THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958)
I don't care that Lou Ferrigno played Sinbad in a 1989 sequel, and I don't care that a truss of foreign unknowns made their own Sinbad sequel two years ago. In this context, I choose to be stubborn. We're on Ray Harryhausen's turf, friends and neighbors. This is serious bidna. If you ask me, 7th Voyage is the first film of a trilogy, and it's utterly fantastic. There is a long-held conspiracy theory that Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage" is about Sinbad's quest to coadjute the unification of sparring nations and to restore the stature of his shrunken princess. Of course, that may just be the plot summary. Here's a little more! Our stouthearted sailor runs across monsters manifold (that alliteration gets you wet/hard; don't deny it...yeah, that's right).
We are treated to a cyclops, a dragon, a two-headed Roc (a giant bird of prey), an eerie snake woman and a skeleton swordsman. The cyclops is the star of the show, for he is blessed with the most screen time. The osteological duelist is truly stunning. There would be an army of skeleton warriors in Jason and the Argonauts. It's a scene that is fucking appendix-dropping, but the sword fight between Sinbad and a rather lanky fencer is...shit, I'm running out of ways to describe amazing things. If you understand how stop-motion animation (or Dynamation, as it's presented in the credits) is achieved, you'll be speechless watching a great deal of the action in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
It's worth noting that there is a good movie wrapped around the special effects. And Bernard Herrmann's score is badass.
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