One-Eyed Cyclops

August 26, 2004

Clash of the Titans is an awe­some live-action stop-motion hybrid film made in the early 80s. It starred none other than the infa­mous Harry Ham­lin as the heroic Perseus. Fans of Greek myths like me know that Perseus’s sto­ries were always the coolest. Notably, Perseus’s encounter with the Medusa, a woman or thing with snakes for hair and the power to turn any­one who glanced at her to stone.

Perseus in a moment of hero­ism, and let’s be hon­est try­ing to save him­self from being turned to stone, reflects her gaze with his shield and there­fore due to the rub­ber and glue effect trans­fers the curse back to her thus turn­ing her to stone. Sweet poetic jus­tice if you ask me.

Clash of the Titans had it all; action, romance, a mechan­i­cal owl, stop-motion visual effects cour­tesy of Ray Har­ry­hausen and most impor­tantly the pin­na­cle scenes with Zeus (played by Lau­rence Olivier) and his posse. You haven’t seen any­thing in movie his­tory until you see Zeus play­ing the world like a chess game — the peo­ple his pawns. I swear this is a mani­a­cal pas­time for this Greek God. Imag­ine being able to con­trol the Uni­verse with noth­ing more than a check­ered board and a few pieces that rep­re­sent each per­son in the Greek pop­u­la­tion. It looked cool in 1981 and it still looks cool even now.

Of course, one can­not for­get Burgess Meredith’s per­for­mance, the won­der­fully charis­matic char­ac­ter actor from such films as Rocky, TV’s The Twi­light Zone (1960s-version) and the lov­able father from Grumpy Old Men. Mered­ith plays Ammon, teacher and idol to Perseus. This man com­mands such a pres­ence on screen that it’s sad that he is no longer with us. A true and blue pro­fes­sional if you ask me.

If you’re in the mood for some great 80s action wrapped in a Greek-myth shell you’ll dig Clash of the Titans, it’s a clas­sic that deserves a spot in your DVD col­lec­tion. Pay close atten­tion to the scenes with Mag­gie Smith (as Thetis), espe­cially one in which she ‘projects’ her image on the face of a statue. Creepy. 

21 comments

I loved this movie when I was a kid! I even still have some of the toys! I didn’t have the Kraken though… my lit­tle young life would have been com­plete with the Kraken.

by max on August 26, 2004 at 10:25 am. Reply #

You’re right about Burgess Mered­ith, he was the man! He was great in Grumpy Old Men.

by Chad on August 26, 2004 at 10:29 am. Reply #

Max: That’s a sad story. You should look into Ebay for the Kraken fig­ure, I’ve seen it before in lucra­tive auc­tions. I think they are the same peo­ple sell­ing vin­tage 1970s Star Wars fig­urines (I only have Darth Vader).

While I focused the arti­cle on Perseus, I also thought (at the time) that Cal­i­bos was foreboding.

Chad: Grandpa Gustafson (played by Mered­ith) was my favorite char­ac­ter in the Grumpy movies.

by kartooner on August 26, 2004 at 10:44 am. Reply #

Send in ” The Cracken “.….…..ENOUGH SAID!

by Dad on August 26, 2004 at 10:51 am. Reply #

I was just talk­ing about the Cal­i­bos trans­for­ma­tion scene and how kick ass it was the other day. That creeped the hell out of me as a kid.

I loved the movie so much that I checked out this great book of Greek mythol­ogy from the library as a kid to read up on it. I was crushed that Perseus didn’t have Pega­sus in the myth. That kind of crushed my spir­its a bit. Off topic: that book and its Norse com­pan­ion had incred­i­ble illus­tra­tions, and I’ve been look­ing to pur­chase them ever since. They are impos­si­ble to find, though, and I can’t remem­ber who wrote them. They were per­fect for kids. One day…

by max on August 26, 2004 at 11:31 am. Reply #

Mem­ory lane…

A pure piece of per­sonal trivia — it was the first rental video I ever watched.

by Gary on August 26, 2004 at 11:36 am. Reply #

Holy crap! I just found my book. This book made me want to be an artist!

Any­way, back to the movie… the scene where Thetis becomes the statue creeped me out too. Most of the movie creeped me out in a roller-coaster sort of way as a kid. I was scared, but I loved every sec­ond of it.

by max on August 26, 2004 at 11:50 am. Reply #

Max: Wow, Max. That’s one of my favorite Greek myth books, in it’s illus­trated glory, from junior high/high school.

Did you pur­chase the book? I think I’ll be get­ting myself a copy as soon as the finan­cial gods give me per­mis­sion. I love Greek mythology.

by kartooner on August 26, 2004 at 1:17 pm. Reply #

Y’know, after read­ing the reviews on Ama­zon, I think a lot of kids loved those books, and they left a last­ing impres­sion on their young minds. I know they did with me; I read them in 3rd or 4th grade, and only a cou­ple years ago did I remem­ber them. I fig­ured I could find them even­tu­ally, but couldn’t remem­ber who wrote them. Read­ing this post reminded me that I should try and look again on Ama­zon. Sure enough, looks like a lot of their work is back in print. I’ll def­i­nitely be pick­ing up the Greek book, and I wish the had a new print­ing of the Norse book, which I loved equally. It goes for 70 bucks used though. I may just wait and see if they reprint that one as well.

The illus­tra­tions are just so vibrant and beau­ti­ful! I can’t wait to pick it up.

by max on August 26, 2004 at 2:09 pm. Reply #

I used to love this movie when I was a kid. It was on Cin­e­max a few weeks ago and I caught some of it. It holds up pretty well over the years. I might have to tape it next time it’s on and watch the whole thing.

by Todd on August 26, 2004 at 2:10 pm. Reply #

The Cracken! Ahahaha…

The first thing that sticks out in my mind, still, is the stop-motion skele­tons. Oh man… when they’re first com­ing out of the ground, it’s rel­a­tively quiet as I recall. Then, they’re all out, and every­body is just kinda stand­ing there until the skele­tons let out this hilar­i­ous squeal. Then… it’s on…

Ahaha..

by Seth Thomas Rasmussen on August 26, 2004 at 2:37 pm. Reply #

I liked Sam Raimi ‘s trib­ute to Ray Har­ry­hausen in Army of Dark­ness with the stop-motion skeletons.

by Todd on August 26, 2004 at 3:39 pm. Reply #

Todd: That was a great sequence! Espe­cially when the skele­ton pulls a Three Stooges eye poke on Bruce “Ash” Campbell.

by kartooner on August 26, 2004 at 3:56 pm. Reply #

Yes! I hope that Raimi and Cam­bell can get back together for another Evil Dead movie sometime.

by Todd on August 26, 2004 at 4:23 pm. Reply #

This was “the shit”. Max, I didn’t have the Kraken, either. My buddy down the street did. After he got it, I found myself over there much more often.

The spe­cial effects blew me away. Posei­don stir­ring things up in the ocean, the talk­ing statue, Cal­i­bos… need to rent it again. Thanks for bring­ing it up, Eric.

by chopsocky on August 27, 2004 at 11:04 pm. Reply #

No prob­lem Mark. I’m always try­ing to write about dif­fer­ent things, maybe top­ics that aren’t being dis­cussed on other blog sites.

This was and still remains one of my favorite movies, myth-related or not.

by kartooner on August 27, 2004 at 11:11 pm. Reply #

How come no one men­tioned the three blind witches? They were com­i­cal yet evil.… GIVE US BACK OUR EYE!!!!

by Matt (Brother) on August 27, 2004 at 11:26 pm. Reply #

Oh yeah, almost for­got about those hags!

by kartooner on August 28, 2004 at 8:50 am. Reply #

Max, I didn’t have the Kraken, either. My buddy down the street did.

Once you saw it though, were you a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed? He was a half-man, half-octopus crea­ture. When I saw the movie as a kid, I assumed he would have legs to go with his Ahnold torso, since I don’t remem­ber see­ing them on screen.

Octo-legs are kind of weaksauce.

by max on August 31, 2004 at 9:44 pm. Reply #

Max: The Kraken had octo­pus ten­ta­cles for legs? How lame. Like­wise, I would have though he would have had thick calf mus­cles to match his Gov­er­na­tor body.

What a disappointment.

by kartooner on September 2, 2004 at 8:53 am. Reply #

this web­site is like totally wierd

by kit on April 27, 2005 at 5:37 pm. Reply #

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