Clash of the Titans

Year of Release:  1981

Director: Desmond Davis

Screenplay:  Beverley Cross

Starring:  Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Judi Bowker, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, Ursula Andress

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Fantasy

In Ancient Greece, Perseus (Hamlin), son of Zeus (Olivier), King of the Gods, must battle against. multitude of mythological monsters in his quest to rescue the Princess Andromeda (Bowker) from the dreaded Kraken.

This film is loosely based on the Greek myth of Perseus, and showcases special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen's stop motion creatures, which include, among others,  a two headed hellhound, the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa, giant scorpions, cursed monster Calibos, winged horse Pegasus, the giant sea-monster known as the Kraken (borrowed from Norse mythology) and a friendly mechanical owl called Bubo.  This is a hugely enjoyable fantasy adventure, which is thoroughly old-fashioned.  Pouty Jim Morrison look-alike Harry Hamlin is kind of bland but effective enough in the lead, while Judi Bowker isn't really given much to do as Andromeda.  As often happens with fantasy films, a supporting cast of acclaimed heavyweight actors gives the procedures some gravitas.  The story moves along at a good pace and is packed with incident, meaning it never gets dull.  Some modern viewers may roll their eyes at how dated the film looks now, particularly the special effects, which in all honesty were seen as dated when the film was released, but there is an innocent, naive charm to the whole thing.  The creature effects are still striking, and each creature is distinctive and has something like a personality.  The film has an appeal that the charmless 2010 remake lacks entirely.  This is fully escapist entertainment.

Release the Kraken:  Clash of the Titans
  

 

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

 Year of Release: 1953

Director:  Eugène Lourié

Screenplay:  Fred Freiberger, Eugène Lourié, Louis Morheim and Robert Smith, based on the short story "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury

Starring:  Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, Kenneth Tobey

Running Time:  80 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

A nuclear bomb test in the Arctic awakens a prehistoric monster called a Rhedosaur which begins making it's way down the coast of North America.  Professor Thomas Nesbitt (Christian) who witnesses the creature desperately tries to convince a sceptical world of the danger, before the creature can destroy New York City.

When the film was in pre-production, special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen brought the producer's attention to Ray Bradbury's short story "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (now more commonly published as "The Fog Horn") in an issue of The Saturday Evening Post, particularly an illustration of the creature attacking a lighthouse.  The finished film bears very little resemblance to Bradbury's story though.  The film has aged badly, filled with hoary old cliches, flat direction and some questionable performances, but it has a lot of retro charm, and was a smash hit in it's day.  The movie was the first of the "Giant Monster Created by Radiation" movies that were churned out in the fifties, most notably Godzilla (1954) which was strongly influenced by this film, and most of the cliches really started with this one.  The Beast of the title is a fictional dinosaur called a Rhedosaur and is brought to stop-motion life by Ray Harryhausen. While the special effects may not have aged well, but they have a strange life to them, and the film has some impressive images and scenes, such as the creature attacking the lighthouse silhouetted against the evening sky, the creatures rampage through New York (during which it gobbles up a cop), and the climax at the roller coaster is exciting.  The first hour or so of the film, which basically has the scientist trying to convince everyone that the monster is real is quite sedate, and then the pace picks up in the last twenty minutes, building to a very abrupt conclusion.  It's certainly worth watching, even if it's not a great film, it is a good one, and it does have a lot of innocent charm.

The Rhedosaur in New York, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms