I have been a fan of Ray Harryhausen since I can ever remember seeing a movie. "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" played on the Saturday Night Creature Feature on KHJ TV Channel 9, sometime in the mid-sixties and that's where it started. "Mysterious Island" was always my favorite although "Jason and the Argonauts would give it a fierce fight in my heart. The stop motion effects in movies always felt magical to me, even when they were not always convincing, I think that's what a child's imagination can fix. I still prefer the motion effects tauntauns in "The Empire Strikes Back" to the CGI monsters of the Star Wars Prequels.
Yesterday at the Paramount Theater in Austin, the Summer Classic Film Series offered Harryhausen's final film, "Clash of the Titans" as a matinee feature, and it was part of the 🎬 Robert Rodriguez Presents, series where Austin based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez introduces the films he has chosen and shares some information about the movie and the people who made it. As part of his presentation, he had a set of pictures that he shared with the audience, from one of his film sets, where Ray Harryhausen had come by to watch him work. Seeing the smiles on the faces of the people making the movie, including Quentin Tarantino and Tom Savini, as well as Rodriguez, tells you everything about how these contemporary movie people felt about Mr. Harryhausen and his work. He also shared some clips from his soon to Debut on Netflix Spy Kids Movie. It features several scenes with creatures that are clearly inspired by Harryhausen's work.
"Clash of the Titans" tells the story of Perseus, the favored son of Zeus, who has been cast adrift with his mother by an angry grandfather, the King of Argos. Zeus intervenes, and has Argos destroyed and Perseus saved, so that he can meet his ultimate destiny. The gods and goddesses of Olympus are played by well known actors, including Laurence Olivier himself portraying Zeus. Jealous Goddesses play tricks on the character, putting him in a series of dangerous situations but also providing him with tools to face those situations with.
Basically, the film is a set of events that allow Harryhausen to show off his technique. Perseus battles Calibos, each of them captures Pegasus at some point, a giant Vulture picks up and delivers Andromeda in her dream state, scorpions and other monsters need to be defeated. The ultimate goal is for Perseus to obtain the head of Medusa to use against the Kraken which will soon be set on the city of Joppa, home to Andromeda and her mother Cassiopeia. It's all very convoluted with the actors on Olympus doing very little except standing around on the set. There is plenty of wanton destruction in the film and the loyal soldiers of Joppa who accompany Perseus on his mission are decimated by the time the climax of the film shows up.
Magic helmets that create invisibility, swords that can cleave marble and a mechanical owl with intelligence are all assets that Perseus uses and that Harryhausen gets a chance to integrate into the action at times. The pace of the film seems to lag between the animated pieces, and the actors are not particularly dynamic, but any moment something wonderous will show up so be patient, your eyes will be rewarded.
