505-The Magic Voyage of Sinbad

Film Year:  1952
Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure
Director:  Aleksandr Ptushko
Starring:  Sergei Stolyarov, Alla Larionova, Yelena Myshkova
MST Season:  5

The Movie

In the legendary Sinbad’s often neglected eighth voyage, the famous sailor voyages from his Russian (?) homeland of “Copasand” (?) to seek out a mythic bird of happiness.  Sinbad’s journeys take him from land to land and even under the sea, before realizing there is no place like home.

But alas, ‘tis not a Sinbad tale, for if it were I’d imagine it would be more like Houseguest or Jingle All the Way (I kid, I kid).  This is actually a classic Russian fantasy called Sadko, as opposed to the Arabian sailor tales.  Blame this on Roger Corman’s importing and redubbing of the flick, which changed tales because it was more likely for an American to know who Sinbad is over Sadko.

But hey, at least it’s not The Magic Voyage of Sadako, where a woman braves rough seas to fall down a well, haunt a video tape for whatever reason, and crawl out of a TV and kill people who haven’t embraced DVD.

Taken on its own terms from an ignorant American like myself who isn’t versed in Sinbad nor Sadko, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad features colorful cinematography and is often really cool looking, like the other Russo-Finnish films featured on the show.  Unfortunately the story is uninvolving, with a dull main character and a dry storyline that allows for neat stuff to be seen but eyes wandering toward a watch every thirty seconds.  For something this kooky, that’s very unfortunate.  And ultimately that’s why I don’t care what name this character has.

The Episode

The Day the Earth Froze gave us a peek as to what a Russian fantasy film would look like on the series.  Of course they tackled another one less than ten episodes later.  Joel and the bots cherish this movie, because it gives them so much to work with.  Just as much as Day and thensome.  They’re lost in the epic scope, which sends them in limitless riffing directions, and enjoying the cool but goofy special effects, which are just awesome and funny by themselves.  And, of course, there is decent mileage given from just pointing out that this movie has absolutely nothing to do with Sinbad.

Host segments are mostly forgettable, with Crow’s Sinbad quest being the real standout.  But things like the Junior Jester Club and the bearded town council fail to stimulate much laughter (though the latter’s offbeat ending of giving Sinbad silly names does make me giggle).  The SOLtie Awards sketch is cute, but goes for an obvious payoff that just isn’t that funny.  Still, the episode has a great Invention Exchange, including the classic Chinderwear.  If the Rat Pack Chess Set isn’t a classic too, it should be.  The descriptions of how each piece moves alone are some of the funniest things in the entire episode.

Despite two-thirds dry, and one-third brilliant host segments, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad may very well be the best episode based around a Russo-Finnish movie.  I’d have to watch The Sword and the Dragon again to be sure, but as of right now Sinbad is winning by a nose.

Classic

The DVD

Sinbad made its way to DVD via Shout Factory’s Volume XX, and the picture blinks an occasional tape flaw but the audio is swell.  In the special features department, we get an intro by Trace Beaulieu who seems very keen on the movie and the resulting episode.  One flaw is that he references the Day the Earth Froze at one point and they show footage of Jack Frost instead.  Since Day wasn’t on DVD in MST form at the time, Shout probably just didn’t risk using clips from it.

The only other feature is wraps from the MST Hour featuring Mike as Jack Perkins.