Captain Sindbad

Pedro Armendáriz was one of the people honored in TCM's Summer Under the Stars back in August 2025, which gave me the chance to record several movies I hadn't seen before. One of those movies is coming up on TCM again, so as is always the case I watched it in order to be able to do a post on it in conjunction with the upcoming airing. That movie is Captain Sindbad, which TCM is showing tomorrow (Jan. 4) at 8:30 AM.

As you might guess from a movie about Sinbad the Sailor (although in this case the spelling is indeed "Sindbad", the setting is an Arabian Nights version of the medieval Arab Muslim world, in this case a fictitious kingdom called Baristan. The nominal king has a daughter, Princess Jana (Heidi Brühl) who is in love with Sindbad (Guy Williams, a few years before starring on Lost in Space). However, while Sindbad has been away on his voyages, Baristan has been taken over by evil El Karim (Pedro Armendáriz). With that in mind, Jana goes to the magician Galgo (Abraham Sofaer), who is busy trying to come up with spells to control the weather.

Unfortunately, Galgo is under the control of El Karim, who has a magic ring that he can use to force Galgo to do his bidding. So Galgo isn't going to be able to lie to El Karim about Jana's visit. Or, at least, he can try to lie, but El Karim will be able to make him tell the truth. In an attempt to get Jana to safety, Galgo turns her into a firebird to go fly off to see Sindbad, but Karim's men intrude on Galgo and, finding out what's going on, attack Sindbad themselves.

Sindbad and his men survive, and return to Baristan to find out what's happened. Sindbad needs to find a way to see El Karim without Karim knowing who he is, eventually settling on the idea of petty thievery since the trial will have to be held in the presence of Karim. Karim is no dummy, however, and figure out quite quickly who this is, imposing a death sentence. In the ensuing mayhem, Sindbad and Karim get into a sword fight that results in Sindbad's stabbing Karim in the chest. Except that nothing else bad happens to Karim. This is because Karim has some sort of magic power in the form of a special spare heart that's beating at the top of a tower quite some ways away and guarded by all sorts of horrors that one can only dream of. Destroy this heart, and you'll destroy Karim. (At least in a traditional heist movie, the heisters usually have detailed knowledge of the place they're going to heist and the security systems.)

Sindbad and his men set off for that tower, although they're up against a deadline in that Karim has told Jana that either she marry him or else she'll be put to death. She chooses death, but gets a stay of execution when Karim figures out that Sindbad is at the tower and Karim has to leave for the tower to stop Sindbad. Thanks to Galgo's magic, Karim can get there in time for the finale.

Captain Sindbad is another of those movies that would probably seem like a grand adventure to young boys. For anybody else, however, it's fairly easy to see that the movie is cheap (an international co-production by the King Brothers filmed in Germany and distributed by MGM in the States) and a mishmash of ideas. That doesn't mean it's a terrible movie; it's more mediocre if you're one of those people who's not in the target demographic. But if you can suspend disbelief and think back to your childhood days, you might find Captain Sindbad entertaining.