I hope you can help.
I am looking for a movie I saw late-night on T.V. as a child. This would have been in the mid-to-late-'70s.
The details are very sketchy, but here are the key points I remember, and I may be mixing up the details because the memory is SO vague:
- There may have been some kind of invisible monster.
- There were soldiers/warriors/combat-group type of people on some kind of quest.
- There was a villain that had his heart separated from his body, up in some kind of tower or something.
- At one point, the heart falls out a window or something after someone throws it deliberately or it falls accidentally or something, and there's this horrible shot where the heart lands with a hard PLOP on the ground.
- There's some kind of path through misty swamp/caverns/something where taking one step off the path will do something horrible to you, like turn you into a caveman or kill you instantly or send you back through time or something.
- The bad guy, if I recall, resembled Genghis Khan or something, a Hun-type person, if I recall.
This piece of, uh, fiction, terrified me as a little girl. The atmosphere of it was literally so spooky I couldn't sleep. At all. For three days.
Help, KINDERTRAUMA, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE!
— Becca V.
UPDATE: NAME THAT THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to reader Logan for naming it with THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD. I think it's best if you read what Becca had to say via email.
Sounds vaguely like Captain Sindbad (1963) ???
More than vaguely, it sounds exactly like Captain Sindbad to me… the Mongol-ish villain has had his hear removed and placed in a magical tower in the midst of a haunted swamp. The hero has to fight an invisible dragon in an arena and, later, a giant robotic hand.
It's not Harryhausen but it's good fun.
Gah! 'heart' not 'hear'…
Sounds to me more like the TV remake of "The Thief of Baghdad", late 70s, I think. Most notable cast member was Roddy McDowell as the titular thief.
It was the villian's SOUL, not heart.
Not really a horror movie, but when I was little this was a terrifying scene, could it be from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There is a scene where a heart is ripped out a few times in horrific scenes and tossed over a cliff or down a fire pit.
Okay, not vaguely at all! Its been years since I have seen it but cannot forget the heart in the tower!
Love that trailer! Especially the spinning head!
In Captain Sindbad there is also the matching element where a group of adventurers enter the magic/haunted swamp… some get eaten by guys in crocodile (?) suits. Later Sindbad has to climb up a giant rope to get to the heart and I think either it or the villain… or both… go off the top of the tower.
My house is now totally going to be known as "a savage and sensual land ruled by a fiend." Wait, did I say "house?" I meant "pants."
Per Becca V.:
Funny, I did the same thing when I confuzzled the previews of Wild In The Streets and Werewolves On Wheels… which took me years to sort out.
I still want to see that original movie, which only ever existed in my confused kiddie-brain.