The Cyclops

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958

Cyclops Video Clip

 

Upon setting foot on the Island of Colossa, the crew decide to search for food and water but while wondering and exploring the mysterious habitat they stumble upon a giant foot print in the sand. The print leads them to a cave with a strange structure that looks like a face with a cave for a mouth. Sinbad decides to take a closer look at the cave but as he gets close a mysterious man (Sokurah) runs out crying out for help behind him the roar of some kind of creature can be heard echoing from inside the cave. Sinbad and his crew find themselves in a fight with a giant Cyclops who is after Sokurah for stealing the lamp.

 

The giant beast attacks them and Sinbad and his crew are forced into a fight that they can't win. Sokurah the magician wanders off and summons the genie of the lamp and commands him to create a magical barrier between the men and the giant beast. The barrier helps Sinbad an his men escape back to the ship on a small boat but the Cyclops tosses a giant boulder at them and they fall over and the lamp sinks into the sea. With the lamp underwater the magical barrier is broken and the Cyclops recovers the lamp. They finally escape from the clutches of the Cyclops and they set sail back to Bagdad. Back in Bagdad Sokurah the magician uses his evil to turn Princess Parissa to the size of a human thumb and tells Sinbad that the only cure involves a piece of the egg shell from the giant bird the Roc who only nests in the peaks of Colossa. Sinbad is forced to return to the island, upon their return Sinbad once more faces two more Cyclops on the island, one that he blinds and kills when the creature falls over a cliff, the other appears near the foot of the cave of Sokurah and fights with the Dragon and is killed by him.

 

 

 

The Cyclops Facts

From Ray Harryhausen

 

• There were three models of the Cyclops of varying sizes; one at the start of the film and for the spit sequence, a small one that falls of the cliff and yet another that is killed by the dragon at the end.

• Originally there were was supposed to be a colony of Cyclops on the Island but that idea was cut due to time restrains and the budget.

• Ray had originally designed the Cyclops with a more human appearance, but he changed it because they were afraid that audiences would think they were men in suits..

• To overcome this concept Ray gave the Cyclops furry goat legs and clove hooves, an idea lifted from his first concept of the Ymir, interestingly he used the same armature for both creatures.

• The sequence showing the Cyclops' capture of Sinbad and his men was censored in Britain and was only restored many years later when the film was re-released.

• During the location filming Ray used the "Monster Stick" a simple stand-in device enabling actors to see how tall the creature would be and assisting them to get the correct eye-line.

  Credit: An Animated Life

  By Tony Dalton

Miniature

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