Sinbad, Jason, and Me

A little over a week ago, I caught a double bill at the Castro Theatre: Jason and the Argonauts and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. (Actually, it was a triple bill, but I didn't have the time/stamina for Mysterious Island.) As you may have deduced, all three feature the amazing stop-motion animation work of Ray Harryhausen, whose films such as these drew me into the world of filmmaking and cinephilia.

I hadn't seen Jason and the Argonauts for years. I found myself pleasantly surprised that it holds up as a damn fine fantasy film. (Points for alliteration, please.) My only real gripe is the ending. The climax - Jason finally getting that Golden Fleece - is bracketed by two battles, each of which left me with a shrug.

First, he goes mano a cabezas with the Hydra. All this really consists of is his dodging the seven heads long enough to land one good thrust and take it out. I suppose I had for years wished he'd hacked off a head or two before finishing it off. Later, as Jason and cohorts race their booty to the Argo, they must face off with a half dozen skeleton warriors. Now, this is still an amazing sequence, probably the one Harryhausen will be remembered for, however with maybe two exceptions, Jason dispatches them all en masse - by tricking them off the edge of a cliff. Kinda weak. (In fact, it echoes something Harryhausen did in the earlier Seventh Voyage.) But what actually bugs me most about the end is that it's the wrong ending. We see Jason escape with the Fleece on his boat and the gods on Olympus muse about his future adventures - and that's it. The problem is the movie set up this premise that Jason would steal the Fleece, return it to his homeland, and kill the usurper who slew his father two decades before. The very first scene sets this up, when the usurper is told by his sage that he will be killed by a vengeful son. We do not get this conclusion. Maybe they ran out of money. I don't know. However, it's still such a good time that I feel somewhat ashamed for even pointing it out.

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad has always been a personal favorite. I believe it was the scenes with the Cyclops that made me wonder just how they did that - and who they were. For the first time in years, I'd actually watched all three of the Harryhausen Sinbad films over the last year. In order, they are Seventh Voyage, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger - and I watched them in this order. I was saddened by how "wretched" I found Seventh Voyage. Apparently, years of nostalgia had colored my memory. Then, I watched the other two. Oh, boy. They went down hill fast. Golden Voyage, despite having arguably the best Sinbad actor in John Phillip Law, was this side of an MST3K movie. And Eye of the Tiger suffered from poor pacing, an afro'd Sinbad, and the absolute waste of one of Harryhausen's coolest creations, the golden golem Minoton. And don't get me started on the sorceress....

Now, after all that bashing I have good news: The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad is actually quite good. Though I'd already determined it wasn't half-bad after seeing the two sequels, I hadn't seen it since. This time, nothing bothered me in the least. Certain tropes - white guys playing Arabs, the de facto romance - came with the era and can be forgiven as such. What remains is another fun adventure movie geared at children.

Which brings me to ... the children. There were plenty in attendance at these screenings. While there were some parents who brought their kids, there were more solo dads with children in tow, seemingly passing the torch. I had four kids seated in front of me, two each from two families, all boys. Each set had one kid who got bored and restless, and one who was - literally - on the edge of his seat through the whole picture. Glad to see these films can still inspire and that there are children out there who can still be dazzled by something less than rapid cutting, CGI, and explosions. May these kids and others like them become the cinephiles of tomorrow.