Movie Review: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)

Dungeons and Dragons 101, with Ray Harryhausen

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is the second of three movies based on the titular character’s story cycle from the One Thousand and One [Arabian] Nights. The first was The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), and the final film is Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). All three feature the amazing stop motion animation work of the legendary Ray Harryhausen.

I fondly remember these movies from their prominent place on old timey broadcast syndicated TV, especially on Saturday afternoons, squashed in between Kung Fu movies, Godzilla movies, heavily edited horror movies, and other oddities. Nelvana was one messed up animation studio.

So, I wanted to grab something cheap and fun for the family to pass a rainy night, and we had an absolute blast. It made a few things go “click.” For me, the link between old timey pulp and classical adventure stories and how they got rolled into the first generation of roleplaying games. For my wife, it was how to do a quick action-packed story that gets down to business and isn’t afraid to just go for it. For my daughter, she got to experience good, evil, adventure, roguishness, and heroism in a way you rarely see in contemporary books and movies.

Back on topic. For an idea of the tone of this story, here’s the catchphrase repeated by several characters throughout: “Trust in Allah, but always tie up your camel!”

The Story

This movie wastes ZERO time establishing the setting, plot, stakes, and characters.

The film opens at sea, and immediately we see a strange flying creature hovering above the small ship, appearing to hold a shiny metallic object. A crewman shoots an arrow at it, and while he misses, the creature drops its cargo, an amulet. This crew has obviously been with Sinbad for a while, because their first reaction is to throw it overboard, but when Sinbad touches it, he has a vision of a mysterious woman with an eye tattooed on the palm of her right hand. Intrigued by the vision, he fastens the amulet around his neck. As he sleeps that night, he dreams of a man dressed in black, repeatedly calling his name, along with the woman.

A sudden storm drives Sinbad's ship near a port city in the country of Marabia. The man from Sinbad's dream appears as a mirage. The man, an evil magician named Koura, demands the amulet, claiming it is his. Sinbad narrowly escapes into the city and meets the Grand Vizier of Marabia, who has been ruling as regent. The Vizier, who wears a golden mask to hide his disfigured face, explains that Sinbad's amulet is one piece of a larger puzzle; the Vizier possesses another. The three pieces are the key to finding the fabled Fountain of Destiny on the lost continent of Lemuria. Whoever brings the pieces to the Fountain will gain “youth, a shield of darkness, and a crown of untold riches.” Sinbad realizes that the two pieces fit together to form a nautical chart.

Sinbad joins the Vizier on his quest to find the Fountain. Koura, who also desires the Fountain's gifts, caused the Vizier's disfigurement. The creature that dropped the amulet was Koura's minion, a magical homunculus, which spies on Sinbad and the Vizier. When they catch it, the creature destroys itself.

Soon after, Sinbad meets the woman from his dream, a slave girl named Margiana. Seeing Sinbad's interest in the girl, her master offers Sinbad 400 coins and Margiana in exchange for taking his lazy son Haroun on the journey to make a man out of him. Sinbad reluctantly agrees.

Meanwhile, Koura hires a ship and crew to follow Sinbad, using his magic to try to stop him. On their journey, Sinbad and his crew face numerous dangers and encounter many wondrous things, including the cave of the Oracle of All Knowledge, and the hostile, green-painted natives of the lost continent of Lemuria. The natives worship evil gods, including Kali, and a one-eyed centaur, their “God of the Single Eye,” also the Fountain's Guardian of Evil. The centaur is opposed by the Fountain’s Guardian of Good, a griffin.

The race for the Fountain climaxes in a final showdown between the Centaur and the Griffin, and Koura and Sinbad. Given how old this movie is (and that there is third movie), I will not worry about spoilers and tell you that Sinbad wins, despite the restored Koura’s increased power and advantage of invisibility. The prize for Sinbad is a magical crown, promising wealth, power, and honor beyond his wildest dreams.

In a show of heroic fidelity that seems alien in the present day, Sinbad refuses this prize and presents it to the Vizier, whose mask dissolves as he puts it on, revealing his restored face. When Margiana asks why Sinbad did not take the crown for himself, he replies that he values his freedom more.

The Characters

What you have are the player characters, henchmen, NPCs and villains of a prototypical Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game; FYI I’m referring only to 1st and 2nd editions, because I’ve never played any newer version. I don’t apologize for that.

Captain Sinbad (played by John Philip Law) is an experienced sailor, adventurer, merchant, lady’s man, and hero. A fundamentally good man who values his freedom pursue life as he sees fit over sedentary society. This is in keeping with the source material.

Margiana (played by the ever-lovely Hammer Horror film stalwart, Caroline Munro). A slave girl, who inexplicably has an Eye of Horus tattoo related to the lost continent of Lemuria and the mystical Fountain. We never learn just what her connection is, and frankly for the action of the story, we don’t really care. We’re not even sure why or how she appears in Sinbad’s visions connected to the amulet, other perhaps than, “the will of Allah.” While it would be easy to write her off as “damsel in distress” window dressing, her character is spunky and grows beyond her enslaved state, as she sees Sinbad values her as a person, freeing her. She is a Robert E. Howard character in all but fact.

Prince Koura, a power-hungry magician in league with demons and devils (played by Tom Baker, who got the role in lieu of Christopher Lee, and secured his own seminal role as the Fourth Doctor for his performance). Koura is the villain of the piece, with more than a small resemblance to Disney’s Jafar. Koura’s magic is formidable but comes at a steep price: every time he uses it, it drastically ages him, sucking away his very life force. He is a betrayer, the usurper, the one who sells his soul for earthly power, wealth, and a little lust too. (But given Caroline Munro, I can see his point).

The Grand Vizier of Marabia (played by Douglas Wilmer) is the Wise Old Man, and the “anti-Jafar.” He’s been fighting the good fight to preserve the heirless kingdom against the attempted usurpation of Koura and has paid in his injuries due to Koura’s magical fire trap. He initiates the call to adventure for Sinbad and accompanies the party on its quest. His role is the story is restoration of what is right, just, and good.

My favorite character, Haroun (played by Kurt Christian) - is the low down, drunk, lute playing, horny, good-for-(almost) nothing bard / thief dual class. He’s the wastrel son of the merchant who outfits Sinbad’s expedition (and owns Margiana, the woman of Sinbad’s visions). Said merchant PAYS Sinbad to take his son on the voyage to “make a man out of him.” What’s great about this is it creates a subplot and sub-quest to see a real scoundrel prodigal son rise to the occasion, mature, and become a useful adventurer. And provide comic relief, but it’s done in a way that when Haroun turns the corner, it makes one want to cheer. Again, you don’t see this kind of growth often enough.

Unlike “one party uber alles bad community theater” conventional roleplay, Sinbad’s crew and Koura’s henchmen are critical to the story. Some of them even have names! They all have agency and grow on the audience too through their displays of loyalty, skill, and bravery. They are more than cannon fodder, which again, how often do you see that level of subtlety in contemporary movies, and this is a popcorn commercial special effects exercise of the early 1970s.

The World

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad story cycle is considered a part of the One Thousand and One Nights, but there’s some interesting history behind it. According to Wikipedia, the Sinbad stories were a later addition to that canon. They are not present in the extant 14th Century manuscript but show up as a self-contained story cycle in 18th and 19th century compilations. They are in the first European collections of One Thousand and One Nights as early as 1711.

The world the stories describe is the early Abbasid Caliphate, specifically the reign of the first caliph Harun-al-Rashid, in the late 8th and early 9th centuries.

The stories follow the expansion of trade, economic wealth, cultural exchange, and exploratory activities of the Abbasid era. This included voyages along the east coast of Africa, into the Indian Ocean, around the Arabian Peninsula and to Southeast Asia.

Cross-cultural pollination occurred with the mythologies and legends of the Greeks, Romans, Hellenistic cultures, and other cultures encountered during the initial expansion of the Dar-al-Islam, as familiar-sounding creatures, places, plots, and characters abound.

The world is the fantastical version of the real world, described by the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean basin, Europe, the Near East, the Middle East, through the medieval era, Renaissance, and early Age of Exploration.

In the movie, this is reflected by the “kitchen sink” approach to the monsters and mysterious ruins of “Lemuria.” Mayan and Aztec-looking pillars are right smack-dab next to a statue of Kali. Centaurs and griffins stalk the island, and the main object of Koura’s desire is a stand-in for the Fountain of Youth.

This is a world like the one our ancestors assumed and believed to be true.

You can think of it in old-school game terms. You have the PCs and their henchmen dungeon crawling, but you also have representatives of the higher levels of play described in those old college-level rule books: patrons, factions, powerful entities with their own agendas, NPCs, henchmen leveling up to PC status. You could watch this movie, break out the Player’s Handbook and DMG, and start a session dropping Sinbad, his crew, the Vizier, Marabia, Koura, the Guardians, and Lemuria right smack dab in the middle of it and it would work.

Politics

None, other than those of the plot: usurpation, rightful kingship, power, intrigue, treachery, the immorality of slavery, and worthless lazy children.

Content Warning

None. The reveal of the Vizier’s severely burned face grossed out my daughter a little bit, but otherwise, cleared hot for whole family fun.

Modern audiences might find the depiction of the Lemurians offensive or be upset at the lack of THE MESSAGE.

Some might take offense at the portrayal of Islamic and Arabic folklore heroes by an English cast.

Ignore them. It’s called acting for a reason.

My daughter played a gingerbread man in the local cast of Shrek Jr.

I can assure you with all certainty that no Gingerbread Advocacy Groups are crying foul at this, nor does she now identify as a Christmas-themed baked good.

Who is it for?

People who want to just sit down and enjoy a fun, satisfying, engaging, heroic, magical action, and adventure story by themselves or with family. The best part was seeing how much my family was willing to suspend disbelief and buy in. This isn’t high art, or great cinema, but it was fun. It was more fun than anything I’ve seen in theaters the last few years, easily.

Why buy it?

1. Ray Harryhausen’s special effects hold up surprisingly well. The whole movie is late-career Harryhausen showing off. The cyclops-centaur looks monstrous, skin tone, texture, brutality, in other words, he is a MONSTER. And he is a REAL THREAT. The ship’s figurehead coming to life is a great scene. The centerpiece of the movie is the climactic sword fight with the magically animated statue of Kali. It’s the “wow” moment that completely enthralled my daughter.

2. Nostalgia is worth indulging just a little bit every now and then.

3. With all due respect to Robin Williams, you and your kids have had enough of Disney’s Aladdin and its haram cheapquels.

   (Okay, fine, I’ll allow Aladdin and the King of Thieves only because Robin Williams is in it).