<sales pitch>However, thanks to the diligent devotion of animation and science fiction geeks in the industry, four of the honorable Mr. Harryhausen’s earlier works have been assembled in a Blu-ray set that you should immediately rush out and buy.</sales pitch>

The Ray Harryhausen Collection features the science fiction and fantasy projects from Ray’s 1955 thru 1958 era at Columbia, and the titles included in this set are; It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957), and The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958).  Now, several of these titles have already been reviewed at DVDInMyPants.com: I have written individual reviews for January ‘08 standard def DVD issues of It Came From Beneath The Sea and Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and our own John Felix, a man whom I enjoy tormenting incessantly, has also provided us with a lovely take on the DVD Gift Set release of Ray Harryhausen Collection that coincided with the release of this Blu-ray version…so, not wanting to sound like I’m passing the buck here (which I am), I would heartily suggest you give those other reviews a spin in addition to lambasting this one.

In any case, here’s a brief account of the first three titles (the ones that we’ve tackled before):

It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955) - San Francisco is threatened by one of the most shockingly horrific creatures that ever spawned: Kenneth Tobey.  A giant mutated six-tentacled octopus only worsens matters.  Faith Domergue plays a lady scientist (heh, a lady…as a scientist…those funny writers!).

Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) - Giant flesh-eating chickens from an alternate universe cross over into our reality and start Southern frying humans…what do you think this one’s about!?  Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, and Morris Ankrum star, with Paul Frees’ magnificent voice on-hand to fill you with a sense of awe.

20 Million Miles To Earth (1957) - Joan Taylor returns for another brush with rear-projection peril in the chilling story of an astronaut (William Hopper) who discovers the irks of parenthood as he ventures back from Venus in a really big rocketship with an weak-bladdered Italian kid (Bart Bradley) in tow, resulting in that oft-quoted line, “For Christ’s sake, Pepe, can’t you hold it a bit longer?  It’s only 20 Million Miles To Earth!” (ta-dum -- thank you!).

OK, all kidding aside (well, some kidding aside), we move onto the title that hasn’t been reviewed here before: The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958), with Kerwin Matthews starring as one of fiction’s most adventurous characters in a story that takes you into a world of man-eating Cyclops, fire-breathing dragons, mean-spirited gigantic two-headed birds, and sword-fighting skeletons…with an evil bald sorcerer, a child-actor genie, and surprisingly late-50s hairstyles thrown in, too.

Sinbad ventures to the strange island of Colossa in order to release the domesticated former-princess he adores (Kathryn Grant, whom he keeps below locked in his cabin…and rightfully so…I’d do the same) from a diabolical spell hatched by a wicked magician who aspires to be the next Mr. Clean model (Torin Thatcher, just as hammy as ever). 

Fans of swashbuckling action and mythical monsters the world over have been praising The 7th Voyage for years…and for good reason: it’s a special effects-laden bonanza of thrills and innocent fun that even the most conservative of parents would be hard-pressed to restrict their children from viewing (naturally, I’m excluding certain red states…and why are these red states anyway?  I thought you Republicans were all sorts of against Communism…hypocrites…hmm, must be how that whole Red Scare got its name…fitting, isn’t it?).

Previously released on DVD by Sony in 1999, The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad has made a triumphant return to the digital format in a glorious 50th Anniversary Edition with a new and improved soundtrack and more goodies to boot.  The 50th Anniversary Edition is also available as a stand-alone Blu-ray title (it’s also available on regular DVD, although it is not included in the Standard Definition DVD Ray Harryhausen Collection set).  At the time of this writing, the Blu-ray editions of It Came From Beneath The Sea and Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers are only available via this release, so those of you who rushed out to buy 20 Million Miles To Earth when it was initially released on Blu-ray may feel a little gypped here, but that’s what sites like eBay are for.

Presentation
Bear in mind that the first three films in this series were pretty low-budget for their time (by today’s standards, they would be on-par with a direct-to-video release), so anyone expecting these movies to look like that immaculate Blade Runner set from 2007 has another thing coming.  That said, all three of those motion pictures look positively beautiful, with the original black-and-white versions looking as close to pristine as possible, while the colorized editions (courtesy of Legend Films) resemble a vibrant comic book come to life (incidentally, I despise colorization).  Like the previous DVD issues, viewers can toggle between versions via ChromaChoice…although I must confess that one thing kind of bums me out: you can watch the new color versions of the old black-and-white originals, but there’s no option for you to watch a new black-and-white version of the only film that was made in color (ta-dum!).

It Came From Beneath The Sea, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, and 20 Million Miles To Earth are all presented in 1.85:1 ratios, while The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad has a new 1.66:1 transfer (the previous DVD suffered from a rather cropped 1.85:1 ratio that Ray Harryhausen was never particularly fond of -- it was shot open matte).  All films are 1080p.  Nice.

Sound: OK, first off, an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack accompanies each film in this set, all of which sound incomparably outstanding and stuff, but Sinbad’s new audio mix is a real treat and makes Bernard Herrmann’s lush score fill the room (has anyone else ever noticed The Cure’s song “Fight” sounds slightly similar to the theme music here?).  French Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks are available on Flying Saucers and Sinbad, with several other audio options available on 20 Million Miles (Spanish Mono Stereo) and Sinbad (Thai Dolby Digital 5.1, English Mono Stereo). 

An assortment of Subtitles are also included…
It Came From Beneath The Sea: English, English SDH, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, and Arabic.
Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers: English, English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Hindi, Arabic, and Japanese.
20 Million Miles To Earth: English, English SDH, Chinese, Korean, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai.
The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad: English, English SDH, French, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, and Thai.

Extras
The first three titles in this set include the exact same Special Features we’ve seen on the previous releases, complete with the Documentaries, Featurettes, Interviews, Galleries, and Promos.  The only thing new here (aside from the inclusion of BD Live…whatever that is) are the addition of some Theatrical Trailers for the movies in the series (fancy that!).  Those of you who groaned at seeing the same horrendously out of place preview for that Close Encounters Blu-ray set over and over can rest easy…because it can still be found on the 20 Million Miles disc (that’s only because it’s the same Blu-ray released in 2007)!  The other discs include Trailers for Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles To Earth, and It Came From Beneath The Sea, with a somewhat used-looking re-release Preview of The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad thrown in as well.

Special Features for The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad include an Audio Commentary with Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects Experts Phil Tippett and Randall William Cook, Author Steven Smith, and Arnold Kunert; Featurettes Remembering The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (23:31), The Harryhausen Legacy (25:32), The Music Of Bernard Herrmann (26:51), A Look Behind The Voyage (11:45), as well as a vintage “Music Video”, “Sinbad May Have Been Bad, But He’s Been Good To Me” which in reality is an old promotional pop tune set to some stills; a Photo Gallery; the original This Is Dynamation (3:26) Featurette that was shown in theaters to hype-up audience; and finally, that old Harryhausen Interview by John Landis (11:52) that was on the old DVD.  Only two Special Features didn’t make their way to this Blu-ray: the hour-long Ray Harryhausen Chronicles Featurette (from the old 1999 DVD) and the five-minutes of Outtakes which are (oddly enough) found on the standard DVD version of this 50th Anniversary Edition.  Go figure.

While there are no noteworthy exclusive Blu-ray Extras in this set (there’s BD Live, but who gives a shit about that?), this is still  All in all,

The Bottom Line
We’ve seen them all before.  We grew up watching them on either late-night TV or via the video boom of the 80s.  Well, the Ray Harryhausen Collection now gives us the opportunity to own four of the maestro’s earlier efforts on Blu-ray (which, contrary to popular belief, is not blue at all).  Enjoy.