The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
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| The Golden Voyage of Sinbad | |
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 Theatrical poster to The Golden Voyage of Sinbad |
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| Directed by | Gordon Hessler |
| Produced by | Charles H. Schneer Ray Harryhausen |
| Starring | John Phillip Law Tom Baker Takis Emmanuel Caroline Munro Douglas Wilmer Martin Shaw |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | Ted Moore, BSC |
| Editing by | Roy Watts |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | April 5, 1974 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The 7th Voyage of Sinbad |
| Followed by | Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is a fantasy film released in 1974 and starring John Phillip Law as Sinbad. It includes a score by composer Miklós Rózsa and is noted for the stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is the second installment of Harryhausen's "Sinbad trilogy", the others being The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).
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[edit] Plot
While sailing, Sinbad comes across a golden tablet dropped by a mysterious flying creature. He wears the tablet as an amulet around his neck. That night, Sinbad has a strange dream in which he sees a man dressed in black, repeatedly calling Sinbad's name. Sinbad also sees a mysterious girl with an eye tattooed on her right palm. The next day, a mysterious force brings his ship to a coastal town in the country of Marabia.
Sinbad encounters the Grand Vizier of Marabia (Douglas Wilmer) outside his palace. The Vizier, who wears a golden mask to hide his disfigured face, says that Sinbad's amulet is actually one piece of a puzzle; the Vizier has another. The Vizier relates to Sinbad a legend that the three pieces, when joined together, will reveal a map showing the way to the Fountain of Destiny, hidden somewhere on the lost continent of Lemuria. The legend tells that he who bears the three pieces of the puzzle to the fountain will receive "youth, a shield of darkness, and a crown of untold riches." Sinbad agrees to help the Vizier find the fountain.
They join forces against Koura (Tom Baker), an evil magician who wishes to conquer Marabia. Koura had locked the Vizier in a room and set it on fire, horribly burning his face. The creature that dropped the gold tablet was one of Koura's minions, a homunculus created by his black magic.
Shortly afterward, Sinbad meets the girl he saw in his dream, Margiana (Caroline Munro). She and the Vizier board Sinbad's ship. Koura hires a ship and crew of his own, and follows Sinbad, using his black magic several times to try to stop Sinbad. However, each attempt drains part of his life force and he ages noticeably.
Sinbad fights the one-eyed centaur, an animated statue of Kali, and his ship's own wooden figurehead, animated by Koura's magic, on his journey. Once they reach the fountain, Koura obtains the puzzle and drops it in the fountain. His health is restored and he becomes invisible (the "cloak of darkness"). However, he is slain in a sword duel by Sinbad, who then takes the "crown of untold riches" and gives it to the Grand Vizier. Sinbad explains to Margiana that he values freedom more, and a king is never really free. The crown's magic powers causes the Vizer's mask to dissolve, and heals his face.
[edit] Cast
- John Phillip Law as Sinbad
- Tom Baker as Koura. Christopher Lee was a front-runner for the role. Baker's performance helped him get the lead role in the TV series Doctor Who.
- Takis Emmanuel as Achmed. Emmanuel was dubbed by Robert Rietty.
- Caroline Munro as Margiana
- Douglas Wilmer as The Vizier
- Martin Shaw as Rachid
- Robert Shaw as the Oracle of All Knowledge (uncredited). Shaw desperately wanted the role of Sinbad. His face was heavily swathed in make-up and his voice electronically altered by a sound engineer.
[edit] Production
The entire film was completed for $982,351, a remarkably small sum even for a film in the early 1970s.
Originally, they wanted to use the Alhambra palace for some of the shots, but the authorities asked for a huge rental fee. Eventually, they found the Palace Generalife, Palma, Majorca. Other scenes were film in the Caves of Arta (the temple of the Oracle) and the Torrente de Pareis.
The miniature set for the Fountain of Destiny was huge. The monoliths were 32 inches high and the fountain was constantly maintained at a height of 51 inches. The rock background was over 15 feet high and the whole thing was built on a wooden platform 32 inches from the ground.
Ray Harryhausen confessed that when he was animating the centaur, he had in mind an opera tenor in his final death throes. The actual model of the centaur was about 13 inches high and had ocelot fur on its legs and a small doll's eye in its forehead.
During production, Harryhausen was also producing a film called King of the Geniis, which was to include Sinbad and dinosaurs. Harryhausen made a poster and three key drawings, but it never was produced because of the box-office failure of The Valley of Gwangi. Leftover ideas became Golden Voyage.
An early charcoal/pencil illustration showed the one-eyed centaur battling a giant Neanderthal man, who was later replaced by a griffin in the final version. The giant Neanderthal was later used in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).
When Sinbad drives his sword into the centaur's neck, a process called Shadow Boxing was used. Law played out the scene by himself, pin-pointing where the sword would stop and then the centaur's "neck" was added at that particular spot. Fernando Poggi provided his valuable expertise for the swordfight sequences. Poggi strapped two of his stuntmen together with a very large belt to help simulate the six arms of the living statue of Kali, giving the actors at least four arms to practice against.
A "Valley of the Vipers" sequence was deleted.
The captioner for the movie had some fun with Koura's lines. When he is mumbling "foreign words" to cast a spell, the captions are backwards lines from Cocoa Puffs and Trix breakfast cereal commercials.
[edit] Adaptations
- Marvel Comics published a two-issue adaptation in Worlds Unknown #7-8 (June & Aug. 1974). Titled The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: Land Of The Lost, it was by writer Len Wein and artists George Tuska and Vince Colletta.
