When “Clash of the Titans” opened on June 12, 1981, it was opposite “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Needless to say, on Friday night I was riding with Indiana Jones; but on Saturday, you can bet I was cozying up with Medusa.
This week on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, we’ll dust off our Edith Hamilton to search vainly for Calibos and Bubo, on a quest to rescue Andromeda from… the Kraken?
Okay, so maybe it’s not scrupulously faithful to the classical myths. Who cares? It’s Ray Harryhausen!
“Clash of the Titans” would be the swan song of this special effects maestro. With classics like “Jason and the Argonauts,” “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” and “Mighty Joe Young” adorning his buckler, Harryhausen had long since secured his place in the pantheon.
But when “Titans” opened, critics were divided: Gene & Roger loved it, but many were shockingly condescending, dismissing the film – some of them even the effects – as turgid and old-fashioned. In the wake of “Star Wars,” the all-knowing arbiters were now too-cool-for-school.
Nevermind the fact that George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic repeatedly tipped its hat to Harryhausen. Only the year before, in fact, in the “Star Wars” sequel “The Empire Strikes Back,” ILM served up a gloriously-retro Tauntaun and some hilariously-improbable Imperial Walkers. Where would Empire or Rebellion be without Harryhausen?
Even so, it is hard to deny that Harryhausen’s Dynamation process did start to seem a tad quaint alongside ILM’s “go motion” effects, especially when, only two weeks later, on June 26, 1981, ILM would challenge Harryhausen on his own turf with the fire-breathing antagonist of “Dragonslayer.” The wondrous creation that was Vermithrax Pejorative looked forward to “Jurassic Park” in 1993. So realistic was he, it’s conceivable he would have made Harryhausen himself blanch.
But realism was never the point of Harryhausen’s fantastic visions, and I feel sorry for anyone who can’t see what’s so special about his special effects. By what law should fantasy be photorealistic? Are not our dreams filled with the otherworldly and the uncanny? Must they conform to the logic of our waking hours?
Whatever the case, evidently by 1981, the time for this sort of magical storytelling had passed. Harryhausen and his longtime producer Charles Schneer had been hoping to mount a “Titans” follow-up, to be titled “Force of the Trojans,” but they couldn’t secure the funding. So it was that one of special effects’ most imaginative masters was driven to retirement at the age of 61.
That retirement would be a long one – Harryhausen died in 2013 at the age of 92 – but it was not inactive. He began his own foundation to promote stop motion animation, oversaw the restoration and completion of some of his earlier projects, and in general was lauded and paid tribute to by generations of younger filmmakers. He also turned up in a few cameos.
With “Clash of the Titans,” nobody can say he didn’t swing for the fences. For one thing, the cast was the starriest of any movie of his career, with supporting roles played by stage and screen legends Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress, Siân Phillips, Flora Robson, and Burgess Meredith. Harry Hamlin, soon to attain fame with the success of TV’s “L.A. Law,” played Perseus. Did Hamlin possess the dash of Kerwyn Matthews? Ask your local cyclops.
More to the point, will Roy and I clash over “Clash of the Titans? Winged horses couldn’t keep us away! We’ll RELEASE THE KRAKEN in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!
