The Baby Roc

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958

Baby Roc Video

 

When Sinbad, Sokurah and the rest of the men finally reach the top of the peaks of Colossa, some of them begin to feel the toll of the trip to the island. They are hungry and tired of climbing the mountain and surviving the many dangers of the island. They find one yet unborn baby egg and begin to force the little baby roc out of its shell. Like Sinbad says "hungry men don't ask they take!" The little bird comes out of the shell and the men start to fight with it. As Sinbad and Sokurah rush down the hill to stop the killing of the bird, the baby falls to the spears of the men and becomes their dinner.

Soon the mother Roc avenges the killing of her young and attacks Sinbad and the men, killing the two surviving sailors and taking Sinbad in its claws to a nest high on another peak. Sokurah escapes by killing Harufa taking the lamp and the princess to his underground cave at the foot of the mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BABY ROC Facts

 

• The model of the baby Roc was covered by George Lofgen with genuine duckling down skin obtained from a taxidermist.

 

• The delicate covering presented Ray with a problem of trying not to disturb it while he moved the model for the sequence. He managed to overcome this by touching and moving the model where the camera couldn't pick up the disturbance of the down.

 

• The egg shell itself was made of plaster, cast in section so that he could animate it cracking open and the chick appearing from inside.

Credit: An Animated Life

By Tony Dalton