Munrovember-cember: The Golden Voyyage of Sinbad (1973)

Last year I reviewed Star Crash with Caroline Munro. Now I will take a look at a couple of movies with her from the 70s, not just B-movies. Caroline Munro is perhaps most known for playing a secondary Bond Girl in The Spy who Loved Me in 1977 (the one where Barbara Bach played Agent Amasova as the main Bond Girl). But I won't review that one. Instead I will review some other movies with her. Caroline Munro is the best kind of actress, the one that is absolutely beautiful. And in her youth she was usually cast just for that reason. So let's take a look at the Golden Voyage of Sinbad from 1973!

Ah, classic cinema, grand openings, non- cgi boats and soothing music. In this movie John Philip Law plays the Arab sea captain who always hunger for new adventures. Yes, we have a bunch of white people playing Arabs. Hooray for RACISM! Anyway the movie begin with some shitty little thing flying above Sinbad's boat while making annoying sounds. Understandably a sailor decide to try to shoot it, which causes it to drop a amulet it was carrying. Sinbad take the amulet which make him hallucinate about Caroline Munro, man I want those hallucinations. Then the ship is hit by a storm which takes it off it's course. They end up in a small island country where Sinbad goes to find the girl of his dreams.

Of course adventure wait just around the corner. The sultan is dead and Sinbad and the Grand Vizier has to travel to distant lands to find the other pieces of the amulet, before the sorcerer Prince Evil (played by the Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor himself).

Sinbad also is joined by a young slacker, the son of a Innkeeper. The Innkeeper beg Sinbad to take the Slacker with him and make him a REAL MAN. And of course Sinbad is also joined by Caroline Munro, who plays the slave girl Margiana. Munro's role in this movie is not much more than to look beautiful and wear revealing outfits, but by Allah, that's what she's best at. She is gorgeous!

This movie uses very good stop motion animation. You don't see much of that anymore with all the cgi. CGI can be both good and bad, and it has it's clear advantages. But I miss the great craft that was good stop motion.

So Sinbad travel to an island where he come across a Savage Tribe that worship the Hindu Goddess Kali. And my, they are probably managing to insult every ethnicity there ever was all at the same time with this. All as it should be. They also run into the Cyclop that in this movie is a Cycltaur, a weird mix of a Cyclop and a Centaur. Roc is in this movie not a big bird, but a Griffin! And of course the Cycltaur and the Griffin fight, as is the tradition of stop motion monsters.

All in all a enjoyable film. Of course it can't escape some criticism. It doesn't take any risk. It plays all stereotypes straight, and even though enjoyable also very forgettable. No real exceptional acting, no real interesting story twists or characters that break the norms. But for what it is, a non- bad Hollywood cash-in movie it's definitely worth a watch, mostly to drool over Caroline Munro in that sexy outfit of course.