I've talked a lot about Jack Kirby on this blog, but haven't done much on Ray Harryhausen, who wasn't quite as ubiquitous in my life but had almost as much impact, if not more.
We'll go into into it further when I finish my new book, but it was the great pioneer of stop-motion animation who may well have planted the seeds of my all-encompassing obsession with mythology*, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad played no small part in this process.
It's one thing to read these stories, and another entirely to see them on the silver screen, particularly when you're young and impressionable. It was Golden Voyage and my beloved Jason and the Argonauts that subconsciously instilled in me an expectation of magic and miracle as a matter of course.
There are all sorts of interesting occultic touches throughout the film that reward your attention.
Bonus factoid: Tom Baker (aka the only Doctor Who who really matters) plays the bad guy here.
*Being a bit precocious, the voluptous Caroline Munro probably contributed to that obsession, as did my beloved Jane Seymour in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.
