Article theme: Girls, Girls, Girls - Mötley Crüe
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that thoughtcrimes like "orientalism" and "the male gaze" are the fundamental cornerstones of entertainment. Universally forgotten RKO gem Son of Sinbad opens with your friend and mine, Vincent Price, looking for the titular character amid the streets of Baghdad. A hot wench offers to lead him to his errant friend, but first proceeds to dance sexily for three and a half minutes of screentime. There are at least four more scenes like this in the movie.
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| Which prompts the question: why isn't this the case in every movie? |
Sinbad, Jr. (Dale Robertson), whom we shall call Sinbad for simplicity's sake, is not a sailor like his fabled father. In fact, no scene in this movie takes place anywhere near the sea. This Sinbad is instead Joey from Friends; an amiably dim Don Juan constantly running into and away from the Caliph's guards in the act of romancing said Caliph's harem of Howard Hughes' hand-picked hotties. Price's long-suffering sidekick, whomst Infogalactic tells me is supposed to be poetical polymath Omar Khayyám, tags along in his wake and tries to bail him out of trouble, like the Jeeves to his Wooster, but in a defiantly anachronistic fantasy Arabia.
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| "This is another fine mess you've gotten me into" - Omar Khayyám |
"How anachronistic?" you ask. Well, for starters, the plot revives the Arabs vs Mongols theme from The Thief of Bagdad, with the villains stated to be agents of Timur. The OG Sinbad stories took place in the 8th Century, Khayyám lived in the 11th and 12th, and Timur wasn't born until the 14th. Who, however, cares? If you wanted a history lesson over entertainment, you'd read my ßlôg. Son of Sinbad is pure entertainment in the vein of Tall in the Saddle, Chandu the Magician and The Adventures of Hajji Baba. The lame sub-Bob-Hope humour in the script is masterfully spun into endearing territory mostly by virtue of Price, the silver screen's crown prince of ham, trying to phone it in and failing.
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| "Vince, we haven't started rolling yet. Vince no. Stop it" - director. |
The cheerful, breezy tone could redeem many a stumble more than Son commits and should be studied by filmmakers intent on rendering every hero a surly asshole in a grim, humourless world to appeal to that kid who used to tell everyone to "grow up" without a shred of irony in primary school. An half-assed stab at a thematic subplot has Sinbad caught in a love quadrangle with three (main) love interests, but rather than draw everything to a screeching halt to berate the audience that This Is Wrong around the act-two-low-point, Son just pairs them off with other characters at random and leaves Sinbad's gf's plea for his monogamy (but not her) unsatisfied because Sinbad is Sean Connery, not Daniel Cr**g.
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| "I swear to love you until the end of the credits" - SinChad |
So while bluehairs and Melonie Mack simps seethe and sperg, the rest of us can cheerfully separate IRL right action from old-school James Bondian fantasy. Watch Son of Sinbad, then read the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in Vincent Price's voice. ♪ That's entertaaainment!
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