This was released 20 years before I was born but I was brought up on these kind of films. For me Jason and the argonauts is the best of the lot but this was a must watch at Christmas when on TV. My dad loved these films and I can see why. I've seen it recently and OK, the acting is a bit wooden but the special effects are still classy for the age of the film. I know in this day and age it's all about cgi mixed with life size models but you have to appreciate the classic story mixed with the special effects. A really enjoyable film that is entertaining and yet fun. Shame these times have passed.

This is a pretty interesting B-movie with a plot and cast of characters similar to Jack the Giant Killer: Kerwin Matthews stars as the hero of this movie, playing Sinbad who is on a quest to rescue Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) from evil magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher). Sinbad must do so to prevent a war.The movie has the classic rescue-the-princess plot element and was actually somewhat entertaining from what I remembered as a kid. You get a lot of fun good guy vs. bad guy action, rescue-the-princess adventures, magic and monster duels from a cyclops and a dragon. In the mix is a supporting character appearance by a young genie (Richard Eyer), an important ally to the heroes.The acting was decent and special effects were also decent for its time.Overall, it's a pretty good action/monster-packed B-movie! Grade B

Whenever I watch one of these types of movies I'm overwhelmed by the painstaking amount of work that went into creating the 'dynamation' styled creatures, the work of special effects artists like the legendary Ray Harryhausen. You have to remember that the monsters and other fantastical creations were made of clay and repositioned a countless number of times while filming them individually frame after frame until the desired effect was achieved. Then, the film of the inanimate objects had to be blended together with the live action to produce what you see on screen. It's just an incredible amount of manual work that had to go into producing films like these in the days before blue screen and CGI.And the monsters here truly were fantastic. A Cyclops made an appearance on two separate occasions, while the second expedition back to the island of Colossa by Captain Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) revealed a legendary Roc, an enormous two headed hawk-like bird, along with your traditional fire breathing, scaly green dragon. Perhaps the strangest creation was that of the four armed half woman/half serpent conjured up by the magician Sokhura (Torin Thatcher), an ingenious tribute to the power of one's imagination.So with all these mythical creatures on display, one might miss the parallels to one of the all time great sci-fi films made over a decade and a half later, the original "Star Wars". After Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) was restored to normal size after applying the magic potion, she and hero Sinbad did the old rope swing across the gorge to escape the dragon's lair, a neat prelude to Luke and Leia doing the same thing in 'A New Hope'. Sinbad's sword fight with the skeleton of course was recreated any number of times using light sabers by various characters in the Star Wars universe.If there's one thing I thought the film makers might have improved on it would have been the casting of the lamp genie. The young Richard Eyer just didn't seem to have the charisma that was needed to pull off the magic genie theatrics that the story called for. But he's not on screen all that much so I wouldn't consider him an impediment to enjoying the picture.

When Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) refuses to help the sorcerer Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) retrieve his magic lamp from a Cyclops, Sokurah shrinks Sinbad's love Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) to the size of a doll. The potion to restore her to her natural size requires the shell of a bird's egg from the island of Colossa where the Cyclops lives. Now Sinbad has no choice but to journey to Colossa and face the monster to save his lady.Fantasy adventure classic from director Nathan Juran and featuring the awesome stop-motion special effects from legendary Ray Harryhausen. Torin Thatcher is great as the nefarious wizard. Child actor Richard Eyer as the genie in the lamp is goofy but amusing. The leads are both fine. It's the special effects that are the real star with the justifiably famous climactic battle between Sinbad and a skeleton warrior a highlight.