As a Monster
Kid, I was already familiar with Harryhausen and his work,
having watched all of his older movies on television and having seen Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger on the
big screen in 1977. But Clash was the
movie we saw, post-D&D, that re-colored our impressions and upped the
levels of the game for us. Even though CGI became possible if you had enough
money in the 1990s, we wouldn’t really get true character-driven
computer-generated animation for creatures until Jackson’s Lord of the Rings
trilogy at the end of the decade. Prior to those movies, Harryhausen was the
gold standard for creating stop-motion monsters that, while not strictly
realistic, often were better actors than the oiled imbeciles fighting them in Dynamation. If you, for some unfathomable reason, don't know about these movies, click on the titles below to see the trailers.
The movie
that became Harryhausen’s swan song enjoyed a robust afterlife on HBO, where we
watched it whenever it came on, because, why wouldn’t you? Perseus, played by a
Pre-LA Law Harry Hamlin, is set on a quest by Zeus, played by Sir Lawrence
Olivier (killing it, by the way), and aided on Earth by Burgess Meredith.
Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress (wasted in her role as Aphrodite), Claire Bloom,
and other British stage stalwarts round out the pantheon of Greek gods as they
play their chess games with the lives of mortal men. But that’s all stuff and
bullroar, because this is a Ray Harryhausen movie, and Harryhausen’s work is
the only thing that could possibly upstage Olivier at his scenery-chewing best.
While
certainly not the apex of his career, it’s a heck of a victory lap to go out
on. Clash of the Titans was the
biggest budget film Harryhausen made, and a lot of it was spent on the marquee
names above, leaving Ray to innovate on his own, as usual. He relented and used
some blue screen optical compositing in the movie, but the print itself has a
lot of day-for-night shots in it that just muddy up the screen and all of Ray’s
lovely stop-motion work.
Tramp's Medusa. Based on the 1964 Hammer Film, "the Gorgon." |
Ray's Medusa. Only one of these monsters makes players shit their pants. |
The third
and final Sinbad movie from the veteran production team of Schneer and
Harryhausen gets frequently overlooked, I suspect, because it came out in the
same year as a little movie you may have heard about called Star Wars,
premiering two months after Luke Skywalker entered the public
consciousness. That’s a shame because
this movie is chock-full of wonders and remains solidly entertaining upon
repeated viewings.
Sinbad the
sailor is tasked with carrying a Princess and her ensorcelled brother (in the
form of a baboon) to a faraway land to meet the guy who’ll take the curse off
of him so he can claim his birthright. Along the way, they are pursued by the
evil witch Zenobia, her son, and their clockwork brass “Minoton,” a mechanical
golem in the shape of the Minotaur of legend, played by none other than Peter
Mayhew. The lands in the north are a
hellscape of crazy creatures, thanks to the magic of Harryhausen, and Patrick
Wayne (yep, John Wayne’s son) does his level best to interact with all of them.
The creature
list for this movie is small but impressive: an oversized troglodyte with a horn on its
head gets a lot of screen time; Patrick Wayne fights a giant saber-toothed tiger,
as well as a trio of bug-eyed ghouls conjured by Zenobia; everyone is surprised
by a giant walrus; and of course, the baboon is stop-motion animated because it
needs to play chess in one scene and a real baboon would have eaten Patrick
Wayne’s face.
The second
Sinbad movie is my least favorite of the three, but that’s not because it’s not
good; rather, it’s just not AS good, as the other two. The wizard Koura, played
by Tom Baker, is trying to open a temple of knowledge that will make him
all-powerful. Naturally, Sinbad and the Vizier of Marabia (wearing a brass
mask, a la Alexandre Dumas) want to get to the temple first. Thus begins the
quest, peppered along the way with frequent stops and wonderful monsters.
John Phillip
Law was a pretty uninspired Sinbad, but do we ever really watch these movies
for the human actors? Okay, Tom Baker is great as the evil sorcerer, but that’s
because he’s Tom Baker. Also in the cast is a Pre-Bond Girl Carolyn Munroe, who
manages to almost compensate for John Phillip Law in her scenes with him.
For DMs
taking notes during the commercial breaks (ahem!) there was a lot to parse out:
a winged homunculus belonging to the wizard Koura kicks the movie off; a
griffin fights a giant one-eyed centaur; a statue of Kali comes to life, each
of her arms wielding a sword; the wooden figurehead on the ship comes to life,
as well, and attacks the crew; and Harryhausen’s patented special effects
process allows the wizard to vanish in the middle of a sword fight, leaving
only the dancing sword weaving and bobbing in mid-air. And then there’s the set
pieces, like the Fountain of Destiny, with green-skinned worshippers and
incredible luminescent effects, courtesy of Harryhausen again.
This is it;
the technical zenith of Ray Harryhausen’s career, for one reason and one reason alone. I
will get to that in a second. For now, this is important, so important, as the
first Greek myth film that Schneer and Harryhausen did, because of all the
touches that found their way into Dungeons and Dragons. Jason has to sail to
Colchis to retrieve a ram’s fleece made of gold, which has magical healing
properties, and so he assembles a team of the world’s most able sailors and
adventurers (the first Olympics--or first super hero team, if you like). His crew includes the Mighty Hercules (no,
really!) and together they battle strange creatures, bargain with gods, and are
hoisted on their own petard by their arrogance—all before they meet Medea and
fight the army of the dead.
Are you freaking
kidding me? This movie holds up. It’s actually pretty close to the voyage of
the Argonauts, with the notable exception that all of the sailors in the
original story had one cool super power they could perform, and those tasks and
feats now all fall to Jason himself in the movie. Todd Armstrong (dubbed by Tim
Turner) plays Jason and he is surrounded by capable actors and stuntmen to help
sell the idea of these guys sailing to the edge of the world. But it’s
Hercules, played by Nigel Green, who nearly steals the movie with his
over-the-top performance. In addition to the usual visual magic (literally, not
figuratively) that is present in all of Harryhausen’s films, Jason and his crew
encounter a pair of harpies, a giant iron statue of Talos, a seven-headed
hydra, and in the finale of the movie, seven animated skeletons.
Harryhausen's masterpiece. This is his own artwork, too. |
This final
sword fight is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. It took Harryhausen four
and a half months to shoot, by himself, not counting the live-action footage he
directed and helped choreograph. This sequence is widely considered to be one
of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, and is name-checked by just about
every animator working today. It’s because of this sequence that we have
animated skeletons in Dungeons and Dragons. You’re welcome, everyone who ever played D&D.
That Genie Kid is the worst. |
This is the
first of Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies and the first of his big fantasy adventure
films—in other words, this film kick-started the best of Ray Harryhausen’s
career. Sinbad and his crew rescue Sokurah the magician from a cyclops, and
they travel with him until they realize what a dick he is. I’m over-simplifying,
I know, but this Sokurah is an asshole, using his magic to transfigure a dancer
into a snake-woman, shrink the Princess Parisa, and double-crosses everyone in
the movie. This guy sucks. Kerwin Matthews is the sun-bronzed but still Caucasian
man of action, pitting all of his wits against the forces of darkness and
rescuing princesses by sailing to the Island of Colussa, where they venture
into the Valley of the Cyclops for mad monster fighting action. Sokurah plays
these guys for suckers and leaves them to do the fighting while he schemes and
kidnaps the Princess, who is still in miniature form.
The movie is
supremely entertaining, even with a child playing the all-powerful genie of the
lamp. Also, I always wondered about the other six voyages. But there’s a lush
storybook quality to the movie and the creatures are top-notch. I cribbed
shamelessly from this movie for my cyclops, and why the hell not? It’s visually
way more interesting than just a big guy with one eye and a club. And
Harryhausen knew it, too. The cyclops remains one of Harryhausen’s most
recognizable characters ever created.
Fun fact: Gene Simmons based his on-stage movements on the Cyclops from 7th Voyage of Sinbad. |
For visual
inspiration, there’s the aforementioned Cyclops, who later in the movie battles
Sokurah’s dragon; a two-headed giant roc; and later, an animated skeleton summoned
by Sokurah. The swordfight with Sinbad and the skeleton is a dynamic piece of
choreography and led directly to the battle sequence in Jason and the Argonauts. The ending is pure schmaltz, but it’s a
fairy tale, so you ignore that and rewind to the parts where the Cyclops is
roasting Sinbad’s men over a fire pit. That’s the kind of thing that made for a
good wilderness encounter in the Valley of the Mage in Greyhawk.
There were
many other Harryhausen movies featuring mega-fauna; giant bees, the prehistoric
moa, and a giant crab, for example, in MysteriousIsland (1961). I suspect these movies are a significant factor for all of the mega-fauna in
D&D. But few fanasy films drove home the magic spell, swashbuckling, and the gods meddling in the affairs of
mortals like the ones mentioned above, and did so in such a way that made the
unbelievable come to life, indelibly imprinting on our emerging Theater of the Mind.
Hey guess what? part 1 of this series can be found right here. Part 3 is right here. Part 4 is here, and Part 5 is here.
If you want to read more encapsulated movie reviews by me, here's a list of Top 5 Horror movies over on Finn's Wake.
Hey guess what? part 1 of this series can be found right here. Part 3 is right here. Part 4 is here, and Part 5 is here.
If you want to read more encapsulated movie reviews by me, here's a list of Top 5 Horror movies over on Finn's Wake.
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