7th Voyage of Sinbad

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

This DVD is not only a real treat for any audience, but an absolutely essential disc for fans of fantasy films and stop-motion animation. Apart from the movie itself, which has received a beautiful transfer, the disc comes with a pair of supplementary shorts in which Ray Harryhausen (joined by producer Charles Schneer and star Kerwin Mathews for one of the featurettes and John Landis for the other) discusses his work in detail on The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. Additionally, the disc includes the 1958-vintage featurette "This Is Dynamation," which introduced Harryhausen's technique to audiences ahead of the release of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. The crowning element of the supplement, however, is "The Ray Harryhausen Chronicle," a brilliant, hour-long documentary on the filmmaker narrated by Leonard Nimoy that gives a close look at Harryhausen's entire career, culminating with his winning of an Oscar in 1992. The supplements on this disc could easily keep viewers busy for a night before they get to the movie itself. The menu pops up automatically on start-up and is very easy to manipulate, especially as a means of accessing the supplements. The trailers from all of the Harryhausen films for Columbia Pictures also make an entertaining diversion. The movie is transferred about as well as it's ever likely to be shown, with deep, rich colors to most of the costumes and sets, as well as a deep, loud audio track that gives full play to Bernard Herrmann's music and the array of sound effects accompanying the various monsters onscreen. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Audio: PCM Mono, 5.1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English, Spanish
• Features:
  • Digitally remastered audio & anamorphic video
  • Production notes
  • Interactive menus
  • Languages: English [mono] & Portuguese [mono]
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai
  • Interviews: "A Look Behind the Voyage" & "Jason and the Argonauts"
  • SFX featurette
  • Ray Harryhausen Chronicles
  • Theatrical trailers
  • Talent files
  • Original theatrical poster
  • Scene selections

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Kerwin Mathews - Sinbad
       Kathryn Grant - Princess Parisa
       Richard Eyer - Baronni the Genie
       Torin Thatcher - Sokurah the Magician
       Alec Mango - Caliph

• Director:

  Nathan Juran

• Producer:

  Charles H. Schneer

• Screenwriter:

  Ken Kolb

• Cinematographer:

  Wilkie Cooper

• Composer (Music Score):

  Bernard Herrmann

• Editor:

  Edwin H. Bryant, Jerome Thoms

• Art Director:

  Gi Parrendo

• Associate Producer:

  Ray Harryhausen

REVIEW:

• The '50s were not a good decade for fantasy films. Ever since The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing (both 1951), science fiction had dominated the realm of fantastic cinema. What's more, there had not been a truly good Arabian Nights-type fantasy movie made since Alexander Korda's 1940 production of The Thief of Bagdad. Enter Ray Harryhausen, the special effects designer and stop-motion animation specialist who had just come off of a string of successful science fiction films, all but one made in association with producer Charles Schneer. All of those movies had been built on notions of monsters on the loose and threats to the safety of the Earth, and had been shot in black-and-white. By 1957, Harryhausen was ready to try shooting his stop-motion work and his movies in color, in England, where a new, more advanced form of special effect processing technique had been devised, and in keeping with the availability of color, he also had a different, bigger goal in mind. Ever since he'd seen both the silent 1924 Douglas Fairbanks Sr. version of Thief of Baghdad and the 1940 Korda Thief of Bagdad, Harryhausen had wanted to make an Arabian Nights fantasy film -- several Sinbad movies had been made in the time since Korda's movie, but none had utilized any real fantasy elements; they'd mentioned the Roc and other apparitions, but had never shown them because they couldn't be realized on the screen. That was no problem for Harryhausen, however, who had been creating fantastic apparitions in feature films for a decade. He and Schneer, working with director Nathan Juran, created an Arabian Nights film that could not only promise high-adventure and fantastic visions, but deliver them -- in fact, deliver a bumper-crop of them. Juran didn't have much to do beyond moving the actors around in front of the camera and directing consistent performances from the cast, but coupled with Harryhausen's special effects and Wilkie Cooper's photography, and Bernard Herrmann's music, the result was one of the three finest live-action Arabian Nights movies ever made, and a worthy successor to the two versions of The Thief of Baghdad that had inspired Harryhausen in the first place. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

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