Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

Movie Info

A meeting of the minds

Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) is seeking the hand of Princess Farah (Jane Seymour) in marriage.  Sinbad learns that Princess Farah’s brother Kassim (Damien Thomas) has been transformed into a baboon and the only way to save the kingdom and gain Farah’s hand is to restore him to human form before it is too late.  Joining forces with a sage named Melanthius (Patrick Troughton) and his daughter Dione (Taryn Power), Sinbad must sail to ice world of Hyperborea to find the cure for Kassim’s transformation.  Pursued by Zenobia (Margaret Whiting), Sinbad realizes time is running out if he hopes to win Farah as his bride.

Directed by Sam Wanamaker, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is an action fantasy.  The movie (which was originally going to be called Sinbad at the World’s End) is the third and the final film in the series produced by Columbia Pictures and featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen.  The movie follows The Golden Voyage of Sinbad from 1973 and is generally considered the weakest of the trilogy but had a generally large budget for the time.

Now they pissed Chumley off!

The films of Ray Harryhausen were some of my favorites growing up.  Movies with relatively cheesy special effects ruled the weekend airwaves as a kid and any time a Harryhausen movie came up, you knew you were going to get a slightly better cheesy movie…Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is no exception.

The plot for the movie is rather typical.  The heroes and heroine are in a race against time against evil to reach a prize.  It is simple and even has all of the stock characters that you’d come to expect from a fantasy.  The movie will do little to surprise you (except possibly choosing to make the troglodyte a “good guy”), but it still is entertaining.

Patrick Wayne is a rather uninspiring Sinbad.  Sinbad is supposed to be dashing and daring but Wayne is rather even keeled.  Wayne replaced John Phillip Law who was supposed to reprise his role from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.  Bond girl and Dr. Quinn star Jane Seymour plays the love interest of Sinbad but Taryn Powers played the more interesting Dione.  Margaret Whiting was the generic witch character, but I did enjoy Doctor Who’s Patrick Troughton as wise man Melanthius.  Star Wars’ Peter Mayhew also worked on the film as the real version of the Minoton.

Just a baboon and a troglodyte hanging out…there’s nothing wrong with that…

Ray Harryhausen’s special effects are the real star.  Much of the criticism came from the fact that Harryhausen didn’t change up his format much from previous films.  Also, Star Wars had just been released and revolutionized the idea of special effects for many viewers.  Despite this, there are a lot of neat creatures in Sinbad including the troglodyte and the animated baboon (it was decided it was easier to animate rather than train)…as a kid, even the giant walrus kind of scared me.

I won’t argue that Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is a very good movie, but it is an entertaining film.  The movie is light and a fun popcorn type picture.  If you grew up with Sinbad, it is fun to revisit the film and see how far special effects have come, but it is also good to recognize how good Ray Harryhausen was at his craft.  I’d love to see a really good Sinbad be made, but I have a feeling that we’ll have to hold on to Harryhausen’s version for a long time before that happens.

Related Links:

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)