The film was released in the United States in 1962 in an English-dubbed and modified form by Roger Corman's Filmgroup under the title The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (the original version of the film does have a slight connection to Sindbad the Sailor since Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Scheherazade incorporates elements of Sindbad stories). The Magic Voyage of Sinbad retains the basic plot structure of Sadko but includes several significant changes: the total running time is reduced from approximately 85 to 79 minutes (most of the deleted footage consists of scenes in which songs are performed), voice-over narration is added, the protagonist "Sadko" is renamed "Sinbad," and characters and places are renamed to disguise the film's Russian origin and transform the film into a story about Sindbad the Sailor (perhaps most significantly, the city of Novgorod is renamed "Copasand"). Also, the English dubbing in this version arguably gives the film a slightly "campier" tone than the original version, in which the dialogue has a more polished and "literate" tone. Notably, the "Script Adaptor" for this version of the film was a young Francis Ford Coppola.
This version of the film was featured in Season 5, Episode #505 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1992. Despite mocking this modified version of the film in this episode, Kevin Murphy, voice of Tom Servo, has professed a love for the "breathtaking" visual style of this and other films by Aleksandr Ptushko in multiple interviews.[1][2] Paul Chaplin, another writer of the show, has also expressed admiration.
For this Monday I give you this amazing fantastasy movie hybrid. I hope you enjoy.
1 comment:
The MST3K version is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOzB_MrCx3E
That's why I'm familiar with it. I came away from the MST3K version with a great admiration for the movie. It's a perfect storm for MST3K - a movie that's interesting and strange enough to provide lots of material to riff off of, but that isn't actually a bad movie at all. A doubly pleasant watching experience.
I really enjoyed how nice of a guy Sinbad/Sadko is. He just wants to make people happy! If I was going to have a magic voyage, I sure could do a lot worse.
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