The story: After Prince Kassim (Damien Thomas) is magically transformed into a baboon at the very moment he is to be crowned Caliph, his distraught sister, Princess Farah (Jane Seymour) implores Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) to help them. Sinbad and Farah, along with Sinbad's typically disposable crew, locate the great alchemist Melanthius (Patrick Troughton) who, with daughter Dione (Taryn Power), join Sinbad on a voyage to the alternately icy and fertile land of Hyperborea. Along the way, they are pursued by Farah's stepmother, the witch Zenobia (Margaret Whiting). She transformed Kassim so her own son could ascend the throne.

None of this, of course, matters much. More than ever, Harryhausen's pictures had by 1977 become little more than showcases for his stop-motion set pieces. Longtime business partner Charles H. Schneer, who produced every Harryhausen picture from the mid-1950s forward, has taken a lot of abuse from fans who blame him for the weaknesses of movies like Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. But the truth is Harryhausen, who co-produced the picture and is credited with co-writing its story, had more production input, certainly after the first Sinbad, than is usually acknowledged, and thus must share some of the blame. Perhaps Harryhausen feared he might lose creative control of his effects sequences, or maybe he was concerned that truly imaginative directors or a genuinely charismatic, bankable star might overshadow his own hard work. Whatever the case, Harryhausen's movies were ultimately directed by competent but journeymen filmmakers who were more like traffic cops than artists. This seems true across the board. After Bernard Herrmann's great score for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Miklós Rózsa's pretty good one (for Golden Voyage...), Roy Budd's music for Eye of the Tiger can't help but sound like cheap filler. Kerwin Mathews and John Phillip Law were likeable, better than serviceable Sinbads in the two earlier films, but Patrick Wayne (son of John), while earnest and handsome enough, is hopelessly wooden.

The biggest problem though is Beverley Cross's script. Eye of the Tiger is, for starters, practically a remake of 7th Voyage, but is so dramatically clumsy on its own terms as to almost defy imagination. In one particularly ludicrous scene, Zenobia has used her black magic to shrink herself down to about six inches in height. She is, however, captured by Melanthius, who decides to question the now helpless villainess, whom he encases in a glass jar. In Cross's clumsy hands, Melanthius the scientific genius suddenly becomes as stupid as Homer Simpson, unthinkingly revealing every secret Zenobia wants to know, foolishly uses her magic to create a giant bumblebee which threatens him, and provides the means for the witch's escape. He gives away the store -- and all in the span of about 90 seconds. Harryhausen apparently admired Cross's knowledge of mythology and history, but as a dramatist, he sucks rocks.

On the plus side, several of Harryhausen's creations are more like characters than the usual monsters our heroes poke sticks at. The prince, in baboon form, and his gradual dehumanization, wins audience sympathy, while a trio of goblins brought to life by Zenobia showcase Harryhausen's superb talent for stop-motion lighting.

But overall the majority of creations only recall similar characters done better in other films. Harryhausen, in his later films especially, seemed to want to fool audiences with photo-real stop-motion animals (in this case, a baboon, bee, and most absurd of all, a giant walrus), a misguided aim at best. Audiences wanted to see characters they couldn't see for real at the local zoo, perhaps most memorably the Cyclops from 7th Voyage. When a giant saber-toothed tiger comes to life at the climax, Harryhausen, for all his talent, can't avoid making the thing look like a cute toy.

Director Sam Wanamaker, the formerly blacklisted actor, doesn't bring much to the film. The picture is oddly cut together, edited with a complete disregard of the "180-degree rule," giving some scenes a jumbled sense of geography. The pacing is no better, with every scene lasting about 30% longer than it should be.

For all this reviewer's bellyaching, one can't deny or easily dismiss the palpable excitement generated among 10-year-old boys when a new Ray Harryhausen opened at the local bijou. And for all his films' faults, we still hold a strong affection for them, every last one -- even generally lesser efforts like Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Video & Audio

Columbia TriStar must have gone back to Eye of the Tiger original negative, because this 16:9 presentation is a knockout. Very few pre-1980 1.85:1 color movies have looked this good on DVD. The colors pop off the screen almost like a three-strip Technicolor film at times, and the image is razor sharp. Even Harryhausen's process shots, which always stood out ("Hmm, must be a stop-motion sequence coming up because the picture suddenly got all grainy") are much less noticeable here than in, say, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. The mono sound is okay. English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai subtitles are offered.

Extras

The usual batch. "The Ray Harryhausen Chronicles," "This is Dynamation" featurette, trailers, et. al.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo! The Incredible World of Japanese Fantasy Films. He is presently writing a new book on Japanese cinema for Taschen.