Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Yes, I know, it's not exactly an original movie to review; it's been done to death, in fact. But that's because it's such a fantastic and awesome movie, that it deserves massive praise and fawning reviews. So, spoiler alert, here's another one.

Let's start with the actors. Without looking them up, I don't remember any of their names, nor do any performances stand out as exceptional or noteworthy. These people know who the real stars of the movie are, and their job is mostly to stand around in awe of the special effects, much as the viewers did. Todd Armstrong, who plays the manly and heroic Jason, is a bit wooden in his performance, almost like he's a Harryhausen creation himself. He does an adequate job, but there's a spark missing that would put Jason into the pantheon of great fantasy movie leads.

Nancy Kovack as Medea gets second billing, but her role is quite limited; she only appears in the last third of the movie, and doesn't have a whole lot to do. But she does set into motion the events that will lead to the movie's most memorable scene.

The only other name in the cast that stands out is Honor Blackman as Hera, who would become much better known the following year, playing Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. She spends part of the movie doing voiceover for the Argo's figurehead, which is sculpted to look like Hera. Again, the performance isn't meant to be Oscar-worthy; nor does it ever threaten to be so.

Alright, on to the main event and the real star of the movie: Ray Harryhausen. I'm going to review other Harryhausen movies over the next little while as I watch them, just because they are so fantastic. He didn't pioneer stop-motion animation, but he certainly perfected it as much as humanly possible. There are plenty of other blogs and websites that gush over Harryhausen and have a lot more detail about him than I can possibly give, so I'll just move on to the special effects he did here.

Interestingly, one of the earlier special effects in the film that tends to get overlooked is the discus competition between Hylus and Hercules on the beach. Hylus challenges Hercules in order to earn a place on the Argo, and Hercules accepts with a discus challenge. Hercules throws it like an Olympian would; Hylus skips it like a rock. The effect really isn't very well done; the effect is more like old 50s movies spaceships dangling on a string. It's certainly the most disappointing effect in the film. But it's a minor one and, as I said, it generally gets overlooked.

With that out of the way, the first Harryhausen creation of the movie is one of his most famous: Talos, the bronze giant statue that comes to life and threatens the Argo and its crew. The sound effects of this scene are particularly eerie, and really bring a depth to Talos' actions. You can hear the bronze limbs grinding as the statue stiffly moves across the landscape and reaches down to grab the helpless Argo out of the water. It's very effective, far more so than many CGI creations today. I think it might have been even more effective than if they had just put someone in a Talos suit; this Talos feels like a bronze statue come to life, something that CGI and motion-capture just can't emulate as well.

After Talos is defeated, the Argo is repaired and the crew continue on their journey, where they...do I really need to recap the plot? No, I don't; you've seen it anyway, haven't you? Let's stick to the effects instead. The next creatures encountered are the harpies, who torment the blind Phineas, stealing his food and leaving him with crumbs. I really like this scene, because it seems like it was a more challenging effect to create: The harpies, after all, are flying. And there's real interaction between them and Phineas as one of them grabs a piece of his toga and unwraps it while flying upward, sending Phineas rolling across the ground. The Argonauts are successful in trapping them in a clever net-trap. The fight is, again, interactive, which couldn't have been easy to do. But it works, and that's what matters.

Then there are the Clashing Rocks, reminiscent of Scylla and Charybdis, the monsters that threatened Odysseus and his crew. Yes, I read old stuff. Anyway, Jason and his crew escape these thanks to a magical token that, when dropped in the sea, summons Neptune, or (according to Wikipedia) Triton, to hold the rocks apart long enough for the Argo to slip through. The effects of the gigantic Triton, with his merman-tail, holding the rocks apart are integrated almost seamlessly with the footage of Jason and his crew rowing frantically to get past the deadly rocks as quickly as possible. It's a tense scene, and it works really well.

Finally, the Argonauts arrive at Colchis, and Medea shows up. The golden fleece, the object of the quest, is guarded by a deadly seven-headed hydra, which Jason ends up fighting alone. He handles it pretty well, as heroes are expected to do. The hydra kills the traitor in Jason's crew (convenient, isn't it?) and lowers his limp corpse to the ground in its tail. I doubt there was an actual person in the hydra's grip for all the time they did the shooting, but it still looks pretty good for a 1963 movie. We even get a perspective shot from behind the hydra as it slithers after Jason, which emphasizes how creepy and dangerous this beast is. Medea is there as well, but she spends the entire fight watching helplessly. Feminism? What's that? If the movie were to be made today, of course, Medea would end up saving Jason's life by ninja-kicking the hydra and knocking its heads off just as it was about to make a meat-snack of the helpless man. This movie is a little more old-school than that.

And now, for the main event of the evening: The skeleton fight. Yes, this is THE Harryhausen scene, the one that cemented his legacy as the greatest special effects wizard in Hollywood. He'd done a single skeleton fight in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad five years earlier; this time, it was SEVEN of the buggers. Against three humans: Jason and the Sacrificial Lambs. Okay, that's not really their names, but they might as well have been.

What can I say about this fight that hasn't been said a thousand times before? It's simply amazing from start to finish. As King Aeëtes raises the skeletons from the ground using the teeth of the hydra, the ground bursts open and they rise up from their graves, weapons in hand and ready to go. One little touch that I really liked is that the skeletons have their own shield emblems and even different weapons; they aren't simply mirror-images of each other. No, these are seven individualized skeletons, all of which move as smoothly as stop-motion animation can do. And they are deadly fighters, taking out Jason's two companions and nearly getting him as well, until he lures them into jumping into the sea. It turns out that skeletons aren't as buoyant as living humans.

From a gamer's perspective, this movie gave us some iconic creatures that would later appear as monsters in the inaugural D&D game: the iron (bronze) golem, the hydra, the harpy, and the skeleton. Not to mention the gigantic merman, but that's not generally seen as an iconic D&D creature. The Argonauts are an early example of a typical D&D party, although it's all fighters until Medea shows up (she's a priestess of Hecate in the movie, and a sorceress in classical Greek mythology). There are the heroes (Hercules, Jason, and Acastus), as well as the hirelings and henchmen, aka the cannon fodder. And it has nautical adventuring, which has always been a favorite theme of mine.

One thing I really wish for is a sequel to this movie; it's clearly set up for one, as the movie ends with Jason and Medea leaving with the Argonauts and the golden fleece on their way back to King Pelias, where Jason is supposed to confront him and avenge his parents' murder when he was a baby. Unfortunately, we never got one. And considering the state of Hollywood today, I wouldn't want one now. No, this movie will have to stand alone as one of the greatest fantasy films of all time, thanks to the magnificent imagination and tireless dedication of one Ray Harryhausen.

So, I'm going to rate this movie seven out of seven skeletons; it's not the kind of movie you watch for the acting, so you know what you're going to get. And you get it, in spades.

To give you an idea of how this movie and others like it have inspired me, please check out my first fantasy novel, The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, available in ebook and paperback formats at an Amazon website near you. And support indie publishing, because it's the wave of the future!