A 1963 perspective of this movie: Those who have been asking for motion pictures which the whole family can enjoy, will find their answer in a wonderful new MGM attraction, Captain Sindbad. Its spellbinding story of adventure and astounding feats of magic suggested by the legendary hero of the Arabian Nights, is set against a background of Oriental splendor in which one feat after another takes place. There has never been a picture quite like it, with no less than 326 magical effects producing such phenomenon as the hero's battle against an invisible monster in a huge royal arena, his encounter with a nine-headed Scylla, an attack upon his ship by a flock of giant prehistoric birds that "bomb" the vessel with boulders, and his futile attempt to stab a cruel dictator who cannot be killed because his heart is locked up in an ivory tower guarded by ferocious beasts and impassable morasses. It is his search for this heart which marks the start of Captain Sindbad's extraordinary adventures.

The title role in this King Brothers Production, filmed in Technicolor and Wondra-Scope, is played by Guy Williams, who established himself as a top swashbuckler in the popular Zorro television series. The story's Princess heroine is enacted by the beautiful German acting and recording star, Heidi Bruhl, making her debut in an American film. Pedro Armendariz, as the tyrannical dictator of the Oriental kingdom, and Abraham Sofaer, as the court magician, who is able to perform such feats as transforming Miss Bruhl into a tiny bird, who flies out to sea to warn her lover of impending danger. Filmed on some of the largest sets ever built for a motion picture, spectacular scenes of Captain Sindbad take place in the golden throne room of a royal palace, in which the Princess Jana is ordered to be executed by having an elephant crush her skull; a courtyard of gold-and-silver flanked by rows of golden dragons; the huge arena in which Sindbad fights the monster (1,500 square feet larger than the Colosseum in Rome and twice as high).

The Colosseum turns into a holocaust with 10,000 spectators fleeing for their lives. Sindbad's ship, The Golden Lion; and a lavish festival scene for which the entire menagerie of the Hagenback Circus, in Copenhagen was hired. A final highlight is a spectacular Spider Dance, performed by Anna Luise Schubert and John Schapar, an internationally known dance team. Captain Sindbad is the first King Brothers Production since their highly successful Gorgo. Directed by Byron Haskin from an original story and screenplay by Samuel B. West and Harry Relis. It is a picture of enchantment, fantasy and sheer delight.
About the actors: Today, alas, most film stars have become very solemn business executives. Take heart. A new star is rising in the stellar heavens who demands none of these privileges. He takes neither himself, his art, nor life too seriously. He has been married for twelve years and still regards his wife as the uttermost in femininity. They have two handsome children.

His name is Guy Williams, and his mission in the movie business is his mission in life: to enjoy it. His career is merely five films long. He began as a star in television with Zorro. He is currently the star of Captain Sindbad, which is for fun, the way Williams likes his vehicles. He aims to carry on the swashbuckling, romantic kind of action which Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., created Moreover, he has the equipment for it. Six feet, three of height, dark hair, dark eyes and shoulders broad as a plateau. "In all my films, I am incredibly brave," he laughed. "That is because I have very brave writers. In Captain Sindbad, I also have a plus. That's the ingenuity of the King Brothers. I sail a ship which is bombed by huge birds, subdue a tidal wave, fight a nine-headed Scylla, battle a dictator who literally has no heart, and perform many other feats of derring-do".

Williams inherited his larksome attitude toward life from both his parents, Attilio and Claire Catalano, who were both born in Italy and came to New York just a few years before Guy was born. Mr. Catalano became one of New York's most successful insurance brokers. Thus, there isn't even a dash of Horatio Alger in Guy's history. But, just as he was about to enter college, his father died. Wage earning became necessary. Still, Williams had a definite attitude toward work. He did not want it to interfere with his enjoyment of living. "You hear Hollywood people say, 'I always wanted to be an actor.' But I didn't always want to be an actor. I got into it by the process of elimination, by avoiding the things I didn't want to do. Acting seemed a pleasant compromise between considerable laziness and a comfortable income."

In 1957, Walt Disney gave Williams his big break as "Zorro" in the popular television series. "When the series ended, I went on layoff for two years," he relates. "That should have been ideal. I was getting my salary and doing nothing. Only I discovered, after that one encounter with the camera, that I liked acting. I wanted to be in another film, regardless of the salary. And I wanted to freelance. Finally, I was cast in The Prince and the Pauper. That showed on television in three parts, but I've never seen an inch of it because since then, I've been busier than I ever anticipated, as a freelancer. I worked out the contract deal and I've gone straight from picture to picture, sword in hand and bravery in every single script!" Guy has come to a firm conclusion regarding the feminine sex. His teacher is his daughter, Toni, aged four.

"When I was growing up, I had a marvelous time with my parents except when I had a run-in with them. Then I really got it where it hurts, but I had no rancor. I knew I'd earned it. I treat my son, Steve, who's ten, the same way. I don't believe in disciplining kids by appointment. I apply the action at the moment needed. Yet I let my daughter get away with something close to murder. She gets her way by putting on that girl-look and what's a man to do? What fatherhood is teaching me is that little girls aren't much different from big girls. You look at them. They are barely four, but in their eyes you see a million years of understanding. When you look at your son, you see yourself, a boy who has to grow up and learn everything. I look at my daughter and realize that she is going to get tall, fill out in the right places, put on spike heels, and look out. I tell my wife there is some kid somewhere, he is studying arithmetic and he thinks that's a problem. One day he's going to meet this girl of mine, then he'll really know what a problem is!"

Heidi Bruhl is the Cinderella who actually became a screen princess, although it took the long arm of coincidence to make the tale come true. Heidi, although only 20, had established herself as a top recording artist in her native Germany and was brought to America to make a concert tour. "When I visited Hollywood," she said, "my great ambition was to star in an American motion picture, but I never dreamed it would happen the way it did." Blonde, blue-eyed Heidi returned to Munich and there, only six weeks later, was signed to play the feminine lead in Captain Sindbad, which was to be filmed in her home city by the well known producers, the King Brothers. She plays the princess of a mythical Oriental country and marks the start of a new career for Miss Bruhl, who has been a versatile entertainer since she was six. She started as a dancer, then began singing. Her voice, at first, was labeled "Judy Garland" style. Her recording of Ring of Gold has sold a million and a half copies.

Many of her other recordings hit the million dollar sales mark. "I loved Judy's singing so much that I'm afraid I attempted to become Judy," she explained. Later on, Doris Day became another of Heidi's idols and she has been called the "Doris Day of Germany." But then she developed her own style and her career zoomed. She is one of the few European singers whose records have become popular in America. Along the way, she appeared in a score of German films, but Captain Sindbad is her first big break on the theatre screens of the world. "I had almost decided to concentrate on my singing career," she said. "I planned to make records, do concert appearances and work on television musically, but this picture has changed all that." Heidi reveals she was terrified over the elephant scene, where he slowly raised its great foot above her head, but she didn't flinch. Fortunately, Guy Williams, in the traditional time's nick, saved her. "I believe an actress has to cooperate fully with her producers, director and cast and crew, for without them, she is nothing. Also, she should keep her temperament under control. After all, temperament is just a way of being arrogant or covering up some self-conscious deficiency."

Pedro Armendariz enjoys being a tyrant on the screen, but when not before the cameras, he's an entirely different person. A studious reader, an expert on art, an opera enthusiast and a gourmet, yet the popular star usually plays a villain, and he wants it that way. "Let others play the noble roles," he says, "I find it more interesting and colorful to be bad." He gets his wish with a vengeance in Captain Sindbad. In this Oriental fantasy, he portrays the ruthless dictator of a mythical country who has magical powers. He is able to keep his heart in an inaccessible tower and only laughs when Captain Sindbad thrusts his scimitar through Pedro's chest. He has a few more remarkable tricks. Pedro's early career had its ups and downs, and he had almost decided to give up acting. Then a producer offered him the lead in the Broadway play, The Bad Men, which proved a tremendous hit and zoomed Pedro to stardom.

At long last Abraham Sofaer has realized his dream of playing a major comedy role on the screen. Sofaer, who has been acting for 40 years, started his career in England in Shakespearean plays and has appeared in almost all of the Bard's classics. But his parts were the dramatic ones, such as Othello, Shylock, Lear and Cassius. When he came to America, it was as Prime Minister Disraeli in Victoria Regina, starring Helen Hayes, a vehicle which kept him on Broadway for three years. He appeared on stage and screen in many other roles, but most of them stressed the serious side. "That's why I enjoyed this part of the court magician, it isn't all comedy. At times, I'm both cowardly and courageous, but I play for laughs", he said. His role called for him to perform many feats of magic. He changed Heidi, the princess, into a bird so she could warn Sindbad that a wicked dictator had taken over the country. Sofaer has a hand in most of the several hundred magical stunts.

There are stuntmen and then there are stuntmen, but only four can be rightly called "The Four Stuntmen of the Apocalypse." For sixteen years, Fred Haggerty, Dave Wilding, Peter Brace and Joe Powell have worked as a team in daring action for motion pictures. Most recently, they defied death in Captain Sindbad. So far, none of the quartet has been seriously injured. "But I came close," say Joe Powell, who started his exotic career as a British Commando parachutist. "Most of our accidents happened in the first couple of years when we were green at movie stunt work. I had to ride a motorbike into a tree at 40 miles an hour for one picture. The trick was to go off at slant so that I would miss the tree as the motorbike whammed into it. My angle was all right, but I didn't gauge how far I would fly through the air or how high. On the first take, I just kept going and landed in the branches of another tree."

Fred Haggerty, small, blonde and agile, is the philosopher of the team. "It's really faith based on trust in the other man," he declared. "It's a matter of character. When Joe is supposed to be in a certain place at a certain moment, I can count on his being there. Many stuntmen have tremendous power, or daring, or speed, but only a few have the character to go with it. And this includes never touching the other man when he begins his stunt. At that moment, it's up to him alone. I know. Someone touched me as I started a leap from the "Titanic" in that film, 80 feet to the water below. I hit the shoulder of another stuntman. If you know anything about water, rough is safe, smooth is like concrete. If you don't hit it just right, you may end up on a slab. Well, he threw me off and I hit the smooth water. I was unconscious for days, partially paralyzed, and am lucky to be alive. It was then that I determined I would never work with any other stuntmen but Joe, Dave and Peter." Dave Wilding, a former jockey, is the smallest of the four stuntmen. He specializes in falling off horses at high speed, or in having them "trample" on him during a stampede. The King Brothers used him as "Gorgo" in their famous monster film.

Peter Brace is an all-around stuntman without a specialty. He is the largest, almost 6'5" and probably the strongest. In the deluge on Captain Sindbad's ship, Brace hung from one of the cross pieces on the main mast. When the water (tons of it) hit the ship, he had to hold on long enough to withstand the initial impact and then fall to the deck some 30 feet below. With one thrilling and perilous adventure after another in Captain Sindbad, there were plenty of opportunities for the four intrepid stuntmen to do their stuff. Their joint efforts add immeasurably to the thrills and excitement of this film.

When popular German star, Heidi Bruhl, took a chance on an elephant crushing her head. For one of the suspense-packed sequences in the film, the blonde actress was asked to lie down on an execution block while an elephant pretended to stamp on her skull. The picture's cast and crew, as well as producers Frank and Maurice King and director Byron Haskin, held their breath when the cameras were ready to shoot this scene. Only a week previously, another elephant used in the picture had gone berserk and stampeded a set, smashing properties and injuring its trainer. Before shooting started on the execution sequence, Miss Bruhl decided to prepare the ground. Using all of the charm and wiles which have made her one of Germany's most sought-after stars, she cuddled up to the elephant, beguiled it with peanuts and whispered sweet nothings into its ear. Reassured that she now held the beast in the palm of her hand, Heidi lay down and put her head on the block.

Director Haskin called for the scene to begin and the elephant raised a huge foot above the actress' head. The giant leg then came down and hung unsteadily a couple of feet away. You would think they'd have shot the scene fast and gotten the suspense over with. Not so. It seems the elephant's foot wasn't close enough to Heidi's head to make audiences really squirm. They shot it twice more, each time with Heidi taking the preliminary caution of soothing the animal. Finally the pachyderm placed its foot just close enough to the lovely star's head to make her shudder slightly. A breath of relief went over the entire set.

Among the spectacular sets constucted for Captain Sindbad, were a pirate ship, a golden throne room, a marble inner court with myriads of fountains, a magician's laboratory, an oriental village with a beggar's section, palace, dungeons, an elaborate princess' bed chamber and a mysterious ivory tower rising out of the magic mists. The largest set was a great arena, in which Guy Williams battles an invisible monster, cheered on by thousands of spectators.

Frank King, who with his brother Herman, produced this film in Munich, discovered that you can indeed get blood from a turnip. For spectacular battle scenes, the producer ordered 75 gallons of artificial blood from German chemists, who mixed vegetable dyes, including turnip juice, to come up with a realistic substitute for blood. He then found he had to double the order to have enough "blood" for other action scenes, including one in which Guy Williams battles a giant invisible monster and divests it of 15 gallons of blood before winning. King is delighted that you can get blood from a turnip because 150 gallons of the real stuff at the going price of $35 a pint would have cost him $42,000! The entire menagerie of the Hagenback Circus in Copenhagen was hired for a scene in Captain Sindbad. The animals, including elephants, camels, llamas, lions, tigers and ostriches were used in a spectacular sequence depicting an Oriental festival.