at first sigh - a fairy-tale. at the second - admirable manifesto in gray time. because, far of all, it is product of time. not for naive special effects, not for nationalist message. but for courage to give another image of cinema art in deep Cold War. so, it is different propaganda. an interesting and powerful exercise to discover real Russia, far from red flags and ideological cages.the performance - sweet and nice -, the music, the silhouette of characters are testimonies of a little revolution. sure, not impressive. but really essential. because it marks end of a page. the joy, the adventures, the childhood piece from myth each is scene for a beginning. the death of Stalin is only a sign. the seed can be, like many others Soviet film, this poor , charming and seductive movie. as victory of a David against Goliath. a moral victory, of course. but not insignificant.

*Spoiler/plot- 1953, Magic Voyages of Sinbad, Sinbad returns home from an adventure, but finds things in his home town badly run and the peasants unhappy. He tries several magic tricks working with Neptunes daughter to catch some magic gold fishes to buy off the rich merchants to build for Sinbad sailing ships to find the Magic Bird of Happiness. Sinbad gets his ships and finds a brave crew. He leaves to travel the world over to seek the Magic Happiness Bird. After years of adventures, he finally realizes his personal lesson that a person's real happiness is always at your own home or neighborhood.*Special Stars- Sergei Stolyarov plays lead role, Sinbad.*Theme- Sinbad teaches everyone life's lessons.*Based on- Stories of the Arabian Night's.*Trivia/location/goofs- ONLINE. Strange to see the Russian society substituted for Arabic climes. The Communist plot overtones are clear to the viewer. Long live the workers !! *Emotion- A visually opulent Technicolor film of the Russian Soviet Communistic regime cinema with an operatic flavor and a lesson to viewers. Enjoyable to watch once you get past the fact the story references is solid Russian elements and nowhere near Arabic.

I'll skip the normal plot synopsis and get right to it. Besides, anything I could write about the plot would hardly matter as the American bastardization of Sadko that I watched appears to bear only a passing resemblance to either the original Russian movie or the classic Russian folktale on which it was based. First off, I wonder whose bright idea it was to turn the character named Sadko into Sinbad. Let's see, Sadko is a poor Russian musician – Sinbad is an adventurous Middle-Eastern sailor. A lot of similarity there, huh? Secondly, I really have to wonder if the Russian version of the movie included anything about a quest for a bird of happiness. I say this because in the end the bird hardly seems to matter at all. It's almost as if the idea of the bird was added to the American version to give some sort of justification for "Sinbad" going to sea.Beyond the problems of Americanizing this Russian movie, I have problems with the bits of the original Sadko that seep through. As I stated in my recent review of The Sword and the Dragon (aka Ilya Muromets), I'm not a fan of this style of Russian movie or acting. "The Sword and the Dragon seemed to be filled with such broad overacting that it became absurd. I realize that the movie was made over 50 years ago in the Soviet Union. I understand that the movie is filled with messages and other pro-worker propaganda. And I appreciate the importance of the film as a relic of the communist system. But none of that means I have to actually like the movie." If you change the title of the movie, this quote accurately reflects my feelings on The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. And even though I realize that my appreciation of the movie might be improved if I were to have the opportunity to see the original film, I doubt the change would be drastic.Like many others, I saw The Magic Voyage of Sinbad through Mystery Science Theater 3000. I enjoyed this episode much more than the previously mentioned The Sword and the Dragon episode. Overall, some very funny riffs. I'll give episode #505 a 4/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

It's interesting that whether people liked or disliked this film seems to vary depending on whether it was seen in the original Russian, or the English version. It's NOT based on Sinbad, but on Russian folktales.Did anyone else notice the similarities to "Alexander Nevsky"? Specifically, the hero gathering a band of stalwart Russians (mostly drawn from the peasant or working classes) to defeat a ruling elite. There seemed to be many cinematic homages to Eisenstein as well.