- If you want to estimate the value of Ray Harryhausen, watch one of the old Steve Reeves Hercules movies. The acting and writing are roughly on par with what appears in Don Chaffey's Jason and the Argonauts, but the latter film is considered a masterpiece of fantasy filmmaking while the Hercules movies are a mix of boring and unintentionally funny. The primary difference is in the visual effects. In Jason and the Argonauts, larger-than-life versions of Hera (Honor Blackman) and Zeus (Niall MacGinnis) manipulate Jason (Todd Armstrong) and his crew like pieces on a chess board. The towering bronze Talos lumbers around an island stalking Hercules (Nigel Green) and tearing apart the Argos. Shrieking harpies swoop down to torment Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) until becoming trapped in the Argonauts' nets. Poseidon erupts out of the ocean to repel the crashing rocks. And the skeletons, oh the skeletons.
- What has always impressed me the most about Harryhausen's work are the creative surprises he injects into every effects scene. Anyone could depict the death of a bronze giant, but how many people would show him choking as the lifeblood drains from his leg? Likewise, how many designers would think to imbue the dreaded Hydra with a rattlesnake's tail? And those skeletons. Just when it looks like we're going to be subjected to a slow-paced battle scene, a blood-curdling scream signals the onset of complete mayhem. I still have no idea how they matched the skeleton animation with the live-action fighting and, honestly, I don't care. It's an absolutely riveting ending to a film that could have been a lot worse without the participation of the unquestionable master of stop-motion film animation.
- Featuring Bernard Herrmann borrowing from his own Vertigo score.
- I missed some cast members, including Nancy Kovack, Gary Raymond, Laurence Naismith, and Jack Gwillim.
