I don't think I can overstate how amazing Jane Seymour was in the 1970s, particularly in 1977's Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger.
I was 10 in 1977 and my previous film crushes had been on Fay Wray in King Kong (1933), and probably by then I had seen Jean Harlow in something on television with my grandfather -- Dinner at Eight (1933), most likely. And it's worth noting that I was a bit obsessed with a pre-Grease (1978) Olivia Newton-John despite her lack of film credits at the time in 1977.
No, I just remember being a bit stunned at how beautiful Jane Seymour was in Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger. I had gone to see the flick because it featured Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation and it was the big summer film for me of 1977.
It was also very near the time my family was to leave the D.C. area for a move to Mississippi (and then Louisiana) for my parents' jobs. So, it was probably of some sentimental importance that I was going to see the film with my grandfather. The man's film tastes shaped my own in many, many ways and, while I didn't usually see things in the theater with him, I did watch stuff on TV at his house on the weekends.
Star Wars (1977) came out that same summer and it's worth noting that I didn't really gravitate to it that much on first viewing; the animated chess sequence -- a homage to Harryhausen? -- was the most memorable thing to me when I first saw the film. I didn't even jump on the Star Wars bandwagon until I got the "Story of Star Wars" album on 8-track tape later that summer and, for whatever reason, the sound effects, music, and dialogue of the film made me want to see the film again a few more times.And, to his credit in many ways, my grandfather liked Star Wars but didn't rave about it. He raved about Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, though. And, given that his favourite film of all time was -- as he confessed -- Treasure Island (1934), it's not so surprising to recall that confession now.
I wonder if part of what my grandfather loved about Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger was not just the animated beasties but Jane Seymour?
After I saw Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, I then noticed Jane in the first few episodes of TV's "Battlestar Galactica", and then recalled that she was in the TV film "Frankenstein: The True Story" (1973). And then I caught her on a TV showing of Live And Let Die (1973). And then in 1979 in the TV movie, "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders" -- the woman could do anything!
Still, to the perpetual 10-year-old inside of me, she will always be Princess Farah.
