Clash of the Titans (1981)

Clash of the Titans

It is time to revisit one of the great movies of my childhood. I was a bit afraid to sit down and re-watch 1981's Clash of the Titans. As I kid, I thought it was fantastic. But as an adult, having not seen the movie in a decade, would I still like it?

Thankfully, yes. Let me first be upfront and say that Clash of the Titans is not necessarily a good movie. It's script is silly, the acting is often wooden, and I have to give a special shoutout of hatred for BoBo the mechanical owl, who is incredibly dumb (and a clear ripoff of R2D2).

But there is a goofy, nostalgic charm to the picture. It's just a fun little adventure, riffing on Greek mythology and trying sincerely to just entertain. For those who haven't seen it, Harry Hamlin stars as Perseus, a Greek prince who must save a beautiful princess named Andromeda (Judi Bowker) from being sacrificed to a sea monster called The Kraken. Along the way, he gets help from the a playwright (Burgess Meredith), that stupid metal owl, and the winged horse Pegasus. He fights many of the great monsters of mythology, including most famously the Gorgon, Medusa, whose gaze can turn men to stone.

I will admit, I'm biased. If I was watching the movie now, for the first time, I might think it was lame. But I still enjoy it, even in its lamer parts! It brings back my childhood. This is the movie that first introduced me to Greek mythology, a love affair that continues to this day. And those images that entranced me as a child have aged well - Perseus flashing his magic sword in the sun, the Kraken swimming underneath its massive submerged gate, Charon the Ferryman, the destruction of Argos, Andromeda's cuteness, the heroic music score, and Perseus' badass bearded friend (I never knew his name, but he's a badass and has a beard) swatting away the flies while someone is being burned at the stake in the background. Those moments retain their magic and are probably the reason why I will show my kids this movie someday (believe it or not, even with the stake-burning, the movie IS appropriate for most kids!).

If I had a complaint, its that the scenes in Olympus with the gods don't work at all. I know they are important from a mythical standpoint, showing how the Olympian gods idly fool with the destinies of those pesky humans. But even as a kid, I was intensely bored by the whole thing. It was just a bunch of old people in togas talking. Now as an adult, I can recognize the amazing cast of actors playing the Olympians - Laurence Olivier, Jack Gwillum, Ursula Andress, Pat Roach, Maggie Smith - and yet I am still intensely bored. The director found a way to make Olivier boring. I didn't think it was possible.

But these scenes are few and far between. The rest are silly, entertaining goodness. If you've never seen it before, you may not want to. You won't appreciate it. For the rest of us, dig in.

MVP: Medusa (and producer/creature animator Ray Harryhausen). What a brilliant piece of character design, filming and editing - the Medusa segment is the one part of the movie that wholly raises above its roots, and becomes something different - a dark and gloomy sequence that is genuinely suspenseful and terrifying, with superb character animation, terrific lighting, spot-on editing and acting, and brilliant sound design (Medusa's tail rattling is the primary sound element of the entire scene. It is brilliantly unsettling). The sequence is easily the best part of Clash of the Titans and it one of the crowning moments of Harryhausen's carrer.

BEST LINE: "Release the Kraken!"

TRIVIA: The Dioskilos, the two-headed dogs that Perseus fights, did not exist in Greek mythology. The creatures are based on Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the Gates of Hades. When asked why he didn't include the third head, Harryhausen said it would be too much work to animate the extra wolf's head. Not worth it.

Hamlet (1948)

Hamlet

As it is perhaps the most acclaimed Shakespeare adaptation of all time, starring the greatest Shakespearean actor of all time in what some would argue is the best play of all time, you would think that Laurence Olivier's Hamlet would be higher on my list of awesome movies. Unfortunately, I found it to be a rather mixed bag.

The main problem is that I just don't like the old style of Shakespeare acting. I find it to be stagy and showy and fake. I just can't believe in the characters because they are too busy prancing across the stage saying, "Look at ME, I am doing SHAKESpeare." I prefer the approach where the language is spoken as if people are actually saying it. So maybe I am not a fair judge for this movie, because I am biased from the start.

I have to give Olivier props, though. He tries to update the play and make it more cinematic and palatable for those who don't understand the poetry. He experiments with extreme camera angles, chiarrascoro lighting, and some genuinely spooky use of fog machines for the Ghost scene. Olivier the director is far more interesting than Olivier the actor. A good example of this can be seen in another Olivier directorial innovation. Instead of having the actors speak their monologues out loud, he has them 'think' the monologues...almost like narration. Unfortunately, it is a good idea gone bad and allows for some spectacular overacting as Oliver's face contorts in exaggerated expressions to match the emotion of his monologue. Sooo cheeeeesssyyyy....

Overall the acting is okay, I guess. Better than I thought considering I don't like this style. Sometimes Olivier is excellent (the confrontation with his mother) and sometimes he is terrible (the silly line reading of "the play's the thing," which comes complete with a ballet twirl). The rest of the cast is mixed. Felix Alymer is well cast as the befuddled (or is he?) royal adviser Polonius, and a young Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars) is quite funny as the foppish Osric. But Basil Sidney is a stiff Claudius and Jean Simmons - an actress I normally quite like a lot - is a terrible, histrionic, overacting Ophelia. And she got an Oscar nomination for this?!

On the other hand, I can objectively see why this won Best Picture in 1948. It may be dated now, but the movie must have seemed innovative at the time - a valiant and successful attempt to make Shakespeare more accessible. This blew the socks off the audiences half a century ago. But it doesn't age well. And it is far from the definitive Shakespearean adaptation that it is made out to be. And I prefer Olivier's non-Shakespearean work. And while I'm at it, I prefer the play Julius Caesar to Hamlet anyway!

SPECIAL NOTE: I feel like I need to make a special comment on the Hamlet-Gertrude relationship in this adaptation. There is a school of thought that thinks there is some sort of incestuous thing going on with Hamlet and his mother. I am in the other school of thought - that this is silly talk. As Freud and psychoanalysis became all the rage at the turn of the century, critics started applying these ideas to the classics. Olivier effectively incorporated this idea into his movie. He has every right to do so; it is interesting to see different interpretations of stories and I support that. But unfortunately the film's success meant that for 50 years this was the only interpretation (it was even part of Mel Gibson's Hamlet in 1990!). Thankfully, Kenneth Branagh ended the run with his 1996 version, but even then some critics were hollering, "hey, where's the incest?! This isn't a faithful adaptation!" Frankly, I think Shakespeare would have been stunned to know that this Freudian malarky had become such a part of his play. It's just not there in the text. I don't buy it...

MVP: Olivier the director makes some interesting choices with the movie. Some of the innovations have lost their impact (such as the monologues as narration), but at the time they must have been stunning. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...

TRIVIA: This was the first non-American film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

OSCARS: Best Picture, Best Actor (Olivier), Costume Design, Best Art Direction.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: for Best Supporting Actress (Simmons; lost to Claire Trevor in Key Largo), Best Director (Olivier; lost to John Huston, Treasure of Sierra Madre), and Best Music (lost to The Red Shoes).

BEST LINE: This is Hamlet and there are too many great lines! Can't do it...