Harry
Bowker
Burgess Meredith
Laurence Olivier
Maggie Smith
Claire Bloom
Directed by Desmond Davis
The Gods (played by Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith and Claire Bloom) decide to destroy the city and inhabitants of Argos as a punishment by releasing the Kraken, last of the Titans, from the deep.
As the city is flooded by a tidal wave a mother and her son escape. The boy grows into the virile Perseus, and wearing a helmet which renders him invisible, he catches Pegasus, a winged horse. (the helmet, a sword and a Shield are gifts from the god Zeus).
In order to marry the Princess Andromeda, and thereby become ruler of the Kingdom, he must first solve a riddle posed by one of her previous suitors, Calibos, now in exile and grotesquely transformed by the Gods.
Perseus fights Calibos and by sparing his life is able to end the curse of the Princess.
At the wedding ceremony the Queen incurs the wrath of the Gods and they order that in 30 days time her daughter (Andromeda) must be left as a sacrifice to the Kraken - or their city will be destroyed. With the help of a mechanical golden owl, Perseus is led to three blind witches who tell him that one look from the head of Medusa will turn the Kraken to stone.
After a fight with a two-headed wolf, he encounters the Medusa, and using his shield as a mirror, avoids its stare and neatly removes its head with his sword. He still has to fight some giant scorpions before arriving in the nick of time to save the Princess and destroy the Kraken.
Harryhausen returns to Ancient Greece for his latest epic but this time there are signs that corners have been cut to save time and money.
His technique probably works best when the jerky movements this process produces is suited to the subject (the statue, Talos, and the skeletons in 'Jason And The Argonauts').
Here the dynamation of the winged horse is not entirely successful, the unnatural movements in the long shots are not helped by being intercut with close-ups of a real horse. Similarly, Calibos is an animated monster intercut with an actor.
Perhaps Harryhausen has been beguiled by his previous work and places more credibility in his technique than his audience does.
The most impressive sequence is the destruction of the city by the flood. These scenes have a natural colour which does not immediately betray the matte work; the shots of falling masonry combined with terrified extras are particularly effective, the toppling statues look enormous and really do seem to weigh a ton.
On the other hand the fight with the wolf is unconvincing, and the scorpions appear to have been simply animated against a back projected image of the actors.
The climax, with the Kraken emerging from the sea to claim its victim looks very odd. Any optical work of this sort necessitates duping the film, often more than once - and here the colour varies throughout the sequence and looks phoney, particularly if compared to similar sequences in 'Jason And The Argonauts'.
I recently purchased one of the remaining American prints of part four from this (containing the skeleton fight) and it was a remarkably good print, far superior to the English prints that may still be around, and even without the build-up from the earlier part of the film, this reel stands up well on its own.
A pity Columbia never released a properly edited six-reeler, of this, dispensing with the explanatory narration. Nevertheless, the print of this new release from M.G.M. is considerably better than most of their earlier releases with good colour and definition.
The running time, like several other current digest versions, is less than the seventeen minutes printed on the boxes, particularly on parts 2&3. This is not a film which is likely to gather dust on the shelf - its repeatability factor is high, and is ideal entertainment for children, and Harryhausen fans, or the not too discerning general audience.
Editors footnote:- After seeing the excellent print quality of the 'Jason' extract mentioned above I phoned several of the American film distributors who said that they are now out of stock on all four parts of this film, so if you want this item, it looks like its got to be second-hand, or find one tucked away somewhere, if you have a good American print that you no longer want, please let me know.
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Distributed in the UK by: Walton
Films |
The above review was printed in Super Eight Film Review issue
4. |
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002