The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (1953)

This is a Russian film that is titled Sadko and was repackaged as a Sinbad film for its release in the United States. Which means a whole lot of people are going to profess their love for it despite the fact the film is not really all that good. The lead in this film is a blond dude who likes to play his harp and give speeches. He also looks nothing like Sinbad the sailor as the only thing the two heroes have in common is their beards. I guess their was no other hero the United States distributor could think of when they were translating this from Russian to English. It is kind of like how they repackaged a few of the Italian hero Maciste as Hercules, but those two had way more in common than this guy and Sinbad. As I stated I do not find this film all that good, but as with many Russian films from the communist era, people are going to claim it is golden and rave about it. It is no better than films made here from this era and at times it is much worse, but hey, it's Russian it has to be good! To be fair, once they finally go sailing the film picks up a bit, but to get to that point is torture as one must endure speech after speech from our hero! Seems they spent the entire budget on the India scene too as it is the best looking and done part in the film. After that you get to watch the men 'sail' in front of an obvious screen, a storm batter an obvious model ship and a strange puppet show underwater! The story has Sadko returning to his native home where the merchants are apparently not sharing their wealth. So Sadko does this and that to try and get the merchants to finance his trip to find the bird of happiness which they scoff at. He plays his harp at a lake which gets the attention of Neptune's daughter and she tells him she will give him golden fish. He makes a deal with the merchants, if he catches said fish they will give him their wares and if he fails they can behead him. After more stuff like this, they finally launch they expedition and the movie finally takes off as they battle vikings and then make their way to India all to find the bird of happiness. Sadko even ends up in Neptune's crazy undersea kingdom.This film was featured on the riff show Mystery Science Theater 3000 and it made for a funny episode. Once again though the laughs did not come at a good pace until the trip was finally in full swing. It just takes so long for Sadko to get ready to go anywhere! However, once they do get a move on it is a much more enjoyable film and episode. The highlight being the undersea kingdom as it is full of a lot of wacky stuff, though that one creepy bird was pretty wacky too. My favorite part though was when the pigeon somehow made it to Sadko while he was underwater and Joel asked, "How does that happen?" So, no, this film is not really all that good. Perhaps it is better in its native language, but I do not think restoring the original Russian version is going to make those speeches any more exciting or make the effects during some of those later scenes any better. Seriously, if it is Russian, it does not mean the film is automatically good. I think the film they riffed, The Magic Sword which was American was a better film than this one was and it had better effects too.

It is worth pointing out that the link provided for those who want to buy this film takes you to where the American-International version is being sold, with the title of The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. This is a long way from being the same film. The A-I version is black-and-white rather than color, shorter, and seems as if it is not really the same film. My Betamax copy of this has not been watched in years, but I am certain lacked half of the interesting scenes, and certainly lacks the wonderful music.The original version, as Sadko, can be rented from Netflix, and presumably is rented and sold elsewhere. It became available in the West only a few years ago in a dubbed format. It is a fantasy spectacle on a level with the Korda Thief of Baghdad.

What have you fiends done with Sinbad?One goofy russo-finnish tale starring Sinbad a.k.a. the guy with the evil looks. He gives guys free drinks and then proceeds to smash their chests in! Sinbad enjoys spending leisure time playing harp at local coffee shops. Don't miss his encore performance by the lake in one of the goofiest dub songs ever. Definitely lost in translation.Confused yet? You will be. You've also got maniacal laughing horse, chess duel, jester party (those nuts!), a bear in Hammer pants, plywood surfing, and so much more. By the way, were vikings ever enemies of Sinbad? It's also not good to have sleep inducing magic in your movie because it may tend to affect even the audience! This film's chock full of schlock including an underwater rave in Neptune's kingdom and a whole lot of wackiness. Oh, and some hokey moral about how money can't bring happiness and that girls really dig guys with golden fish. I know this is a dubbed movie version, but the bad voice acting and hilarious Sinbad "solo" to Neptune's daughter really up the kampiness factor!Watch this one MST style. It's a keeper!

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.