Captain Sindbad
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Captain Sindbad |
| Original title | Captain Sindbad / Captain Sindbad |
| Country of production |
Germany United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Byron Haskin |
| script |
Ian McLellan Hunter Guy Endore |
| production |
Frank King Herman King Wolfgang von Schiber |
| music | Michel Michelet |
| camera |
Günther Senftleben Eugen Schüfftan |
| cut | Robert Swink |
| occupation | |
| |
Kapitän Sindbad (English original title: Captain Sindbad ) is a 1962 German-American adventure and fantasy film by Byron Haskin . At the side of Sindbad actor Guy Williams , Heidi Brühl took on the female lead of the lovely princess and Pedro Armendáriz the part of the sinister villain.
action
The sinister despot El-Kerim has usurped power in the Kingdom of Baristan. Only one more, he believes, could still pose a threat to him: Captain Sindbad, the seafarer. He is just about to return home to Baristan from one of his numerous adventures on the high seas and in foreign countries to marry Princess Jana. She suspects that Sinbad from El-Kerim is threatened with evil. She persuades the magician Galgo to turn her into a little bird so that she can fly towards Sindbad and warn him about El-Kerim and the trap set. Jana manages to escape when the guards arrest the despot Galgo and bring him to their master. El-Kerim can do magic too, and so he transforms the guards into huge hawks who carry heavy boulders across the sea with their claws in order to throw them onto Sinbad's ship and capsize him and his crew on the high seas.
Jana in the form of the bird lands on the sailor, but before she can get rid of her warning message, the boulders smash the ship. Sindbad and some of his colleagues were able to save themselves to a nearby bank. Galgo meanwhile lets one of his arms grow to enormous length in order to grasp the magic ring of El-Kerim, with which he exercises his black spell, from a great distance. But the latter wakes up and casts a counter-spell with which he burns Galgos's long hand.
Sindbad manages to return home to Baristan and allows himself to be arrested as an insignificant thief in order to be able to face the ruler directly. But El-Kerim recognizes in the allegedly harmless thief the applicant for the favor of Princess Jana. He then sentenced Sindbad to death. He can get rid of his chains and stabs El-Kerim in the heart with the sword. But El-Kerim cannot die because he has no heart at all.
So Sindbad is captured again and is said to be executed the next day in the arena in front of a large audience by fighting an invisible beast called "the thing". In this unequal duel, “the thing” accidentally sets the whole arena on fire with a torch, so that Sindbad manages to escape in the general confusion that ensues. Sindbad goes to Galgo to find out more about El-Kerim's vulnerability. He once had his heart removed and kept it in a bell tower, where it was guarded by a supernatural power. El-Kerim insists that Princess Jana, who has since been transformed back, marry him. Since she refuses, she too should be executed.
Sindbad now makes his way to the bell tower with his men. To do this, they have to wade through eerie swamps, where flesh-eating lianas, prehistoric monsters and lava pits threaten them and they have to survive a fight against a multi-headed dragon monster. Sindbad is finally able to climb the bell tower and finds the heart of El-Kerim, enclosed in a crystal and guarded by a huge hand, which Sinbad chases back and forth through the bell tower. With a hook that he throws at the crystal, Sindbad can remove the protective cover from the heart, so that in El-Kerim in distant Baristan he suffers a heart attack. Finally Sindbad even manages to defeat the giant hand.
El-Kerim then flew up in a wing cart, accompanied by Galgo, to protect his heart. When he reaches the tower, Sindbad is about to pierce El-Kerim's heart. Both men engage in a fencing duel, while Galgo grabs his heart and throws it out of the tower. When it hits the bottom, El-Kerim dies. Nothing stands in the way of the wedding of Captain Sindbad and Princess Jana.
Production notes
Kapitän Sindbad was created entirely in the Bavaria Studios in Munich in 1962 and was premiered in Germany on April 13, 1963. The first performance in the USA took place on June 19, 1963.
The buildings were designed by the married couple Werner and Isabella Schlichting . The experienced film architect Arno Richter , whose last movie this was, was employed as chief proponent . Ingrid Winter got the costumes. Charly "Bum Bum" Baumgartner arranged the numerous special effects. Ernst Wild served as a simple cameraman, chief cameraman Günther Senftleben , at whose side veteran Eugen Schüfftan also photographed several scenes unnamed. Walter Rühland set the tone. The future star director Hal Ashby served as one of three assistants for this film.
Reviews
“Up to the last 20 minutes or so, this is basically a broad mixture of a fantasy comedy that pours out some brightly colored backdrops from ancient Arabia. Regarding the plot, we have a wiry Sindbad (Guy Williams) who tries to save an expressionless princess (Heidi Brühl) from the hands of a villainous ruler (Pedro Armendariz) and is assisted by a carousing and reluctant old wizard. With a kind of tired “Scheherazade” composition, Mr. Williams defies everything from crocodiles to a twelve-headed monster (at least according to our calculations), and you get this kind of harmless trash that some children might still be able to tolerate. (...) An equipment scene, a garish swamp ball, is cleverly made. "
"... sophisticated, full of effects, but sedate European imagination."
"Quite a splendid adventure fantasy with a European touch, good trick effects and thoroughbred appearances."
“A little fairytale spectacle about the legendary seafarer Sindbad, who freed an oriental city from tyrants and brought the beloved princess home. Conversation focused on the appearance, but largely lackluster, after all routinely photographed. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Captain Sindbad. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
Web links
- Captain Sindbad in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Captain Sindbad at filmportal.de
- extensive review in The New York Times