Tue 7 Jul 2009
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: CAPTAIN SINDBAD (1963).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Comic Books, Cartoons, Comic Strips , Reviews[5] Comments
CAPTAIN SINDBAD. MGM-Germany, 1963, aka Kapitän Sindbad. Guy Williams, Heidi Brühl, Pedro Armendariz, Abraham Sofaer, Bernie Hamilton, Helmuth Schneider, Henry Brandon, Guy Doleman. Co-screenwriters: Ian McLellan Hunter and Guy Endore; director: Byron Haskin.
Like Son of Sinbad [reviewed here] Captain Sindbad is in Technicolor too, but it’s a ruddy, comic book color: cheap, gaudy, and enjoyably eye-watering. The sets are lavish but cheesy-looking, costumes likewise, and everything seems pointed at an ostentatious show of threadbare splendor, with swordfights, shipwrecks, riots and magic stuff tumbling out like cut-rate toys from a shabby bag.
Simply splendid.
Guy Wiliams, in between Zorro and Lost in Space, stars as Sindbad, pitted against evil poo-bah Pedro Armendariz, an actor who appeared in real movies, like Three Godfathers and From Russia with Love.
Here though, he just sits around in a chintzy palace with vaulted purple ceilings, blood red carpets and golden dragons all over (just the way you or I would decorate a palace if money and taste were no object) and hatches evil schemes with the kind of hammy relish I hadn’t seen since Tod Slaughter.
Okay, it’s kind of a catch-penny thing, but as written by Guy Endore, and directed by Byron Haskin, Captain Sindbad has a sleazy charm I just can’t resist. There’s always something happening on screen, and the special effects, though never convincing, are always imaginative and even kind of poetic at times.
I particularly liked how the bad guy can’t be killed because he keeps his heart locked up in a tower an enchanted forest, guarded by a giant hand — I guess we’ve all known someone like that, haven’t we? It’s storybook stuff presented with childlike gusto by people old enough to know better and a film no eight-year-old should miss.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I love this movie, and agree with everything Dan says about it. The Gold Key comic book adaptation was drawn by Russ Manning creator of Magnus Robot Fighter, long running artist on the comic book and later comic strip Tarzan, and first artist on the Star Wars comic strip, and the comic did well enough that a second issue was published done by Dan Spiegle (the Hopalong Cassidy comic strip and countless comic books including Scooby Doo and others), very rare for a movie adaptation.
I would only add that Abraham Soaffer is almost as over the top — and perfect — as Armendariz (who was a bigger name in Mexican cinema than in Hollywood where he was mostly a good character actor — among his more campy roles John Wayne’s brother in The Conquerors — the one where Wayne is Ghengis Khan). Guy Williams proves a perfectly good leading man in this one and Bernie Hamilton good as Sinbad’s second in command.
While this is no competition for the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films (even though most of those were also directed by Haskin) it is as Dan says, a movie no eight year old should miss, even if they are eight plus fifty.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I should also add that reliable character actors Guy Doleman (of the “Harry Palmer” movies) and Henry Brandon (THE SEARCHERS, DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU, BABES IN TOYLAND etc.) are in it as well.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Dan
I’ve just added them, thanks. When I put the credits together, I don’t always know how many actors had parts that were significant. Doleman, for one, is rather far down in the IMDB credits.
While I was looking on IMDB, I saw a number of commenters asking why the extra “D” in Sinbad’s name. I thought it had something to do with the movie’s German origins, but someone suggested that it was for legal reasons.
I’d have thought that the name Sinbad was in the public domain by this time, but over the years I’ve thought lots of things that turned out to be wrong.
— Steve
July 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Steve
This is purely a guess, but I would imagine since Byron Haskin directed this and also directed some Harryhausen films (though not The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, that was Nathan Juran) that it is possible the added D was in case Harryhausen or the studio tried to make any claims that this was in some way related to their film (the other two films in the Harryhausen Sinbad trilogy were still a long way off). As you say, the Sinbad character is hardly in copyright anymore, but there may have been concerns this was enough like the earlier film to cause a problem
It may just be the added D was a defensive measure taken to prevent any misunderstandings. Not unlike the Emanuelle movies versus the Emmanuelle movies.
I never noticed anyone being overly sensitive to the use of the name before or since so long as no one borrowed anything too specific from another movie that didn’t come from the original tales.
Much as I enjoyed this one I can’t imagine Harryhausen felt threatened by the special effects team here.
Then again maybe that’s just how Guy Endore liked to spell it.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:36 am
The best part of “Captain Sindbad” was the Russ Manning/ Gold Key comic… if they had shot this version of the story, it might have been on a par with Harryhausen’s Sinbad