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.