many Generation X'ers, he is also very fondly remembered for his Sinbad franchise: a troika of adventure/fantasy films (spanning 1958 - 1977) that, in many significant ways, represented the best fantasy game in town for swashbuckling kids in an era pre-Star Wars (1977).  

In the last several weeks, I've introduced my five-year old son Joel to the Sinbad films, and he's become an avid fan.  We're a little bummed, actually, that there are only three Sinbad movies to watch together, so the final "Saturdays with Sinbad" installment here will include a look at arguably Harryhausen's best film in this vein, 1963's Jason and the Argonauts ,just to cap things off in style.

But our topic here today is the first Sinbad movie, entitled The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).  Rated G and lasting a scant 88 minutes, this classic adventure film is a collaboration between Harryhausen, producer Charles Schneer and director Nathan Juran. Harryhausen's first color film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was made on a then-healthy budget of two-million dollars.   Released by Columbia Pictures, the film grossed over six million dollars and was considered a huge hit...and one that led to many further Harryhausen fantasy films in the next decade or so.

Longtime readers of mythology will recognize the name "Sinbad" as having come from Middle Eastern sources.  A Persian, Sinbad the sailor was a mythical sea-goer who countenanced magical and monstrous adventures on the sea and on the land in and around Africa and South Asia.   He was known to have had seven famous trials, or voyages.  In Hollywood, Sinbad appeared in such films as Sinbad the Sailor (1947) starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., before becoming the iconic fantasy hero headlining Harryhausen's trilogy.

In The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) returns home from sea to marry lovely Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) and seal the peace between his nation and hers. 

Unfortunately, this love affair is disrupted by the diabolical presence of Sokurah the Magician (Torin Thatcher), who needs Sinbad to return him to the island where he was found, and where he lost a magical genie's lamp to a monstrous cyclops.

To assure Sinbad's loyalty, Sokurah uses a wicked spell to shrink Parisa down to the size of a doll, and then informs the sea captain that he can "cure" her, but only on the island of the Cyclops.  Sinbad has no choice but to comply with Sokurah's plan.  With the Princess and his crew in tow, he sets sail for the island of Colossa. 

There, Sinbad and his bride-to-be face challenges from the cyclops, Sakurah's fire-breathing dragon, a two-headed roc, and even an ambulatory skeleton.  To help win the day, Sinbad and Parisa must free the entrapped Genie, who appears to them as a young boy (Richard Eyer) longing to escape his imprisonment.

Short on dialogue and that romantic mushy "stuff" but long on thrilling battle sequences, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a spectacle for the eyes, especially if one is an admirer of stop-motion animation, or "Dynamation" as it is termed here. 

In short order, the filmmakers trot out a variety of impressive mythical giant beasts, and the coordination between the live-action components and the film's animated components remains breathtaking.   I can't imagine the discipline and patience required to painstakingly match the two media, least of all to the accomplished degree on display here; one which affords breath, dimension, life and personality to the creatures, most notably the cyclops. 

Here is the up-and-downside of the Harryhausen special effects techniques as I countenance them.

Pro: the monsters generally move more convincingly than with CGI, in part because they must obey real life gravity -- just as we must -- rather than some computerized approximation of gravity. 

On the negative side, in terms of color balance and integration in the action, CGI -- at least today's CGI -- may get the nod as superior.  In this film, for instance, it's always obvious that the monster and the humans who share the same shots exist in two separate dimensions, a back one and a front one.  This realization takes away from the overall impact of the effects. 

I fully realize that such a conclusion probably reads much like heresy to a whole generation of dedicated film goer, and I once read the memorable phrase (in regards to The Land That Time Forgot [1975] that Hell hath no fury "like a stop-motion animation fan scorned," but it's still likely the truth.  The special effects in this film are amazing and that's why they inspired a generation of fantasy filmmakers, but it's foolish and unnecessary to argue that they surpass something like Avatar, for instance. 

Like all films, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a product of its time, and must be judged in the context of its time.  And in its time, it was simply the very best.  That fifty-four years later we have moved on from the stop-motion animation triumphs of Harryhausen in no way reflects negatively on what the film achieved, the impact it garnered, or the fervor it provoked.

What The 7th Voyage of Sinbad still possesses in abundance is...innocence.  This is a a good-humored family adventure in the best sense, immensely enjoyable and appropriate for both parent and child.  There's some fun swashbuckling adventure here, most notably in a climactic chasm swing that forecasts a trademark moment in Star Wars (1977).

There's also a subtle "family" message underneath all the action in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  In particular, by film's end, Sinbad, Parisa and the child genie have joined forces to form an unconventional family unit.  They have pulled together, and will face the future together.

Watching the film as an adult, I especially enjoyed Torin Thatcher's performance as the evil sorcerer, and Bernard Herrmann's brilliant, pulse-pounding score, which in a very authentic sense also affords breath and life to Harryhausen's fantastic stop-motion creations.

As a kid, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was one of my all-time favorite fantasy films.  Watching it in 2012, I enjoyed it, but it certainly seems a bit simplistic in terms of storyline and presentation.  It is what it is: an entertaining screen adventure and spectacle from an age when such films weren't commonplace.  The high point of the movie likely remains the intense, splendidly-choreographed and executed battle between Sinbad and the skeleton warrior.  But even that triumph was greatly expanded upon in Jason and the Argonauts.

I realize it is probably apocryphal to write such words, but Joel and I really got on-board the Sinbad bandwagon full swing with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974).  That film -- made during the "new freedom" of the 1970s -- is a little edgier, a little sexier, a little darker, and allows Sinbad to actually be a Muslim, rather than simply an American cowboy hero transposed to the Ancient Middle East, replete with nuclear family.  I first saw The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in theaters back in 1974 as a five year old, so I have an affinity for it as "my" Sinbad, but judging from Joel's reaction, he definitely feels the same way.   The characters are a little better differentiated in Golden Voyage, and the quest (to assemble a golden tablet out of three segments) definitely captures the attention better than the elementary, nay rudimentary, plot of 7th Voyage.

History may record 7th Voyage of Sinbad as the best Sinbad movie because it came first in the cycle, but at this point, I recommend you also give The Golden Voyage a second look.  I'll be reviewing that film right here next week for "Saturday with Sinbad" installment # 2.