Sinbad the Sailor

One of those vintage action movies I had never actually seen before is the 1940s Douglas Fairbanks Jr. version of Sinbad the Sailor. So, the last time it was on TCM some months back, I finally got around to watching it, and now I can do the review on it.

As you can guess, it's Fairbanks who plays Sinbad. At the time the movie opens, Sinbad is already quite famous for his voyages and having told tales of seven of them. Famous enough, in fact, that the people he tries to tell the stories to already know all of them second hand. So Sinbad comes up with a flashback to a story of an eighth voyage....

Some time back, Sinbad and his friend Abbu (George Tobias) are on an island somehwere in the Persian gulf when another boat comes along. This leads them to a much larger boat, called the Prince Ahmed, which seems to be drifting. Sinbad and Abbu board, only to find that the entire crew of the boat is dead, having drunk poisoned water! (The movie is in Technicolor and the poisoned water is dyed green to make it especially photogenic and obvious that this is not good water.) By the law of salvage, this should rightly be Sinbad's boat, so he sails it back to the port city of Basra.

While on board, Sinbad discovers a map that looks like it could be the sort of stereotypical map from pirate movies leading to buried treasure, at a place called Deryabar, which is in the movie a reference to a legend of treasure from the days of Alexander the Great. And Sinbad has a medallion he wears with a Deryabar logo, something that he also finds on one of the ship's windows! However, when he gets to Basra, the next morning he sees that somebody has stolen the map. Also, the local authorities have declared a change to the law on salvage such that all rescued boats need be put to auction.

Thankfully, Sinbad is able to discourage all of the sailors from bidding at the auction with claims that the boat is cursed; after all, the entire crew died under mysterious circumstances. However, there's one person he can't stop from bidding. That turns out to be Shireen (Maureen O'Hara), one of the women in the harem of the Emir of Daibul (Anthony Quinn). Sinbad is able to use more trickery first to win the auction and then actually to pay for the boat, and sets off trying to figure out where Deryabar is.

The Emir knows that Sinbad has met Shireen, so he gets on a boat of his own with Shireen to follow Sinbad who will lead them to Deryabar. Except that there are a lot of twists and turns along the way along with shifting loyalties. Rounding out the cast is Walter Slezak, who plays the ship's barber but who clearly has some sort of ulterior motive for being on the boat.

This version of Sinbad the Sailor is one that will probably suit young boys looking for an adventure movie, the sort of audience who don't care anything about historical accuracy and are fine with a fictional world built on tropes that aren't meant to be offensive although some modern-day people will likely complain. Younger viewers are also not going to care all that much about the plot which is rather convoluted, and just sit back and enjoy the action. In that regard, the action is moderately successful, although people with more discerning taste will find the movie a bit lacking, I think.