The third and final of the Ray Harryhausen/Charles H. Schneer Sinbad films is widely regarded to be the least of the trilogy and while its true that its human characters are more disposable than usual and Patrick (son John) Wayne in particular makes for boring Sinbad, it’s still entertaining enough. Harryhausen’s effects may be less inspired than usual (many of the characters echo those from earlier, better films) but second tier Harryhausen is still head and shoulders above anyone else.

Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) and his crew arrive in the kingdom of Charak for the coronation of Prince Kassim (Damien Thomas from Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971)) only to find that he’s been transformed into a baboon by his evil stepmother Zenobia (Margaret Whiting). Sinbad had been hoping to ask for hand of Kassim’s sister, Princess Farah (Jane Seymour). After being attacked by a trio of ghouls, Sinbad and his men join Farah on a mission to find the Greek alchemist Melanthius (Patrick Troughton) who she believes can help restore him. Pursued by Zenobia, her son Rafi (Kurt Christian) and an animated bronze statue, the Minoton (Peter Mayhew), the crew, with Malanthius and his daughter Dione (Taryn Power), head for the fabled land of Hyperborea at the North Pole where Malanthius believes they will find a cure. En route they are attacked by a giant walrus, menaced by an over-sized wasp and befriend an 8-foot tall, horned troglodyte. Finally, at the pyramid temple of the Arimaspi, the lost civilization of Hyperboria, they race to safe Kassim as Zenobia’s sprit inhabits the body of a giant prehistoric tiger, a Smilodon, thawed from the ice and does battle with the troglodyte.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger had the misfortune of opening in the States just a few months after Star Wars (1977) and was suddenly looking very old-fashioned by comparison. The sort of high adventure fantasy that had become Harryhausen and Scheer’s stock in trade was looking very long in the tooth now and Harryhausen would end only making one further film, Clash of the Titans in 1981, before calling it a day. Most of his work is still exceptionally good (the baboon is one of his finest creations) but they were starting to look, almost overnight, like the products of a previous generation that they were. Where kids were once happy to be enthralled by tales of derring-do and of hardy heroes battling mythological creatures, they would soon be looking for something a bit more high-octane, aliens instead of monsters, spaceships instead of sailing boats.

It didn’t help that, although the monsters here are technically excellent, they only add to the tired feeling by reminding us of former glories. The big eyed, insectoid creatures that attack Sinbad early in the film feel like a cross between the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and the Selenites from First Men in the Moon (1964) while the giant wasp feels like a cousin to the giant bees of Mysterious Island (1961). Perhaps none of this would have mattered very much if the action scenes had been directed with any dynamism but Sam Wanamaker, a former actor and one of the driving forces behind the recreation of London’s Globe Theatre, was an odd choice to oversee a film like this. He later claimed to have not been all that interested in the film, particularly its fantasy elements (in an interview with Neil Pettigrew, Mike Hankin, author of the Ray Harryhausen: Master of the Majicks book suggested that he only took the film on to help finance his ongoing Globe project. Which makes a degree of sense as the whole film has a slightly perfunctory air about it. It only really comes alive enough to match the earlier films in the excellent climax where the giant troglodyte and the Smilodon go at it in the disintegrating temple. That scene alone goes a long way to redeeming some of the more prosaic moments in the film.

You never really expect much from the human cast of a Ray Harryhausen film – there have been some very fine actors involved with his glorious creations but really they’re just there to look amazed, frightened and bewildered by things that they probably won’t see until they attend a cast and crew screening of the finished product. But few of the leading men in his films were aver quite as dull as Patrick Wayne. Like his old man, Wayne Jr had made a name for himself in westerns, in films like The Searchers (1956), The Young Land (1959), The Alamo (1960) and The Comancheros (1961) but he never really made as big an impact as The Duke. As Sinbad, he sort of looks the part, though the bouffant hair could have been toned down. But he lacks any charisma in the role and is easily outclassed by the animated models.

Another offspring of Hollywood royalty, Taryn Power, daughter of Tyrone Power and Linda Christian, shares the traditionally underwritten female lead role with Jane Seymour and are really asked to do little more than look pretty and pose for some tastefully shot nude sunbathing. Patrick Troughton is great fun as Melanthius while Margaret Whiting looks to be having a high old time in full pantomime villain mode as the wicked Zenobia.

There are some very odd moments here that don’t really register when you’re younger but become very noticeable indeed later in life – like Dione’s weird attraction to a baboon or Whiting’s orgasmic transformation into a seagull. This would have gone over the heads of most children but returning to the film later in life they add a very inappropriate undertone to a film aimed squarely at a younger audience. Though in the case of Whiting’s transformation (she’s left with the foot of a seagull after the return trip goes awry) is so laughable that any sort on innuendo would probably have been completely missed.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger was a box office success, but the writing was clearly in the wall for Harryhausen and Schneer’s brand of fantasy adventure. It’s far too long and the charisma-void at the heart of the story does little to make the lengthy journey more pleasurable. But it’s a Ray Harryhausen film and even though he may not have been at the top of his game anymore, his stable of monsters are still the scene-stealers, and in a era of often unconvincing CGI monsters they still look magnificent.