30 Films That Made Me Who I Am - #6

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

     It's no secret.  I love stop-motion animation.  I'm not sure what it is about it precisely that I like...  If it's the long precise work that goes into it, the off-kilter feel of the effect, the amount of precision that goes into matching the effects with the live action work...  I do know that it's awesome though.  For those that don't know what stop-motion is, it's how King Kong, another one of my favorites that just barely was kept off this list, was brought to life.  That 1933 film wowed audiences when it came out during the height of the depression.  The special effects by Willis O'Brien were a pretty new thing, especially on that scale.  It's very hard to do stop-motion on a creature with hair, as the process means the hair is going to change shape every second.  Why?  Well to do stop-motion, you have an doll that has many joints on its flexible insides, and you move the joints millimeters at a time, shooting a frame of film each miniscule movement.  It's very taxing work, as 28 frames is 1 second of film.  For example, it took Ray Harryhausen, the special effects man for 7th Voyage of Sinbad 11 months to do all the effects for the film.  Ray Harryhausen, who died just a few months ago at the age of 92, was known as the master of this type of effects work.  He was apprenticed by the aforementioned Willis O'Brien, working with him on his follow-up to King Kong, Mighty Joe Young before going solo.  Harryhausen would go on to do some of the most important special effects films in the pre-Star Wars era.  He did this film, Jason and The Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, 20 Million Miles To Earth, One Million Years B.C., The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, Clash of the Titans, and more.

     Now let me clarify this...  He did not direct these films.  He helped produce them, came up with the storylines for some of them, and did all the special effects work.  So he basically did all but direct the actors.  I suppose in a way he did direct the armatures.  Along with Jason and The Argonauts, which came out 6 years later, 7th Voyage of Sinbad is considered to be Harryhausen's masterwork, and it did take stop-motion animation to a new level.  It was no done in color, and Harryhausen trademarked his specific brand of the effect and called it Dynamation.  Along with the special effects work, the film also has a fantastic score done by frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann.  It's a rousing adventure score in a type that composers don't really do anymore.  Herrmann would do the score for a further 3 Harryhausen films after this.  Here, have a listen to it's main tune.

    The film is based on the many stories of Sinbad the sailor.  It's not really based on his 7th voyage, but taken from many different stories and some of the stuff is new to the film.  Sinbad rescues a magician from a cyclops on island.  The magician desperately wants to return to his island, but Sinbad won't allow it, as it's too dangerous to risk his crew.  The magician then decides to shrink Sinbad's fiance to a tiny size.  Sinbad is from Baghdad and his fiance from Chandra, two rival countries that intend to finally bond together by their marriage.  However, blame is placed on Baghdad after the princess is shrunk.  The magician tells Sinbad that he has the ingredients on his island to return the princess to normal.  Sinbad takes a crew filled with prisoners to the island, along with the magician and his fiance (who no one knows is shrunk or with them).  They get there and are terrorized by large beasts as they look for the ingredients and the magician tries to find the magic lamp and bump everyone else off.  Now I will say that the acting isn't the best, but it's not horrible either.  Back in the 1950s, you didn't go to a fantasy film to marvel at the acting, as most of the times the actors were of the b-movie variety.

     The movie is a lot of fun as Sinbad fights off monsters like the Roc, Cyclops, a living skeleton, and a dragon.  And there's a genie thrown into the mix for the kids.  The movie is less than 90 minutes long, which is perfect for a movie like this.  Unlike new fantasy films which often flirt with the 2 1/2 hour mark, this one knows what it needs to do to entertain, does it, then ends.  Sadly modern fantasy films are either bloated in length when they don't need to be, or they're short and have an incoherent story.  It's not really that hard, Hollywood!  Go simple!  They did it back in 1957, you can do it today.  

    I was introduced to this film by my dad back when I was probably around 10 years old, which is the perfect time to see this movie for the first time, or perhaps anywhere between 6 and 11.  Old enough to figure out what's going on, young enough not to be cynical about it.  This was the first Harryhausen film I saw, and it's stayed my favorite even as I saw every other film of his.  I suppose the story interests me more, as it's not just the Greek mythology of Clash of The Titans or Jason and the Argonauts, nor is it just a sci-fi monster amok film like 20 Million Miles To Earth or It Came From Beneath The Sea.  Instead it's a swashbuckler, which I've always been a sucker for.  It's kind of like the old Thief of Baghdad films (1924 and 1940), as it's drawn from Muslim tales, it's of course set partially in Baghdad, and it's just plain fun.  Sorry I can't explain myself well here, but 'fun' is the word I keep coming back to.  It's the best way to describe it.  I like to have fun sometimes, and present day cinema doesn't really offer me that often.  (Marvel Universe films excepted.)  Most fantasy today is too dark and gritty for me to have a lot of fun watching it.  These films are meant to be challenging and depressing, supposedly.  That works for me sometimes, but can I have some nice bright fun sometimes, please?  No?  Guess I'll just have to go back to my Harryhausen films then.

Here's a small video I found on youtube that showcases most of Harryhausen's work.  His work inspired most of the special effects wizards of the 1970s and 80s, especially those that worked on Star Wars, and Peter Jackson cites him as his most important role model.  In fact, the Cave Troll in Fellowship of The Ring was filmed as a tribute to Harryhausen.