Director: Desmond Davis
Cast: Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Judi Bowker, Maggie Smith
Have I Seen it Before: I think so? Lora and I talked about it as we started watching, and we both think we spun the DVD shortly after we met but aren’t sure. It kind of tells you how I feel about the movie.
Did I Like It: Ray Harryhausen* is a genius, but to feel true appreciation for much of his work, I kinda think you have to have been steeped in it from a young age. I’ve also never been overwhelmingly into Greek mythology**, so this film is already working at something of a disadvantage. I can’t help but feel the film is largely a B-movie effort that I don’t get, filled with bland matinee-idol actors engaged in derring-do, and a few great actors slumming it for an above average paycheck.
But then there is the Harryhausen of it all. After this—the final and some might say greatest film he worked on—plenty of people trucked in stop motion animation in an attempt to harness the nostalgia of the method. I’m mostly thinking about Tim Burton here. Every time It’s used in the last forty years, it’s been a throwback. Here, it’s hard to deny that I even found the various creatures put in the affecting. The man was a genius and an artist, and I don’t have to have grown up with his work to get that much.
*Didn’t direct the movie, by the way. Does anyone not think of the author of this film as Harryhausen? The auteur theory is right, except for all of those times it is laughably, irrevocably off the mark.
**Thank Zeus I’m not a producer on mythology podcast. Oh, wait… Maybe I like Greek mythology just fine, and I just happen to be less interested in it than anyone else I know.