This enormously enjoyable 1958 fantasy may be the crowning achievement of one of the movies' great magicians, Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation wizard whose fabulous creatures peopled the imagination of seemingly every kid I grew up with. The Technicolor epic dispatches Sinbad (Kerwin Matthews) on a quest to save a shrunken princess, accompanied by a treacherous sorcerer (Torin Thatcher) and a swashbuckling Bernard Herrmann score. Nathan Juran directed, but the movie's marvels all stem from Harryhausen, the American Mélies, who granted life to every wondrous beast one meticulously posed frame at a time (and composed almost all his special effects in multiple camera exposures). Here's all your kids need to know: This is the one with the cobra woman, the sword-fighting skeleton, the two-headed rock and its giant hatchling, the fire-breathing dragon, and best of all, that cloven-hooved Cyclops who roasts Sinbad's men on a makeshift rotisserie. To be shown at dusk, free and drive-in style, on the Belcourt's outside wall.
Sat., Aug. 9, 7:45 p.m., 2008
