Sinbad battles the creatures of legend in the miracle of Dynarama
1973-12-20
N/A
105 min
Sinbad and his crew intercept a homunculus carrying a golden tablet. Koura, the creator of the homunculus and practitioner of evil magic, wants the tablet back and pursues Sinbad. Meanwhile, Sinbad meets the Vizier who has another part of the interlocking golden map, and they mount a quest across the seas to solve the riddle of the map.
"Sinbad" (John Phillip Law) is in possession of a rather clunky medallion that he only narrowly manages to keep from the grasping hands of the sorcerer "Koura" (Tom Baker). Finding safety in the city of "Marabia" he is told a tale by the Grand Vizier (Douglas Wilmer) and shown why the evil "Koura" is after his jewel. Shortly afterwards, while walking through the bazaar he is encouraged - to the tune of 400 gold pieces and the pretty "Margiana" (Caroline Munro) - to take the lazy "Haroun" (Kurt Christian) on his next, perilous, voyage. Off they all go in search of the Oracle of All Knowledge - hotly pursued by the sorcerer - where they hope to finally thwart his ambitions to become ever-youthful, wealthy and all-powerful. It's a fun and entertaining story this that I vaguely recall watching as a seven year old in a long-defunct Glasgow cinema. Law is handsome enough, Munro brings a bit of glamour, Baker hams up nicely as the baddie and Christian and Martin Shaw contribute a little bit of nautical humour and theatrical guffawing to the proceedings nicely, too. The real stars, as ever though, are the creations of Ray Harryhausen - not least the Centaur and the wonderful Kali with her sword dance. Even now, I am still not sure how the ending finished up the way it did - and that, I found, really rather disappointing - but it's still a colourful and reasonably well paced adventure film with some memorable beasties that I quite enjoyed.
