The Voyages of Sinbad: From Hollywood Cartoon Stooge to Global Fantasy Icon

As a fixture of The 1001 Nights, Sinbad the Sailor has enjoyed wide circulation in Western media. His cinematic presence remained tentative until The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which invested the character with a new level of recognition and appeal. This film, along with its successors The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), remains the best-known and most commercially successful screen depiction of the character. Critical and scholarly debate on the trilogy usually highlights special effects artist Ray Harryhausen and his monstrous creations. I will focus on Sinbad himself, a figure often sidelined and even belittled in discussion of the films. I situate my analysis in the context of earlier screen portrayals of Sinbad, including Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936) and Sinbad the Sailor (1947). I discuss the refashioning of the character in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and the representation of the female protagonist. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger touch on such aspects as destiny, heroic status, and marginalization. I contrast these depictions with less prominent screen versions of the character, including Captain Sindbad (1963), Simbad e il califfo di Bagdad/Sinbad and the Caliph of Bagdad (1973), Les 1001 Nuits/The 1001 Nights (1990), Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), and Sinbad and the War of the Furies/Sinbad and the Clash of the Furies (2016).