The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (1962)

Date Reviewed: July 28, 2002

Critical Kobold Rating:      (0 out of 5 Tasty Fish)

Magic Craaaaap!

     Oh.

     My.

     God.

      Words fail me, but I shall endeavor to make sense of what I witnessed tonight. I first saw the listing for the Magic Voyage of Sinbad on the TV Guide channel, and thought, ‘Oh, cool. A Sinbad movie.’ Now, any of you who’ve seen The Golden Voyage of Sinbad will understand that my expectations of this similarly-named movie were moderately enthusiastic: a playful and exciting romp through B-movie cheesedom, with stop-motion monsters and rousing swashbuckling swordplay. 

     Please understand that I have nothing whatsoever against homosexuals, deranged persons, pot heads, or film producers. But the combination will now forever haunt me. After the film ended, I sat in stunned silence, blinking, for several long moments before my agitated brain could process what it had taken in over the previous 90 minutes. Not only does The Magic Voyage get a rating of no Tasty Fish, a rating invented specifically for this movie, but I would give it negative fish, if possible.

       How can I explain the fetid wad of ogre dung that is The Magic Voyage of Sinbad? OK, first of all, this is apparently a story that takes place after every other Sinbad story, because when the movie begins, he’s returned home after his adventures at sea, having given away all of his accumulated treasures. (Except a small harp. More on that later.) We know this because the narrator tells us so. What I wanted to ask the narrator was if the filmmakers had actually had any familiarity at all with a Sinbad story before, because in all the Sinbad stories I’ve seen, Sinbad is Arabian. In this film, he’s apparently of some fair-haired Mediterranean descent, and the clothing is European-style, circa the 1400’s.

       And since the subject came up, let’s just discuss his appearance and ensemble, shall we? The best I can figure is that in the course of his travels, Sinbad became a gay pimp, because his outfit is gawd-awful. He’s got a Prince Valiant hairstyle, with the old Erol-Flynn goatee/mustache thing happening. Oh, and he’s blonde… just like Sinbad is always described in the stories. He’s got some fag-scary hat on, lined with a leopard skin brim, I think. He wears a pink tunic with five big glittery circles on the front (possibly daisies), and sports a plush cape of velvet. He also had some kind of weird leg-wraps, like medieval calf-warmers or something, each of a different color, and striped, like the kind worn by Witchiepoo in H.R. Pufnstuf episodes.

        This Sinbad is startlingly prissy for a hero that once took on an animated homicidal six-armed iron statue of Kali with only his scimitar. Here he speaks effusively and gestures melodramatically, and far too often he puts his hands on his waist. Not with the fingers forward, as regular guys as wont to do, but distinctly with the fingers downward, as men named Lamond standing outside the Pink Torpedo Dance Club in short shorts are wont to do. This movie should have been called “The Flaming Voyage of Sinbad”.

      Now, an ongoing issue I should address is that while there are sundry references to the homosexual mannerisms permeating this film, Sinbad is not truly out of the closet. In fact, in the first scene, right after stepping off the boat, he falls madly in love with a woman. (Um… well, honestly, first he stops and flirts openly with a burly blacksmith… but then he immediately falls for the woman.) The chick, despite knowing him for all of two minutes, later swears that he’s her true love, and she promises to wait for his return. He clutches her close in a warm hug, the romantic kind where you pull each other close quickly, then both turn your heads toward the camera and lay your cheeks together, then he sprints off with his harp to set sail with a bunch of burly men for a few years at sea.

      Ok, I suppose I’m being harsh. He does indeed eventually give the misguided woman a smooch before he sprints off. No, wait; to be honest, it's the chick that grabs him by the back of the head and shnozzles him. If she'd waited for him to make a move, they'd still be standing on that parapet to this day, I'd wager.  I’m just sayin’, if this were the last woman that I were going to see for a long while, I wouldn’t have waited until 5 minutes before launch to see her, then plant a chaste kiss on the lips. I mean, for god’s sake, man, at least cop a feel!

       Oh, and in case you care, after that scene, where they pledge undying love for each other, the woman is never relevant again during the entire movie. I'm honestly not even sure if she had a name. (Edit: OK, apparently she does: "Luberia." Ugh.) She's still hanging around at the end of the film when Sinbad rolls into town, but she's pointless.

“Ah, my dear beloved… whatsyername. Parting is such sweet sor.. Yowza! Check out that lumberjack!”

      Well, moving on to the plot, as it were…

     After flamboyantly arriving home from the sea, Sinbad notices that the merchants of the city are way richer and the peasants are way poorer than when he was last home, and that this is causing sadness in the peasants. (Frankly, I’m amazed that Sinbad noticed anything was amiss, because as you’ll see, the Sinbad in this film isn’t the sharpest dagger in the smithy, if you catch my drift.) Regardless, he somehow figures out, with many sweeping arm gestures, that the people of the city need to feel happy again, and it’s his job to provide that happiness.

     I need to point out that this revelation was made during a bizarre scene involving a bunch of townsfolk having a scuffle over Sinbad’s pimp hat.  Sinbad had exchanged the hat to buy the freedom of a guy who was either a slave, or about to be killed (I couldn’t really follow the scene well enough to grasp the man’s exact plight. My head was still swimming with the images of Sinbad wearing what appeared to be Huggy Bear’s clothes.) At the end of this scene, many “Arabians”, all wearing English tunics, told Sinbad that they were sad because they were poor.

     Well, no shit.

    Anyway, Sinbad proclaims that the city needs “happiness”, and that he shall find it. Yeah, read that again. Sinbad’s looking to find happiness on this movie’s voyage, and bring it home. I’m thinking Sinbad’s spent too much time in the sun since his last movie. Sinbad (who’s frightening when he’s thinking) first goes to the Merchants’ Guild and tells them, with much posing and gesticulating, that the key to making the city happy is to disperse the merchants’ gold amongst the commoners so that everyone can feel rich. (In fairness, at this point in the movie, everyone was gesturing so frantically and using so much body language when reciting their lines that one would suspect the entire city was inhabited by palsy victims. But Sinbad was still the only one who managed to do it in an excessively gay manner, and it didn’t help that the first crew member he signed up for his voyage was a 14 year old boy. But let’s get back to the point.) The merchants think that our hero’s idea of giving away their gold is a hoot, but surprisingly, don’t, in fact, go for it. So Sinbad decides that he must sail on a voyage and find the Bird of Happiness.

      Yes, the Bird of Happiness. (Yeah, I know. Gay.)

      Now, since brainiac has given away all his treasure, and even sold his pimp hat, he can’t pay for new ships. So he goes to the shore of the Magic Sea and jams on his harp to help himself think. The music soundtrack is a slow, melancholy if banal melody, and Sinbad must be part Chinese, because not once during the song do his lips synch in the slightest with the words. Anyway, the point of this scene is that Mortiana, the attractive daughter of the god Neptune, hears Sinbad singing the blues, and she's so smitten with his heroic sense of honor that she plants a warm, sensual kiss on his lips before parting, which our hero returns in a fervent, manly manner.

     HA! HA! Just joshin'. Sinbad stands perfectly rigid and endures the kiss as though she were wiping day old snot on his face. He's most likely afraid of cooties.

     But before sinking into the sea again, Mortiana comes to his aid with a scam involving providing him golden fish fins. Sinbad bets the city merchants that he can pull golden fish from the sea, and if he does, they have to turn over the keys to their warehouses full of goodies. Thanks to Mortiana, he catches the golden fish, and therefore takes the wealthy merchants' stuff from the warehouses and divides it up amongst the poor. Surprisingly, this doesn't go as planned, since after all the silk, food, clothes, and pimp hats are divvied up, there are still poor people in the city. And now that he's given everything away again, he still doesn't have any dough to buy his boats to go search for magic birds.

     Sulking around the docks, Sinbad sees that there are three golden fish left in the bottom of his raft. He whispers a plea to Mortiana, who works some mojo down under the sea, and suddenly the fish transform, through the magic of shitty scene-fade special effects, into lumps of gold. Then, just when you think the effects can't get much worse, the gold mass expands, Jiffy-Pop style, into what appears to be an inflated reflective emergency blanket, but which we're assured is a heapin' pile of gold.

     Think back the harp scene I just described earlier for a second. This “Arabian” sailor, wearing European duds, is aided by the daughter of a Greek god. It only gets worse, folks. Seriously. How, you ask? Take a bong hit, and we'll proceed.

      Sinbad then commissions his small fleet of ships to be built. And when finished, he’s the proud owner of a half dozen… Viking longships. Yes. I’m sure you remember the tales of Sinbad sailing the seven seas in a tiny open-hulled Viking drakkar, right? Only instead of fierce dragon heads on the front, these look like angry duck heads painted by hostile elementary school children. Oh, and prospective seaman (I feel dirty using that term with this Sinbad…) have to pass Sinbad’s rigorous “test” to join his crew: he has them guzzle wine, then he punches them like a wuss in the chest. If they don’t fall down, they’re “strong enough” to join him on his manly quest for happiness birds.

       Hey, did I mention that the entire soundtrack for this atrocity was apparently lifted from old black and white cartoons? You know, the grating 30’s-era tunes of the vaguely big-band, rag time, Charleston-type? Odd. 

       Ok, the ships set sail, and some mostly uninteresting voyaging happens then, spanning several years according to our helpful narrator. (By the way, if you were going on a expedition to find happiness, would your destination be the "troubled waters of the barbaric north?" Yah, me neither. Good plan there, Cap'n Thinkbad.) This time around, there are no Cyclops, no giant roc birds, no living skeletons, no mammoth scorpions, not even a wily evil wizard. Apparently, this crew only sails to islands with antisocial pikemen.

     In an epically stupid international relations faux pas, at one point the crew pull up to a desolate rock cliff lined with the most unfriendly and dour Vikings I've ever seen. (Most likely pissed at seeing someone in their boats!) After being told repeatedly and rudely by the aged and haggard chief to begone before he's killed, Sinbad asks one question to the baleful leader: "Have you got the Bird of Happiness?"

     Jeeeesuuuss Chrriiiiiist, man! Does it look like they've got the goddam bird of happiness?! They just threatened to cut you down for stepping on their beach. They're wearing colors that would make the Amish look peppy. What are you smoking during the voyage? Is that why it's magical??

     A battle with the Vikings results in more slapping and pushing than actual, you know, skewering and slaying, and apparently Sinbad doesn't understand that the pointy end of the trident is the owchy part, because he keeps swinging it and smacking his enemies like the thing was a broom. Ok, forget it. Let's just move on.

     Ay, ok, so, eventually, by way of Norway I assume, they end up in India somewhere, believing they’ve found the Bird of Happiness, held in a guarded tower by the most hideously ugly-ass Indian prince I've ever seen. The make-up job on this dude makes black face look sharp. Anyway, once you recover from that shock, Sinbad wants to trade the horse he stole from the Viking chieftain for a look at the bird, and...Holy crap! The horse just laughed! Laughed like an Italian teamster! My god, they are toking up on the voyage!

     The prince challenges Sinbad to a chess game to determine who keeps the bird, and our hero wins, despite the attempts of the prince's dancing girls to distract the sailor whilst he plays (they clearly didn't know whom they were dealing with.) But the bird turns out to be only a harpy that sings people to sleep. Although the sailors swipe the harpy from the prince's tower, it disappears sometime before the next scene, so I can only surmise that they eventually ate it while at sea.

        They sail on. At this point, sea storms are becoming annoying, and Sinbad, through his extensive sailing experience, figures that Neptune is pissed at them for not offering some tribute. An old guy in the crew abruptly and without explanation decides that only a human sacrifice will save them from capsizing.

       Because that’s the obvious conclusion.

       So without further ado, Sinbad hurls himself overboard and into the stormy waters. Now, I’m not sure exactly what the hell happens for the next few seconds, because I’d swear that Sinbad hangs ten on some gnarly 12-footers on some kind of square surfboard. He’s certainly staying afloat for quite a while behind the ship from the ankles up somehow. Are they implying that Sinbad invented surfing? Or were we not supposed to see the plank he’s riding? If he is riding on a board, where did it come from? If he’s not, why is he standing on the water ?! Aaaaaargh!!

     When he finally submerges, though, I see no board, so I’m not sure what was supposed to be going on there, and at this point I refuse to think about it further.  Somehow, as luck would have it, he ends up sinking right into Neptune’s undersea grotto. Neptune looks a great deal like a sociopathic Santa Claus, but he turns out to be easily amused. This is because Neptune seems to have the mental and emotional faculties of a third-grader.

     Now, if the rest of this movie up to this point was crap (and it was), I can’t begin to describe adequately what happened at this point. My best guess is that the script writer and the special effects guy got really, really high one night before filming. There’s no other sane explanation.

     Sinbad begins jamming on the harp again for Neptune and his wife, who dance around happily. But more horrifically, lots of sea creatures join them. Sea creatures made from styrofoam and socks. Imagine mutant refugees from The Muppet Show, only designed with far less budget. These things are 12 cents up from “paper-bag over a hand” quality. A catfish with an obvious arm sticking out of its butt is singing and dancing, an immobile but shifty-eyed octopus wiggles on the end of a string (did I mention that its eyes flash while it dances?) When Sinbad makes his escape from the grotto, he does so on a big-ass seahorse clearly stolen from a paper-mâché merry-go-round.  

       I think it would be worthwhile to take a poll to see how many violent mental asylum patients viewed this scene from The Gayest Voyage of Sinbad right before they snapped.

      Neptune wants to force Sinbad to marry one of his daughters, and Mortiana is there to help out again. She tells her dad she'll marry the dufus sailor, but really she allows him to flee back to dry land to be with his true love, old what's-her-name. Neptune pursues Sinbad in his half-shell chariot pulled by several more piñata seahorses. Oh, dear god, this scene is like a bad LSD trip. Please, make it stop...

        Luckily, the film is winding down. Sinbad washes up on shore, miraculously on the beach in front of his home town. He promptly addresses the city folk, who, if you’ll recall the narrator’s story, have been waiting for several years (sadly, I assume) for their happy bird to arrive and improve their miserable lives, as promised by their effeminate hero.  And what does he tell them after stumbling up from the water?

        Folks, I can only imagine that the director finally went full-gonzo insane from watching this movie being made, and ran screaming from the set, leaving someone else with about six seconds of film to use to wrap up the movie. I don’t wanna ruin the ending to Magic Voyage, but here goes: Gay Sinbad tells the miserable city folk, in one hurried sentence, that happiness comes from inside, and the city just has to be happy by itself. With a totally stoned look on his face, he utters, "Follow your hearts... to happiness." And then the credits roll.  

        Really. I guess they went to credits so we didn’t see the pissed off peasants falling on Sinbad and ripping his gaily gesturing limbs from his stupid body piece by piece.

       All kidding aside, this movie sucked ass. 

     At least the poster artist has some clue what Arabian characters and settings look like. The filmmakers sure as hell didn't.  This is a masterpiece of false advertising.

"See These Spectacular Scenes"?!

     Perhaps spectacular isn't the word we're looking for here, but I guess "craptacular" wasn't in popular use yet. 

"The Greatest Adventure Story Ever Produced"?!?!

     BWAAAAAAA HA ha hahaaaaaaa haaa

                       haaaaaaaaaaa! =gasp!=

     Excuse me, I think I just peed myself...

= MASOCHIST ALERT!! =

     Edit: Jan 11, 2011:  Friends, I have just discovered, to my unremitting horror, that The Magic Voyage of Sinbad is posted, in its entirety, on YouTube.

     God have mercy on your soul if you click the above link.

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