The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

"What evil sorcery is this?"

I've seen this splendid Ray Harryhausen film (and is it not instructive how we all see this as his film, director and obscure cast notwithstanding) several times before. Of course I have. But my DVD went missing years ago and only now do I get to blog it.

It's a splendid tour-de-force of stop motion brilliance, of course; very much a Technicolor King Kong. I mean this literally; the stars of the film are not Kerwin Mathews and Kathryn Grant but the horned Cyclops, the Roc, the dragon and the skeleton- and the final fight between the Cyclops and the dragon is very King Kong indeed.

Of course, Rocs aside, the story owes far more to The Odyssey than to Arabian Nights. And the acting, aside from Torin Thatcher’s splendid scenery chewing as the sneaky magician Sokurah, is pure plywood. Indeed, there is a major plot hole- why do the Caliph and Sultan not suspect the clearly dodgy wizard of being the man who shrunk the princess? Why, after declaring war on Baghdad for no obvious reason, does the Sultan allow his daughter to remain there? Actually, how come a Caliph and Sultan both exist, as equals? Were there sultans before the Ottomans, anyway?

Ultimately, we don’t care about any of this. The stop motion is awesome, therefore the film is awesome. It’s one of those films, and Ray Harryhausen was the greatest ever in his field.

First Men in the Moon (1964)

"Not married?!! Kindly leave the room!"

It rather pleases my geek sensibilities to see that Ray Harryhausen worked on a film co-written by Nigel Kneale. Harryhausen isn't really called upon to do much in comparison with some of his other work, but this is still a damned fine adaptation of H.G. Wells' little parable on the evils of capitalism.

I note, of course, that the baddie is a Mr. Bedford- sounds a well dodgy type, although I have no idea why "Julius" was changed to "Arnold" for the film. Rather spoils the "Caesar in Gaul" subtext.

It's 1964. The late St John F. Kennedy of blessed memory has alteady vowed to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and both superpowers are quite visibly and excitingly progressing towards that age. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, when the future was not yet passé. They would have been appalled to discover that, as of 2016, no one has set foot on the moon for a staggering 44 years. It was a very different age, but also a very different age from 1901 when the novel was published. So it's good to see the story bookended by modern day sections in which astronauts discover evidence of Cavor's exploits. It's rather utopian to propose a multinational UN mission, though. And rather fanciful to suggest that the Yank and the Russian would be joined by a Brit...!

Still, it frames the film nicely. It's surprisingly late on until our (anti-)heroes reach the Moon, but the design and effect is fantastic much they do. I'm reminded visually of The Daleks, a Doctor Who story of the same year: must have been something in the zeitgeist.

It's an excellent version of a much under-utilised novel, in spite of it's largely unknown cast. That ending, though? Shameless rip-off from The War of the Worlds. H.G. Wells should sue himself.