Worlds Unknown (Marvel)

Adept Adaptations

Worlds Unknown (Marvel)
Eight Issues USA May 1973 - August 1974

My first and only previous encounter with the eight issue run of Worlds Unknown was when I was six years old. I remember standing on Queensway tube station with my parents, gazing down with wonder at the comic they’d bought me. It was issue eight which, I didn’t know for many years, was the final issue of this title. This contained the second of a two part adaptation of Ray Harryhausen’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and, just as I did when I’d seen the movie itself, earlier that year, I didn’t make the connection at the time between the big posters on the tube of Caroline Munro as the Lamb’s Navy Rum Girl and her starring part in said movie. In terms of the Navy Rum temptress... well let’s just say that even at the age of six I knew a fine looking young lady when I saw one.

So it’s taken me many years to catch up to the rest of the issues and read them all, finishing with the issue I first read 45 years ago, with the outstanding cover of the giant sized statue of Kali (under a different name for some reason) menacing Sinbad. I’ll get to the Sinbad stuff in a minute but... and again, I wasn’t to know this at the age of six... the two part adaptation marked a real turning point in terms of the original intention of the comic and, in a way, it’s no wonder this last thing sounded the death knell. However, with a bit of logical deduction, I can see that the comic and material ear marked for it was reborn a year or so down the line, albeit doomed to another short run. That’s another thing I’ll get to in a minute.

Now the mission statement, so to speak, as set out in the first issue, was for the comic to be a science fiction publication which would be full of new adaptations of short stories by leading science fiction writers. Plus, a few reprints of old ‘twist stories’ shoehorned in to fill space from older publications by comic companies which Marvel now found themselves in ownership of. But the main focus was one or sometimes two short story adaptations by the likes of people like Frederick Pohl, whose anti-racist story The Day After The Martians Came is actually pretty good at setting a tone but low on action. The artwork in this and other issues is all great too and I’d have to say that, from my point of view, Worlds Unknown was a good little comic which should have lasted a long time... especially since some of the stories the editors were bringing to the table to adapt were quite landmark and the Marvel versions were not always the first crack at adapting them.

For example, issue three has an adaptation of the Harry Bates short story Farewell The Master. This is, in actual fact, the short story on which the original 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Still was based. Now, in the editor’s column inside this issue, they mention that they have done just a few very minor tweaks to the story but more or less left it intact and what that means is... if you remember the film, then you don’t know the story. Turns out the original (and presumably the remake of the original) took huge liberties with the source material so that, most of the time, there’s not much synchronicity between the two. For example, the alien Klatuu, played by Michael Rennie in the film (or Keanu Reeves I guess, take your pick) manages to get out half a sentence before he is shot dead... and not by the army but by a lone gunman assassin watching events (and he’s not getting up from that, either). And as for the ending... well, the ending I’m still not quite sure I understand. Gort the robot, who is named Gnut as in the original here, can talk and at the end he reveals that ‘he is the master’, not Klatuu, before taking his space/time capsule away from the Earth. I am guessing my lack of clarity here may be a generational thing... perhaps the original writer was trying to make some point about the autonomy of mechanical life forms, I dunno. But it’s certainly an interesting read and adaptation, even if I do prefer the original movie’s ‘peace for all mankind’ message.

As the run of the comic goes on, actually, I see more clues that they were trying to tie it in to TV and film because, I’m guessing, sales were maybe fairly poor. They do say in the pages that science fiction is not a popular seller (and indeed, I remember the 1970s and 1980s... if you read science fiction or fantasy you were a bit of an outcast), regardless of the fact that the superhero comics which were performing so well for them were completely science fiction anyway... just not marketed like that. So yeah, on the cover of Issue 5 for the adaptation of A. E. Van Vogt’s Black Destroyer, the cover exclaims... “A monster stalks this spaceship! A marvel masterwork in the tradition of TV’s Star Trek.”

Indeed, the previous issue was an adaptation of the Fredric Brown classic Arena, which had been adapted into an outstanding episode of the same name for the original run of Star Trek on TV the decade before. Again, many liberties were taken by the writers of Star Trek and this is a completely different story using the same premise of a human and alien forced to duel to the death on an alien planet. I have to say, again, that I preferred the outcome of the Star Trek episode with its clever ‘gunpowder plot’ and the hesitancy to open hostilities but the original, or at least this comic book of it, is worth a read.

Now, there was a column inside, sometimes grouped with the letters page, where the editors would talk to the readers, tell them what they were up to and what to expect and, in the fifth issue, they definitely said Issue 6 would start off an adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Day Of The Triffids scripted by Gerry Conway (which would also tie in with the idea of pushing stories connected to TV or film adaptations). However, instead of the triffids, the sixth issue brought us an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon’s Killdozer... proclaiming on the cover, “As seen on TV”. Now this might have been because the TV movie based on this, which I remember loving as a six year old, watching alongside my equally impressed dad, aired that same year and this was another exercise in changing the content to suit current trends and, maybe, extending a deadline if Triffids wasn’t finished yet. I can’t remember the movie Killdozer now, to say if it was very different to the short story as depicted here but, it’s an okay issue and, again, like nothing else Marvel was doing at the time.

And then comes the final two issues adapting The Golden Voyage of Sinbad which, to be fair, it says is “Freely adapted from the screenplay by Brian Clemens.” Now, these two issues have characters that, for the most part, look nothing like the likenesses of their on screen counterparts... John Philips Law’s Sinbad is passable but the drawings of actors like Martin Shaw, Caroline Munro and Tom Baker are all... no, I don’t think they were even trying. However, although the story is quite truncated here and certain scenes are merged into others for brevity, this is actually almost a much more dynamic rendering than perhaps the film was. Marvel were used to doing sword and sorcery epics by now, what with best sellers like Conan The Barbarian (based on Robert E. Howard’s famous character) and it really shows here. The language is decidedly more interesting and flowery in the context of a much more verbose sort of dialogue than found in the movie and the artwork is quite stunning in places (and those covers are awesome).

Okay though... by this point I’m chomping at the bit to read their Triffids adaptation... and I still am but at least I know where it is now. In the letters page of issue eight the person replying to the letters alludes to some boxed out news from one of the editors or writers of the comics but, alas, I’ve scoured the issue repeatedly and can find no sign of it. This was presumably to tell the people who had been writing in and saying really nice things about the comic that this was the last issue and it had been cancelled. And maybe they thought they had a reprieve just before printing it and decided not to run it at the last minute. Either way, the concluding part of The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad was, indeed, the last issue. Which is a shame... however...

Remember those brilliant old black and white magazine format comics that Marvel were so good at? The artwork was astonishing and it showed some of their regular characters rendered in a much more expressive and interesting way... magazines like The Savage Sword Of Conan, Dracula Lives, The Rampaging Hulk and, my favourite, Doc Savage - The Man Of Bronze. Well, around four to five months after Worlds Unknown was cancelled, a new comic magazine started up with the not so distant title, Unknown Worlds Of Science Fiction. Now I’ve not read this yet but included in the first two issues is an adaptation of The Day Of The Triffids, scripted by Gerry Conway and various other stories also graced the pages, many of which I believe were touted in the first issue of Worlds Unknown as up and coming adaptations. So the stories did have a second life after all and, although it only lasted for six issues plus one annual this time, maybe it was thought that the audience reading the less expensive, shorter colour comics would be tempted to part with more of their hard earned cash if they gave the stories their due in loving greyscale... kind of a win/win situation for both the customer and the company, is my guess. Or at least, it should have been. Like I said, it ran for an even shorter period than Worlds Unknown did.

So, in conclusion, I would say if you are a fan of science fiction and want to see the way it was tackled head on in the early 1970s by writers and artists who were so obviously loving fans of the material they were working on, then a read through of the issues of Worlds Unknown is definitely something you should consider. As for Unknown Worlds Of Science Fiction? Well let’s just say that it’s ‘on the pile’ now and I hope to be reviewing that run on my blog sometime in the new year.

The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad

Super Kali, Fragile Mystic

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
UK/USA 1973 Directed by Gordon Hessler
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

I would have been five years old when I first saw The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad at a cinema in London. It was 1973 and I can’t remember exactly which cinema it was for certain that I saw this at but, a quick scan through of the supplementary marketing material included in the excellent new dual Blu Ray/DVD Sinbad boxed set from Indicator allows me to say that I’m pretty sure it was at the ODEON in Marble Arch, as it was then. It was the first Sinbad film I’d ever seen at the time... possibly even my first Ray Harryhausen although, I might have possibly already seen Jason And The Argonauts on the little black and white television set we had back then in the 1970s. It was also the same year that my parents took me to see my first James Bond film at the cinema, Live And Let Die, so... yeah, that was a pretty good year for introducing me to these wonderful characters.

I still remember getting on the tube train at Marble Arch after the film, clutching a copy of Issue 8 of the Marvel Comic Worlds Unknown in my hand as I waited for the train to come and take me home after seeing a film filled with wonder. This particular comic book contained the second of Marvel’s two issue adaptation of the movie and it had a beautiful cover depicting the battle with the big statue of Kali from near the end of the film. Alas, I never got around to tracing the first part in Issue 7 but one of these days I'll find the thing so I can read the whole adaptation.

As I stood there in the tube with my parents, gazing up in wonder at the giant wall length poster for Lamb’s Navy Rum on the other side of the tunnel, I didn’t make the connection that the alluring Lamb’s Navy Rum girl (alluring to me even at the age of 5) was the same girl who I had just seen as the leading lady of The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, the very likeness of whom I was holding between the covers of the comic I was clutching so tightly in my hand.

It took me literally decades to figure that out but you can pinpoint the beginning of my admiration/adoration of that particular model turned actress, Caroline Munro, right there. Even when I saw her in other much loved movies from my childhood, it took me a while to put a name to the face or even, truth be told, match up that face to different roles, to be fair. So when I saw her in other much loved films as I was growing up, such as At The Earth’s Core and another Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, I took notice of her even though I was unfamiliar with her name or the fact that she was the sexy girl in the half undone red jump suit, balancing a checquered helmet in her hand for Lambs.

This was my first Sinbad film though and, while I’ve watched it a fair few times over the years, the new Blu Ray transfer from Indicator is a great way to see this thing.

Now this film stars John Philip Law as Sinbad and absolutely no reference is made throughout the film to the previous Sinbad adventure, The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (which I reviewed here), with Kerwin Mathews in the title role... nor to any of the other characters in that film, which seems to contradict the happy ending found in that last movie. So, like that film before it and the next Harryhausen Sinbad adventure, Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, this one pretty much functions as a stand alone film. And quite a nice one still, at that.

The film starts off with a flying homunculus, shot at by one of the crew of Sinbad’s ship which causes it to drop a metal symbol on deck. Sinbad picks it up and wears it as an amulet. He does this after first seeing a vision of the film’s evil mystic played by Tom Baker and, also, a vision of a girl belly dancing with an eyeball tattooed onto her hand. This is our first sight of Caroline in this film but her face is in shade so the character can be revealed later via the eye symbol. After the ship goes through a very effectively shot storm, which looks and feels particularly hellish and after some shenanigans where Sinbad deprives Tom Baker’s villanous Koura of his metal symbol, he finds himself in league with a masked Visier who has another part of the symbol, played by Douglas Wilmer. They set off in a race to find the third part of the symbol which, when placed in a fountain, grants the person with these pieces special powers and riches. Aided with some new crew members such as Caroline Munro as former slave girl Margiana and his own trusty crew, headed up with right hand man Rachid, played by Martin Shaw who would find fame as one of The Professionals on TV a number of years later... the quest then takes the form, as most Sinbad movies seem to, of a road movie but with ships and sandals rather than using any actual roads.

Of course, various incidents and perils are thrown at Sinbad and his crew, mostly inflicted upon them by Tom Baker’s dark mystic, who gets a little more fragile and aged each time he uses his black magic to try and defeat Sinbad. He is aided throughout some of the film by Spanish actor Aldo Sambrell, who I believe also worked again with Caroline Munro again many decades later. For some reason, though, he kinda just drops out of the film about three quarters of the way through and I often wonder if this was the result of action that wasn’t included in the final cut of the movie.

John Philip Law is... perhaps a little wooden and naive in the role of Sinbad but he does look the part more so than the other actors who have played the character and it’s interesting because his stylised form of performance seems to play in direct contrast to Martin Shaw. Shaw, somehow, has a more naturalistic way of acting through the film and, although you’d think this would be at complete odds with Law’s approach to the movie, it actually makes for an interesting on screen chemistry between the two. It shouldn’t work but... yeah, it kinda really does, actually. Also keep an eye on Tom Baker because he makes this role his own and this is apparently the part which helped secure him the role with which he’s most identified with, the fourth incarnation of The Doctor in BBCs long running series Doctor Who.

And then there’s Caroline Munro, of course. She’s really great here but doesn’t have a lot of lines and so, similar to her role in Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter, if memory serves, she performs a lot of it a little like a silent movie star might. And she’s brilliant at it. If you want to watch a film where Caroline really has an unbelievable amount of screen presence, even when she’s not the main focus of a scene, then look no further than The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad. I mean, yes, she obviously looks beautiful here... as she always does... but there’s a certain way she has about her that means it’s very hard to take your eyes off her when she’s on screen. More so here than in many of her similarly outstanding roles, I think it would be true to say.

Now the film is beautifully shot with some nice compositions scattered throughout and some truly amazing, Mario Bava-like lighting in some of the cavern sequences, where bright reds, greens and purples play against one another in the shot to truly give a visual feast for the audience. And as well as being a wonderful, artistic environment for the actors to perform against, we also have a load of the typically outstanding creatures animated and dropped into the sets and brought to life with the photo trickery of Dynarama (or whatever they were labelling the stop-motion process this time around... I believe it was called SuperDynamation in the previous Sinbad movie). So we have a wonderful sequence where Sinbad’s ship’s figurehead come to life to attack the crew... don’t know how many other ships kept their figureheads just inside the ship rather than outside but, I guess they needed to make this work somehow rather than just have it come to life and immediately fall in the water. There’s also a sequence where a cyclopean centaur has a fight with a gryphon... for no conceivable reason that I could see but, it seems to be integral to the finale of the movie somehow and it certainly looks okay.

And, of course, we also have the wonderful part of the film which made the five year old me really sit up to pay attention and... it probably has a similar effect on me to this day, to be honest. The wonderful sequence where the giant, six limbed statue of Kali is conjured to life and fights Sinbad and his crew with her six swords. It must have been an absolute nightmare for Harryhausen to choreograph this on set and then somehow animate it, frame by frame later but... well, the results are more than worth it as far as I’m concerned. Decades later, when I was playing Tomb Raider 3 on my Playstation, I came across a scene which was obviously more than just a little influenced by this movie, where Lara Croft has to fight more or less the same statue in a very similarly lit setting, by pumping it full of as many bullets as she can before taking enough damage to kill her. It certainly brought those childhood memories flooding back.

And added to all this, of course, the film has a standout score by Dr. Miklos Rosza. Now Rosza had a thing for epic pictures set in ancient times and he’s a good choice here... although the score is not nearly as good as Bernard Herrmann’s contribution to The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, for sure. Now, I always find late Rosza scoring beautiful but very dated. It’s like, however modern the film was, he would always be writing something like an old fashioned, 1940s Hollywood score and that can often overpower the visual images for films he scored which were made after the 1950s or mid-1960s, I reckon. And it’s very much the case here too, it has to be said but, I would also say that the years have been very kind to this film and now that we look back at it from a fair distance in time, the score seems to work better in context with the images, it seems to me, than they once seemed to. So I don’t know how that works but, either way, it’s still a lovely score and also a very good listen away from the film itself.

So there you have it... the story is not great but The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad does have some good one liners in it, such as “My heart is full of bravery but I have very cowardly legs.” and, combined with some good performances by the actors, good lighting and some stand out Harryhausen effects work, we have a truly fun picture which really holds up well now and will certainly keep the family entertained whenever it goes on. And it has Caroline Munro giving a truly remarkable, almost silent era performance which really draws you in. Indicator’s new set is filled with some pretty cool extras including a new interview with Caroline herself and it even has the old Super 8 cut down versions of the film as an option (which is a nice inclusion from a historical perspective). If you have the opportunity to grab one then the Indicator Sinbad box set is definitely the way to go with this one... you don’t want to miss out on this if you are a fan of cinema, for sure.