Sinbad

  

(imdb)

THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD-1958-The famous sailor (Kerwin Matthews) and his crew wind up on a mysterious island also the home of the legendary Cyclops. During their encounter they meet magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) who has a magic lamp with a boy genie (Richard Eyer from THE INVISIBLE KID a year earlier) inside. They all escape but Sokurah loses his lamp. Also on board Sinbad's ship is his fiancee the princess of Chandra (Kathryn Grant). Her marriage to Sinbad will prevent a war with Baghdad. However Sokurah wants his lamp back. 

Sinbad refuses to return to the island. At a pre-wedding celebration Sokurah transforms the princess's lady in waiting into a snake woman and shrinks the princess and forces Sinbad and crew to return to Cyclops island for the lamp and also to get a shell from the egg of a giant bird the Roc. After killing the Cyclops Sinbad and his group encounter a dragon and a skeleton warrior. Another cyclops even shows up. All of it courtesy of the great Ray Harryhausen and his “Dynamation” stop motion process.

 Director Nathan Juran had worked with Harryhausen earlier on the classic 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH and must have liked this assignment better than the low budget horror movie he made the same year (ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMEN) as he used a pseudonym (Nathan Hertz) on that one!

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Robby The R Returns

THE INVISIBLE BOY-1957-A giant computer created by Dr. Merrinoe (Phillip Abbott) turns the scientist's son Timmie (Richard Eyer) invisible and plots to enslave the Earth with some rockets the US had ready to launch. The doc gets help from Robby The Robot who plants metal disks in the head of an army general (Harold J Stone) and some government scientists (including Robert H Harris and Than Wyenn). Eventually Robby and Timmie wind up on a rocketship. After they think the computer is finished it comes back and nearly succeeds in enslaving father and son but Robby saves the day and prevents the boy from being spanked by dad. The plot alternates from very dumb to very eerie. 

The actress who plays Timmie's mom is Diane Brewster who a few years later played the doomed Helen Kimble (in flashback scenes) on TV's THE FUGITIVE!

Director Herman Hoffman did mostly TV after this. The screenplay is by Cyril Hume who the year before wrote Robby the Robot's debut film FORBIDDEN PLANET. Eyer later played the genie in THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. 

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