{"id":7470,"date":"2014-01-23T16:19:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T21:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7470"},"modified":"2014-02-02T14:56:11","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T19:56:11","slug":"br-sinbad-and-the-eye-of-the-tiger-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7470","title":{"rendered":"BR: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>S<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label: Twilight Time<\/a> \/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: December 13, 2013<\/p>\n

Genre: Action \/ Fantasy \/ Ray Harryhausen<\/p>\n

Synopsis: \u00a0Sinbad & Co. must reach a sacred cave in the far North to return a Prince from baboon to human, and save Arabia from an evil scheming mother and her idiot son Rafi.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/p>\n

Isolated stereo music track \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ 1958 \u201cThis is Dynamation\u201d featurette (3:25) \/ Theatrical trailer \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Ray Harryhausen\u2019s last poke at the Sinbad character is a lesser effort, reworking the basic story of the prior Golden Voyage of Sinbad<\/a><\/strong> (1973) \u2013 the seaman (this time it\u2019s Patrick Wayne in a turban), his team, and a princess (Jane Seymour, fresh from another exotic role in Live and Let Die<\/strong>) must travel to remote pockets of the ancient world to reach a hallowed cavern and transform a prince (Twins of Evil<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Damien Thomas) back to his human form before an evil witch (Margaret Whitting) and her greedy son (Kurt Christian) can claim his kingdom \u2013 but amid the familiar scenes that take the Arabian hero and Co. to a remote, cavernous location for a final battle, there are some stellar creature effects.<\/p>\n

The metallic Minoton crafted by super-witch Zenobia (Whitting) is memorable for its chilly obedience, right down to a rather shocking act of self-sacrifice; the prince, transformed by Zenobia into a baboon, is an empathetic character due to Harryhausen\u2019s knack for realistic movements and facial gestures; and a one-eyed Neanderthal is a fairly compelling foe-turned-friend who aides Sinbad & Co. gain entry to a hidden city in search of another magical transformative shrine \u2013 a key set piece in Golden<\/strong>\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n

James Bond and Golden<\/strong> cinematographer Ted Moore captured exotic locales and fills the screen with saturated colours of the desert, caves, and labyrinthine caves, and Roy Budd\u2019s score offers an elegant balance of orchestral exotica \u2013 a rare treat from a composer better known for hard action and adventure scores.<\/p>\n

Shape-shifting Zenobia is a female variant of Golden<\/strong>\u2019s scheming Koura (Tom Baker), and director Sam Wanamaker follows the same pattern in exploiting her gaping eyes whenever she\u2019s conjuring another malevolent creation. As shrill as Zenobia may be, she\u2019s also an intensely devoted mother, determined to elevate her idiot son Rafi as supreme ruler, and perhaps the most chilling moment occurs when an effort to return to human form is only partially successful, resulting in a condition not dissimilar from the arrogant heroine in Todd Browning\u2019s Freaks<\/a><\/strong> (1932).<\/p>\n

Compared to Golden<\/strong>, Eye of the Tiger<\/strong> seems to have been made for less money (apparently it was a bigger<\/em> production), but there are seams which reveal unfortunate cost-saving measures. The heavier use of process shots often have the main actors clearly standing in front of a blue screen in a studio, and wide shots make use of stand-ins who sometimes don\u2019t hold up even from a distance. (Body doubles for the women during Sinbad\u2019s trek to an ancient temple – the city of Petra, Jordan<\/a> – have slightly different hair than counterparts Seymour and Taryn Power, and one wears a different coloured dress.)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also Harryhausen\u2019s core formula in which a journey is regularly interrupted by a giant \u2018prehistoric\u2019 monster which helps whittle down the cast to its core stars and co-stars; it\u2019s a ploy that \u00a0get rich when there\u2019s no anthropological connection between the creature \u2013 man, beats, or hybrid – and its environment. The conceit is simply that in Harryhausen\u2019s fantasy world, these \u2018lost creatures from an ancient time\u2019 still survive in minute populations (or perhaps as lone male survivors channeling their sexual rage towards interloping humans).<\/p>\n

The C.V. of Harryhausen\u2019s latest choice of director \u2013 veteran character actor Sam Wanamaker (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold<\/a><\/strong>) – was largely rooted in TV. Tiger<\/strong> still has an epic scope \u2013 the group travel from a fictional Arab kingdom to a rocky island, and finally the North Pole \u2013 but Wanamaker\u2019s editorial style is very<\/em> strange: cuts are faster in order to hasten the pacing, but the selection of angles and edit points are often jarring.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the coronation footage that bookends the film seems to have been cut as straight sequences, but perhaps due to some cost-saving \/ time-saving measures, the Main & End Credits were overlaid, resulting in a messy montage where the character intros are obfuscated, and viewers are distracted by colour-shifting text. As Main Title sequences go, this one\u2019s a disaster.<\/p>\n

Wanamaker has one dilemma that\u2019s specifically rooted in Beverley Cross\u2019 screenplay: most of the action in the film\u2019s middle isn\u2019t led or directly affected by Sinbad himself: he often acts in concert or sits & listens to soothsayer Melanthius (The Omen<\/strong>\u2019s piked priest, Patrick Troughton). Star Wayne\u2019s often just standing and sitting by the sidelines, reacting to other people\u2019s decisions and functioning as a kind of site manager for the group \u2013 a radical departure from the ever-busy John Phillip Law in Golden<\/strong> who\u2019s clearly in control, and takes the lead when offered a suggestion by his team. When Sinbad finally gets pro-active, it\u2019s in the end fight with a saber-toothed tiger.<\/p>\n

By keeping Wayne on the sidelines, Wanamaker also robs audiences of the actor\u2019s inherent assets \u2013 a buffed physique – and it\u2019s a problem that also extends to actresses Power and Seymour. With the exception of a backside nude scene for Melanthius\u2019 daughter Dione (top-billed Taryn Power) and Princess Farah (Seymour), Wanamaker doesn\u2019t exploit the sporty costumes and sleek female physiques in the same way Golden<\/strong> director Gordon Hessler recognized the value in regularly flattering Caroline Munro by repeatedly cut back & forth to the actress. Wanamaker (or perhaps Harryhausen) made a conscious decision to play down the teasing imagery and keep the camera focused on the elder Melanthius, the group\u2019s decision maker and guide.<\/p>\n

The real hero of Tiger <\/strong>isn\u2019t Sinbad but Melanthius, and his decision to accept the challenge and save the Prince from baboonhood is enacted in a scene that\u2019s typical of the film\u2019s wonky logic: after fiddling with a series of lights and coloured glass filters that are never explained (and are glaringly nonsensical to any viewer), Melanthius suddenly becomes excited by blinky-blinky lights – and quickly agrees to join the trek. It\u2019s literally the equivalent of holding a shiny bauble in front of the audience as a distraction for the lack of a convincing impetus to get a batch of characters together and back on the open sea.<\/p>\n

Tiger<\/strong> is a lesser work, but it is superior to Harryhausen and Cross\u2019 finale effort, Clash of the Titans<\/a><\/strong> (1981), which suffered from some grievous dialogue and weaker effects (the Medusa sequence excepted).<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray sports a gorgeous transfer, and Roy Budd\u2019s score is happily isolated in crisp stereo \u2013 a welcome treat for one of Britain\u2019s more underrated yet busy composers of the seventies. Another nice surprise is its completeness: like Miklos Rosza\u2019s Golden<\/strong> score, Budd\u2019s music actually begins with the Columbia Pictures logo, but in the final film mix it doesn\u2019t start until after a fireworks montage.<\/p>\n

The new 5.1 mix makes great use of the crisp stereo stems, but like Golden<\/strong>, Sony\u2019s apparently decided not to license the film\u2019s original mono mix, which seems to be the studio\u2019s mandate now: retiring mono mixes as fans supposedly prefer 5.1, when in actuality we prefer both<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Other extras include Julie Kirgo\u2019s booklet essay, trailer, and the \u201cThis is Dynamation\u201d featurette designed to hype The 7th<\/sup> Voyage of Sinbad<\/strong> in 1958. Pity none of the surviving cast & crew were ever interviewed for a home video release; it seems as though within his C.V., alongside The Valley of Gwangi<\/strong> (1969), this one\u2019s often (and wrongly) pegged as a dud.<\/p>\n

Although Harryhausen stacked his headlining stars with the children of famous stars, Patrick Wayne (son of John) more or less returned to TV and the odd B-movie. Taryn Power (daughter of Tyrone) had made small inroads in Pupi Avati\u2019s House of Please for Women<\/strong> (1976) and Henry Jaglom\u2019s Tracks<\/strong> (1977) prior to Tiger<\/strong>, but she would appear in just a handful of TV and film projects before retiring \u2013 notably supporting roles in Armando de Ossorio\u2019s Serpiente de mar<\/strong> (1984) and Jagloms\u2019s Eating<\/strong> (1990).<\/p>\n

Jane Seymour, however, would continue her unofficial reign as the \u2018Queen of the TV mini-series\u2019 having appeared in a string of productions prior to Tiger<\/strong>, such as Frankenstein: The True Story<\/strong> (1973) and Captains and the Kings <\/strong>(1976). Her subsequent successes include The Four Feathers<\/strong> (1978), East of Eden<\/strong> (1981), and the epic mini-series War and Remembrance<\/strong> (1989).<\/p>\n

Sam Wanamaker\u2019s theatrical directorial efforts include The Legend of Custer<\/strong> (1968), The File of the Golden Goose<\/strong> (1969), The Executioner<\/strong> (1970), Catlow<\/strong> (1971), and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger<\/strong> (1977).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0S<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ S . Film: Very Good\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Good Label: Twilight Time \/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: December 13, 2013 Genre: Action \/ Fantasy \/ Ray Harryhausen Synopsis: \u00a0Sinbad & Co. must reach a sacred cave in the far North to return a Prince from baboon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2462,2464,2461,209,1480,2460,2458,2463],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Wu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7527,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions\/7527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}