Friday, June 01, 2007

Movie review - "Sinbad the Sailor" (1947) **


A swashbuckler with many fine things going for it - Doug Fairbanks Jnr throwing himself whole heartedly into the lead (he's not quite right -perhaps a little too aristocratic for Sinbad, who always struck me more as more lower class rogue), lovely Technicolor, Maureen O'Hara as one of her patented haughty princesses looking beautiful in said Technicolor, bright sets all very stylised and a supporting cast including some fine hams, such as Anthony Quinn and Walter Slezak.
It would count as a disappointment, though, mostly due to some slack handling and a script with plenty of exposition and chat (lots of "this person thought that"and "The Emir said") but a lack of action and humour - there's only really two action sequences of note, the ending battle (which isn't bad,with poisons and balls of fire and what-not) and a sequence where Fairbanks sneaks in to see O'Hara. It's not really enough. And why is Fairbanks telling the story to people at the beginning? What does he have to gain?

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