Indicator, out now

It’s like an early Bank Holiday treat, as the three Harryhausen Sinbad films are released in a limited edition BluRay/DVD boxset, crammed with disc-bursting documentaries and much more.

Many cineastes have huge affection for Ray Harryhausen’s unique cinematic output – a sentiment expressed by special effects supremoes like Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren and Rick Baker, and directors like John Landis and Joe Dante, in one of the many features in this boxset. For them, seeing their first example of Dynamation on the big screen was a quasi-religious experience and was often the Road to Damascus moment when they decided they wanted to be film-makers. And while many of us were just content to watch the output rather than create it, there’s generations of viewers who still get the buzz out of watching the master’s stop-motion animation artistry.

Most Harryhausen fans will argue that Jason and the Argonauts is his finest work, but the Sinbad Trilogy is unique insofar as it is the only time that there was direct continuity between his projects, albeit tangentially. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (as a child, I genuinely believed I could find the other six to watch), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger all feature the same eponymous hero, but Dynamation aside, they are all very different beasts. Like the series of Django films, the title character might have the same name, but each has its own star, writer, director and composer. But as a child, it didn’t matter which Western actor played the heroic sailor, just as long as you got a parade of skeletons and mythological beasts.

This limited edition set of 6,000 units, released by the Indicator label of Powerhouse Films, knows that the intended purchaser wants value added material in abundance, and they don’t fail. Seventh Voyage is the only one with a commentary and boasts a 4K transfer from original negatives while the other two have crisp 2K transfers. All three discs have documentaries and isolated scores (Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa and Roy Budd) and there’s a lovely 80-page book that provides further insight into each movie, as well as assembling the best quotes about the productions from a number of different sources.

Inevitably, as high a resolution as the transfers are, there’s points during some of the action sequences where you might balk at the grain or  lack of definition. Quite simply, that’s one of the side effects of animating in front of a projected background, as you lose some of that clarity and depth. These are undoubtedly the best transfers you could get with the source material, but be realistic with your expectations. For sound you can opt for mono and 5.1 surround audio.

I particularly enjoyed the interviews with Tom Baker (this role played a significant part in his being cast in Doctor Who), Caroline Munro and Jane Seymour, and there’s the original Super 8 cut-down versions of the movies – the film equivalent of Readers Digest condensed books.

Verdict: It’s testament to the skill of Ray Harryhausen that his creatures are often more animated and believable than the human leads in his movies. From the satyr-like Cyclops to the multi-armed Kali and sabre-tooth tiger, marvel at the devotion and craft that went into bringing these iconic creations to life, 1/24 of a second at a time. As a run in to Ray’s 100th anniversary in 2020, this is surely the last word on the Sinbad Trilogy. 9/10

Nick Joy