Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
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Speaker 1: now onto the episode at hand.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is a classic episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: This one originally published three ten twenty three. It is
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty one stop motion epic Clash of the Titans.
Speaker 1: If you grew up watching a lot of TBS as
Speaker 1: a kid, you probably watched this movie as many times
Speaker 1: as I did. Let's dive right in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb, and this is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 2: today Ooh, I got an itch for some stop motion animation.
Speaker 2: That was what I was craving this week. Rob, I
Speaker 2: don't know if you're the same way I am. I
Speaker 2: think stop motion monsters are one of my most nostalgic
Speaker 2: film elements. They remind me of when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: I had a VHS tape I think recorded in EP modes,
Speaker 2: a very grainy and low quality, but I had a
Speaker 2: tape of the Ray Harry Howsen movie Sindbad and the
Speaker 2: Eye of the Tiger, which featured battles with stop motion skeletons,
Speaker 2: a stop motion robotic minotaur called the Minoton, all kinds
Speaker 2: of great monsters in it. And so that's what I
Speaker 2: was in the mood for this week, and that led
Speaker 2: us to the selection of Clash of the Titans, another
Speaker 2: Harry Housing classic, not directed by Ray Harry Housen, but
Speaker 2: doing some excellent special effects. We got scorpions, we got
Speaker 2: an all time say top three gorgon Medusa. Let's see
Speaker 2: what else is in there. We got to crack in
Speaker 2: all kinds of good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's like eight different stop motion creatures
Speaker 1: in this, which is about tops for him. I think
Speaker 1: one million years BC a film of his from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, or film that he did special effects on.
Speaker 1: I think that one also had eight different stop motion creatures,
Speaker 1: So it's a it's quite an onslought. This is a
Speaker 1: special effects picture, certainly, and it is very interesting to
Speaker 1: think about in terms of the history of stop motion,
Speaker 1: the legacy of Ray Harry Housen, because this is we'll
Speaker 1: discuss this was his last special effects picture. He retired
Speaker 1: after this, so it's it's really his swan song. And
Speaker 1: it's also very interesting to look at Clash of the
Speaker 1: Titans as kind of the the perfection of a cinematic
Speaker 1: style or technique that was also already going out of
Speaker 1: fashion a little bit. I mean, this wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: end of stop motion effects. We have some fabulous stop
Speaker 1: motion effects that had come out in pictures after this,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that has to do with the
Speaker 1: legacy of Harry Howsen and how influential he was on
Speaker 1: other effects folks. But but yeah, this was this was
Speaker 1: his swan song. This is kind of this film, whatever
Speaker 1: else it happens to be, it is kind of an
Speaker 1: important effects historical marker.
Speaker 2: I was trying to think before we started recording about
Speaker 2: why I love stop motion effects so much for the
Speaker 2: creation of monsters in particular, and I think it has
Speaker 2: something to do with actual artifacts of like how the
Speaker 2: the animation is produced, you know, adding in these still
Speaker 2: frames in sequence to to create the illusion of motion,
Speaker 2: the fact that it's not capturing something that was in
Speaker 2: reality when being filmed in continuous motion, the way that
Speaker 2: say people are when you film them, but was actually
Speaker 2: holding still in each still frame, ends up creating this
Speaker 2: kind of unnatural lack of smoothness in the motion, this
Speaker 2: kind of jerkiness that I think some people have singled
Speaker 2: out about stop motion effects, you know, in a detrimental
Speaker 2: way and saying like, well, you know, it takes away
Speaker 2: from the realism, Like there's always limitations to what you
Speaker 2: can do with stop motion because of that kind of jerkiness.
Speaker 2: But it's exactly that quality that I love about them
Speaker 2: and why I think they make for uncanny creatures, especially
Speaker 2: they're they're really great, especially for monsters and uncanny creatures.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, something about the way they're articulated. It worked
Speaker 1: really well with It works really well with say giant
Speaker 1: crabs and things like that, you know, in and a
Speaker 1: racknets that have that kind of articulation works extremely well.
Speaker 1: Like you said with inhuman monsters, reanimated the skeletons, of course,
Speaker 1: was that Jason and the Argonauts that had the army
Speaker 1: of reanimated skeletons.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's in Jason, But there are also
Speaker 2: some reanimated skeleton monsters in Sinbad and the Eye at
Speaker 2: the Tiger. I remember there's a great battle with them
Speaker 2: where I think Sindbad ends up killing them by like
Speaker 2: kicking over a giant pile of timber of logs and
Speaker 2: they like roll down and crush the skeletons.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And at the same time, though, with Harry Housen especially,
Speaker 1: I mean he and his crew were brave enough to
Speaker 1: go after creatures that were far different from this, things
Speaker 1: like as we'll see in this film, a pegasus, a
Speaker 1: large vulture, things that don't adhere to these qualities and seem,
Speaker 1: at least to my eye, far more ambitious, especially especially
Speaker 1: that pegasus. Really ambitious effect that they went for there,
Speaker 1: and I think they pulled it off well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so exactly the same quality that I
Speaker 2: think makes stop motion great for monsters, I think would
Speaker 2: make it hard to do a really cute, cuddly character.
Speaker 2: In stop motion it would be might be a little
Speaker 2: off putting, but this movie manages it with Bubo, and
Speaker 2: it maybe helps that Bubo is a robot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: cuddle him, but he's very cute. It has a lot
Speaker 1: of personality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might get some cuts and pinches that way.
Speaker 1: He might be a little hot, I mean yeah, considering
Speaker 1: where it came from too.
Speaker 2: So nineteen eighty one Clash of the Titans. Why is
Speaker 2: it called Clash of the Titans? Do you know the
Speaker 2: answer to this? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have the you know, the exact answer. A
Speaker 1: lot of times, you know, it's like, well the producer
Speaker 1: said it should be called this, or sometimes it's the
Speaker 1: It is the original title that was dreampt up. But
Speaker 1: it's always been kind of a perplexing title because if
Speaker 1: you're going into this film with a pre existing, you know,
Speaker 1: head full of Greek myth facts, you're probably gonna say,
Speaker 1: WHOA hold on a minute, there are no Titans in
Speaker 1: this picture. There are no Titans two clash, how is
Speaker 1: it possibly going to deliver on the concept? And well, technically,
Speaker 1: I guess titans do clash in the picture, as long
Speaker 1: as you're willing to stretch the definition of titan and
Speaker 1: really embrace everything the movie tells you.
Speaker 2: I just watched it, and I don't know what you're
Speaker 2: talking to. I only recall the one they called the
Speaker 2: crack in a titan, But what's the other titan?
Speaker 1: They decide that Medusa is a titan as well, oh,
Speaker 1: which is also is also incorrect, equally incorrect, even though
Speaker 1: at least Medusa is from Greek mythology while the Cracking
Speaker 1: is Norse mythology. So if you take their word for it, okay,
Speaker 1: technically these titans will sort of clash. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a strange title, but it's a dynamic title.
Speaker 1: It inspires a lot of action, and we do see
Speaker 1: a lot of action in the picture.
Speaker 2: Well. To be fair, I recall when we did our
Speaker 2: episodes on Medusa, there were different origins stories for Medusa.
Speaker 2: So some say that she was, you know, the priestess
Speaker 2: who was wronged by Poseidon and then and then doubly
Speaker 2: wronged by Athena and cursed. Was it Athena? I think
Speaker 2: it was Athena anyway, But then there's there's another story.
Speaker 2: I think that says that she's just sort of one
Speaker 2: of the primordial monsters that was given birth to by
Speaker 2: some other combination of critters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as is always the case, And we've
Speaker 1: discussed some unstuff toable your mind a lot. With myths,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's there's Generally there may be famous
Speaker 1: accounts and famous attempts to sort of create a canonical
Speaker 1: version of a particular story, but generally there are lots
Speaker 1: of different stories regarding these these beings and these these
Speaker 1: stories and these gods and goddesses and heroes, and then
Speaker 1: at some point somebody comes along and kind of cobbles
Speaker 1: them together, and ultimately, I mean that's what a film
Speaker 1: like Clash of the Titans does. It cobbles them together
Speaker 1: and takes characters from other myth cycles, other traditions, and
Speaker 1: other cultures and works them into the mix, which all
Speaker 1: so is exactly what has been done in mythology and
Speaker 1: folklore and religion since time out of mind.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I guess that's one of the really fun
Speaker 2: things about say Greek mythology, for instance, which is that
Speaker 2: there is no canon of Greek mythology. You know, Greek
Speaker 2: mythology never had like a pope that could say like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the approved version of the story, and other
Speaker 2: versions of the story are not authoritative, that didn't exist,
Speaker 2: So you've just always had different versions of the stories,
Speaker 2: different takes on these characters and themes, and so this
Speaker 2: is another one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like we we mentioned in our episodes on
Speaker 1: the Medusa several years back, and if you want a
Speaker 1: deep dive into Medusa or a deeper dive into Medusa mythology,
Speaker 1: like that's the place to go. We're not going to
Speaker 1: spend as much time with it here. But you know,
Speaker 1: in that we point out that it's you see literary
Speaker 1: traditions regarding these these stories and these characters, and then
Speaker 1: it's just like whatever ends up sticking in people's minds
Speaker 1: the most. And interestingly enough, I remember one of the
Speaker 1: authors we looked at for the Medusa episodes point out
Speaker 1: doubt that Clash of the Titans presents a version of
Speaker 1: the Perseus versus Medusa's story that has really stuck in
Speaker 1: the modern film moviegoer's mind.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it is a new authoritative version of
Speaker 2: the myth because of how popular it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or at least for a certain generation. I don't
Speaker 1: know what. I don't know how people are watching or
Speaker 1: how often they're watching Clash of the Titans today, But
Speaker 1: growing up watching a lot of like TBS and TNT
Speaker 1: on cable, I feel like they showed this movie every week.
Speaker 1: It was just always on television. You could always watch
Speaker 1: some part of Clash of the Titan. You might not
Speaker 1: ever watch it beginning to end, but you know, you
Speaker 1: spend a few years watching television, you're going to see
Speaker 1: all of it at least two or three times, even
Speaker 1: if you're just catching a little bits of it.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually never saw the whole thing until
Speaker 2: I was older.
Speaker 1: Well, I say I didn't see all of it always,
Speaker 1: or I thought I had, And then when I went
Speaker 1: to watch it with my years back, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize there was so much nudity in this
Speaker 1: film because that was always cut from the Turner broadcast.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's very tame nudity. It's like
Speaker 1: PG rated nudity, but there is a little bit of
Speaker 1: nudity in there. You know.
Speaker 2: One thing I definitely would not have appreciated if I
Speaker 2: had seen this movie when I was younger, is what
Speaker 2: a treasure trove the cast is or I don't know
Speaker 2: if it should even say that the full cast. I mean,
Speaker 2: this movie is full of things you might call cameos
Speaker 2: where a well known actor or actresses is brought in
Speaker 2: to have like I don't know, like one or two lines,
Speaker 2: or even no lines, just be on screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are actors who do get a fair amount
Speaker 1: of screen time in this film and have some great lines,
Speaker 1: and then the yeah, there are others that are just
Speaker 1: kind of standing around or they have just just a
Speaker 1: few moments on screen. So, yeah, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: one where we might not spend as much time with
Speaker 1: every member of the cast, but we'll try and mention
Speaker 1: everybody of note as we move forward towards the plot section.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, I guess we should make
Speaker 1: up just a couple of notes here. Well, first, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and listen to the trailer so we can
Speaker 1: get just a splash of the audio from Clash of
Speaker 1: the Titans.
Speaker 4: In an ancient age before recorded time, men were measured
Speaker 4: by their courage and women by their beauty. Mighty gods
Speaker 4: ruled the universe, and fear and destruction covered the world.
Speaker 4: It was a time of darkness when only the force
Speaker 4: of love could bring back the light. Now Metro Goldwyn
Speaker 4: Mayer presents Clash of the Titans a sweeping ledger of
Speaker 4: a golden age. Soon the motion picture epic of our time.
Speaker 4: Enter into the wondrous world of Perseus and Andromeda. A
Speaker 4: world of passion and power, beauty and bravery, mystery and magic,
Speaker 4: a world that transcends fantasy and leaps into legend. One
Speaker 4: courageous man rides between an angry heaven and the fury
Speaker 4: of hell on Earth. He rides a winged stallion across
Speaker 4: the sky. He rides to save the one who owns
Speaker 4: his heart. He rides towards wonders no man has ever seen,
Speaker 4: and terrors no man has ever faced. Clash of the Titans,
Speaker 4: starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Ursula andres Burgis, Meredith Claire
Speaker 4: Bloom and introducing Harry Hamlin as Perseus and Judy Balker
Speaker 4: as Andromeda. It will touch you, shock you, dazzle your senses,
Speaker 4: and sweep you to the limits.
Speaker 2: Of your imagination.
Speaker 4: Clash of the Titans.
Speaker 1: Very sweeping, very very mythic, very nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: I think the trailer should have had Jefferson starship in it.
Speaker 1: It's important to note, and this is I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't approach this film without realizing that it of course
Speaker 1: comes out in the wake of Star Wars, the massive
Speaker 1: hit with Star Wars comes a few years later. There
Speaker 1: are aspects of the picture that are clearly going after
Speaker 1: that Star Wars money, kind of going after that Star
Speaker 1: Wars vibe.
Speaker 2: I had the same thought, and one of the things
Speaker 2: that really jumped out at me was the character of Bubo,
Speaker 2: the robotic owl created by Hephaistus, modeled on the organic
Speaker 2: owl of Athena. This struck me as obviously R two
Speaker 2: D two with wings. Did you have the same thought.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, absolutely, It's clearly an attempt to cash in
Speaker 1: on that droid magic. It even speaks like a droid.
Speaker 1: It kind of speaks in its own kind of like
Speaker 1: droid whirls and beeps and so forth. And we also
Speaker 1: get to the point where Perseus can understand the owl
Speaker 1: when it's speaking to him, and so we get these
Speaker 1: kind of like human droid interactions like we see in
Speaker 1: Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I also thought Perseus in this movie seemed
Speaker 2: to me strongly influenced by Luke Skywalker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but without that sort of I don't know, definitely
Speaker 1: some different Like it's kind of it's weird to go
Speaker 1: back and look at at Luke in the first Star
Speaker 1: Wars film and decide how you feel about him, because
Speaker 1: he's more flawed and relatable, you know, he's like a
Speaker 1: kind of yeah, a grumpy, he's a grumpy team and
Speaker 1: Perseus is the son of a god who gets a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff handed to him, and so Percus spends
Speaker 1: a lot of the film not being particularly relatable, I think,
Speaker 1: but we can discuss that as we move forward.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's kind of a problem that
Speaker 2: exists in the core myth like unlike Luke Skywalker, he
Speaker 2: doesn't have that sense of lacking and yearning, you know,
Speaker 2: he's just grated everything from the get go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, before we move forward, if you're wanting
Speaker 1: to watch this film for yourself, well, where can you
Speaker 1: find it? Well, first of all, make sure you put
Speaker 1: that nineteen eighty one in there, because otherwise you can
Speaker 1: end up watch and the remake. I think the remake
Speaker 1: comes up first in search, but that's a crime.
Speaker 2: I haven't even seen it. I don't know why I
Speaker 2: judge that I just know without watching it that it's awful.
Speaker 1: All I can say for it is that you have
Speaker 1: computer animated monsters instead of stop motion monsters. You have
Speaker 1: what a lemon Essen is in it, and so is
Speaker 1: uh Ray Findes is in it as well. He plays Hades,
Speaker 1: who isn't in the Hades doesn't factor into this one,
Speaker 1: but he pops up in the remake, and so they're fine.
Speaker 1: You have those are two great actors. Put them in
Speaker 1: some shiny and weird armor and they're they're they're cool.
Speaker 1: But then there's also like a scene where the new
Speaker 1: Perseus finds a robotic owl in like a trash can
Speaker 1: or something and he's like no, thank you and like
Speaker 1: shuts it, and it's like, yeah, it's clearly it has
Speaker 1: the the opinion that it doesn't need to be cute
Speaker 1: and impressive and needs just to be like it just
Speaker 1: needs to be like hard and an action packed.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I think I enjoyed it when I watched it,
Speaker 1: and it's worth watching Dreguess for a couple of performances,
Speaker 1: but it's not as fun and touchable as this film.
Speaker 2: Love, a CGI laden remake that just gets in some
Speaker 2: digs at the old movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was the main dig but it
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I didn't. It rubbed me the wrong
Speaker 1: way for sure. Yeah. So where can you watch this
Speaker 1: film if you want to watch it? Well, if what
Speaker 1: I know for my own experience is still true, I
Speaker 1: would say turn on TBS now, go ahead and flip
Speaker 1: the TNT whichever channel it's on, go ahead and watch
Speaker 1: it there. But if it's not available to you on
Speaker 1: television right now, you can rent or buy this pretty
Speaker 1: much anywhere in any way that you get your films.
Speaker 2: This is not one of our more obscure choices. It's
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's jump into the humans involved. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do things a little different here and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to hit all the behind the scenes folks right
Speaker 1: at the top. So the director of this is Desmond Davis,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty twenty one, British
Speaker 1: camera operator turned writer and director. His first directorial credit
Speaker 1: was nineteen sixty four's Girl with Green Eyes, starring Peter
Speaker 1: Finch and Rita Tushingham. One of his immediate follow ups
Speaker 1: was nineteen sixty six Is Time Lost and Time Remembered
Speaker 1: aka I Was Happy There and nineteen sixty seven Smashing Time.
Speaker 1: The first two of these at least seemed to be
Speaker 1: like really well remembered, at least within their own genre.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of maybe a snapshot of kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, really cool sixties London type of stuff.
Speaker 1: He also directed the nineteen eighty four Donald Sutherland thriller
Speaker 1: Ordeal by Innocence, and then an adaptation of the Sherlock
Speaker 1: Holmes tale The Sign of Four starring Ian Richardson in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. He also did a lot of TV work.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've seen any of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm certainly haven't seen the older pictures. I might
Speaker 1: have seen the Sign of Four. I'm not sure. I'd
Speaker 1: have to go back and really look at some screenshots.
Speaker 2: Who's Sherlock in that one? Is? Is that a Jeremy
Speaker 2: Brett movie?
Speaker 1: I believe it's an Ian Richardson. Oh you already said that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yeah, Jeremy Brett. All of those were for TV,
Speaker 1: and they did the Sign of Four at one point.
Speaker 1: All right. The writer on this is Beverly Cross, who
Speaker 1: have nineteen thirty one through nineteen ninety eight English playwright
Speaker 1: and screenwriter longtime husband of actor Maggie Smith, who is
Speaker 1: also in this picture. Until his death. His screenplays include
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three's Jason and the Argonauts, nineteen sixty five's
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan starring Omar Sharif in nineteen seventy seven Sinbad
Speaker 1: and the Eye of the Tiger or in the Eye
Speaker 1: of the Tiger. I can't remember what his relationship to
Speaker 1: the yet.
Speaker 2: I don't think they could fit him in the Eye
Speaker 2: of the Time. No, yeah, it's and of the Eye
Speaker 2: of the Tiger again. That movie is incredibly dopey, some
Speaker 2: very questionable casting decisions, but it's also a heck of
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. It's got great monsters and all that.
Speaker 1: Creator of visual effects on this and also a producer
Speaker 1: of the film is Ray Harry Housen, who we mentioned
Speaker 1: already lived nineteen twenty through twenty thirteen. You know, I
Speaker 1: believe this is our first Harry Housen film.
Speaker 2: I know he's come up on the show before, but
Speaker 2: I don't remember what movie that was. In the context
Speaker 2: of maybe we were just talking about something else that'd
Speaker 2: stop motion in it. But oh man, I literally get
Speaker 2: warm feelings inside just hearing the name Ray Harry Housen,
Speaker 2: like it sends those kind of like those jets of
Speaker 2: warm water through my chest.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it even kind of sounds like it, right, Housen,
Speaker 1: you're a you're at home and Harry, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like rubbed the fur.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you have it, ever been into movie monsters
Speaker 1: and special effects, then you know the name. He was
Speaker 1: an American British Oscar winning animator and special effects creator
Speaker 1: who is a major pioneer in the industry and created
Speaker 1: the dynamation approach to stop motion. I remember talking with
Speaker 1: Seth about this on one of the Weird Houses that
Speaker 1: he appeared on, probably the probably the one we were
Speaker 1: talking about Alice. But it seems like everybody that did
Speaker 1: stop motion they had some sort of cool name for
Speaker 1: it that wasn't stop motion. Almost like there was a
Speaker 1: rejection of the term stop motion, like it sounded too
Speaker 1: boring or something, or maybe they just, you know, just
Speaker 1: needed something you can copyright to call it. I don't
Speaker 1: know anyway. Harry Housen's credits, You know, I usually don't
Speaker 1: list everything. I'm just going to go and list I
Speaker 1: think all the major films that he did here forty nine,
Speaker 1: Mighty Joe Young fifty three, The Beast from twenty thousand
Speaker 1: fathoms fifty five It came from beneath the Sea fifty six,
Speaker 1: The Animal World also in fifty six, Earth versus the
Speaker 1: Flying Saucers fifty seven, twenty million Years to Earth fifty eight,
Speaker 1: The Seventh Voyage of the Sinbad nineteen sixty, The Three
Speaker 1: Worlds of Gulliver nineteen sixty one, Mysterious Island that has
Speaker 1: got a Yeah, sixty three, Jason and the Argonaut sixty four,
Speaker 1: First Men in the Moon one million years BC in
Speaker 1: sixty six, The Valley of Guangy in sixty nine, The
Speaker 1: Golden Voyage of Sinbad in seventy three, Sinbad and the
Speaker 1: Eye of the Tiger in nineteen seventy seven, and then
Speaker 1: wraps it all up in eighty one with Clash of
Speaker 1: the Titans.
Speaker 2: We may have to come back and do at least
Speaker 2: one of these other ones at some point, because I
Speaker 2: just love these monsters so much.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, there's so many just iconic monster designs.
Speaker 1: They have so much character to them, and you've missed
Speaker 1: that kind of thing when you're watching something like the
Speaker 1: luf Riigno Hercules movie that we covered, which is a
Speaker 1: very fine, very very exciting picture, but with the stop
Speaker 1: motion and that doesn't hold a candle to this.
Speaker 2: That one did have some great visual flare, but yeah,
Speaker 2: not so much. In the Monsters. Yeah, who is that
Speaker 2: character who is like, oh, I don't know, some kind
Speaker 2: of like wizard who lived down on an asteroid or something.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's what's like supposed to be datalist?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was great?
Speaker 1: All right, real quickly. The music in this is by
Speaker 1: Lawrence Rosenthal born nineteen twenty six, prolific Oscar nominated in
Speaker 1: Any winning composer who worked in TV, film, and stage.
Speaker 1: His film scores include A Raisin in the Sun, The
Speaker 1: Miracle Worker Beckett, and the nineteen seventy seven adaptation of
Speaker 1: the Island of Doctor Moreau. Father of noted stem cell
Speaker 1: scientist Professor Nadia Rosenthal. The music in this is very
Speaker 1: epic and sweeping, and you know, it does its shop.
Speaker 1: What can you say?
Speaker 2: All right now when it comes to the cast, this
Speaker 2: is going to be the story of Perseus and Medusa.
Speaker 2: So Perseus, you gotta have you a fresh hunk, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, no, no, old hunks will do yep.
Speaker 1: And the fresh one they had here was Harry Hamlin.
Speaker 1: I believe the credits are the credits of the trailer
Speaker 1: for get what jof Han say and introducing Harry Hamlin.
Speaker 2: Just removed from his original packaging.
Speaker 1: And you know, as is often the case, it kind
Speaker 1: of feels that way. With the performance. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: good in this, but and to be fair, he's playing Perseus,
Speaker 1: a hero, a son of a god, so there are
Speaker 1: how do you play that in a way that's relatable.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think various shows where I've seen someone
Speaker 1: portraying Perseus, and but Perseus is it's kind of a
Speaker 1: big lift to make this feel like a real person.
Speaker 1: So Harry Hamlin does as fine a job as you
Speaker 1: might expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be honest, and I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: especially because I can say good things about his later career,
Speaker 2: I don't think his acting is stellar in this movie.
Speaker 2: He's kind of a slab. He like, he stands there
Speaker 2: and he's handsome and ooh, look at his shoulders and
Speaker 2: all that. He does not really do a great job
Speaker 2: of acting, I will say, but in his later career
Speaker 2: he did lots of stuff where I thought he was great.
Speaker 2: He was great in Madmen, he was great on Veronica Mars.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what. I guess he was
Speaker 2: just very young here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, undoubtedly he was very young. I
Speaker 1: think he'd only been I think he'd done some stage.
Speaker 1: He'd had one movie appearance before this. But yeah, went
Speaker 1: on to be known more for again mad Men. He
Speaker 1: was in La Law for the first five seasons of that.
Speaker 1: I would say that I'll come back to this, but
Speaker 1: I think there's one sequence in the film where his
Speaker 1: performance is definitely better than the rest of the picture,
Speaker 1: and I think it's also the best sequence in the
Speaker 1: entire film, So we'll discuss in a bit. But he
Speaker 1: also has some interesting science connections as well. I didn't
Speaker 1: know about this, but his grandfather, Chauncey Jerome Hamlin, founded
Speaker 1: the Buffalo Museum of Science, and his father, Chauncey Jerome
Speaker 1: Hamlin Junior, was an aeronautical engineer who helped design the
Speaker 1: Saturn rocket with doctor Verner von Braun. And yeah, Harry
Speaker 1: himself apparently co founded the Fusion Power Company or co
Speaker 1: founded the Fusion Power Company TAE Technologies in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: Wow, So yeah, not know he had fusion power connections.
Speaker 1: I had no idea either, but it's listed in more
Speaker 1: than one place, so I don't think I'm just being
Speaker 1: scammed on that. All right, Let's see other mortals of
Speaker 1: note in the picture. Well, Sean Phillips born nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: isn't it as Cassiopeia?
Speaker 2: Okay, so she's playing the queen of the City of Joppa,
Speaker 2: the mother of Princess Andromeda.
Speaker 1: Right right. And Sean Phillips is notable because well, I
Speaker 1: mean she was Reverend Mother Gaya's Helen Mohiam and David
Speaker 1: Lynch's Dune in nineteen eighty four, and she was also
Speaker 1: the Witch of Indoor in Ewok's The Battle for Indoor
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five. Terrific. In both of those, she's
Speaker 1: a fun actor. Even if she doesn't she does get
Speaker 1: to be a little like she does like a stern
Speaker 1: sort of female mild villain role really well, you know,
Speaker 1: like she has that definite sternness to it because in
Speaker 1: this she's like, Okay, I will sacrifice my daughter to
Speaker 1: the kraken. It's what the gods want, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 2: And Before that, there's a scene where she earns the
Speaker 2: wrath of Maggie Smith by just standing in front of
Speaker 2: a statue of Maggie Smith of the Goddess Thetis, and
Speaker 2: just being like, by the way, my daughter who's about
Speaker 2: to have her wedding day is more beautiful than the
Speaker 2: goddess I'm standing in front of right now. And of
Speaker 2: course then the ground begins to shake and all that.
Speaker 2: So bad call, bad call.
Speaker 1: Yes, So she's a lot of fun in the picture.
Speaker 1: Judy Bockner plays and drama. Born nineteen fifty four, English actor,
Speaker 1: probably best known for this film, but she was also
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy seven Luis Jardin Dracula movie and
Speaker 1: Franco Zephyrelli's brother son Sister Moon in seventy two.
Speaker 2: Okay, so she plays Andromeda, the princess of the City
Speaker 2: of Jappa, who in the original story she's rescued by Perseus.
Speaker 2: Though I like how in this version of the story
Speaker 2: there's more of a complicated backstory with the whole you know,
Speaker 2: her previous betrothal to what's his name, Calibos and all
Speaker 2: that that we'll get to in a bit.
Speaker 1: All right, one, Well, there are two more mortals of note,
Speaker 1: but the most important mortal to discuss here is Amon,
Speaker 1: who is what's supposed to be a like a Greek
Speaker 1: dramatist turned sort of. I don't know. He's just up
Speaker 1: for adventures, right, He's kind of a rogue.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: interpreted him as I guess, a fictionalized version of Escalus
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I guess. He's kind of a bard, kind
Speaker 1: of the bard of the party here. And he is
Speaker 1: played by the terrific American actor of theater, film, and television,
Speaker 1: Burgess Meredith of nineteen o seven through nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: You gotta fight the Gorgan Rock You gotta fight.
Speaker 1: Out, that's right. Many people will know him best for
Speaker 1: his role as the coach Mickey Goldmill in the Rocky franchise,
Speaker 1: or at least the first three pictures, but he was
Speaker 1: in so many things, like he played the penguin in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties TV series Batman. One of his other
Speaker 1: really iconic roles is playing the character Henry Demas in
Speaker 1: the classic Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last. This
Speaker 1: is the one about the guy who survives the apocalypse
Speaker 1: and then he survives the destruction of humanity and all lenses,
Speaker 1: and then he thinks he gets to read all the
Speaker 1: books in the library, but then he breaks his glasses
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, the tragedy, and you know, it's great,
Speaker 1: but it's a famous episode.
Speaker 2: I was just trying to remember what happens to his
Speaker 2: character at the end of his arc in the Rocky movies,
Speaker 2: and I think, unless I'm remembering wrong, that in Rocky three,
Speaker 2: mister t is so rude to him that he like
Speaker 2: has a heart attack and dies.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, really something like that. Well, like I said,
Speaker 1: he was in tons of stuff. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: try and list anywhere near all of it here, but
Speaker 1: I will say he's in nineteen eighty five Santa Claus
Speaker 1: the movie. On top of some other things. He's he's
Speaker 1: a tremendous actor, and he's terrific in this film. So
Speaker 1: this is a film that features a lot of exposition,
Speaker 1: a young Hank who's very green, and then a lot
Speaker 1: of stoic hero and god speak, you know, but Meredith
Speaker 1: makes you believe virtually every line he delivers. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a masterclass in breathing life into lines that could
Speaker 1: otherwise fall completely flat.
Speaker 2: I agree. Yes, this is a quality we often see
Speaker 2: in older actors and actresses, who like, once you've been
Speaker 2: doing it long enough, you kind of acquire a sort
Speaker 2: of cumulative magic that allows you to transcend the written
Speaker 2: material you're given. I rarely notice this quality in younger actors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is exactly why you bring in
Speaker 1: an older character actor like Burgess Meredith to play a
Speaker 1: role like this and to work with the younger, more
Speaker 1: inexperienced actors and sort of bring something out of them.
Speaker 1: All right. One other mortal of note, and that is
Speaker 1: Tim Pigott Smith who lived nineteen forty six through twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: He plays Thallow. This is kind of our He's kind
Speaker 1: of like the miscellaneous guard dude that lasts the longest
Speaker 1: in the picture. You know, he's just a member of
Speaker 1: the party. Just he's like the fighter of the party.
Speaker 2: He's a soldier in a big soldier's helmet wearing a
Speaker 2: hilariously short skirt.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I was, you know, I always love
Speaker 1: checking out The IMDb user submitted parental warnings about the picture,
Speaker 1: and one of them was that saying that the the
Speaker 1: star of this film Harry hamlin Is. I think believe
Speaker 1: they said mostly nude the entire picture, and it's likely
Speaker 1: he's not really mostly. I don't know if i'd say
Speaker 1: he's mostly nude, but yes, he, like a lot of
Speaker 1: characters in the film, is you know, often wearing a
Speaker 1: very short outfit. Anyway, Tim Pickott Smith here is the
Speaker 1: kind of actor I'd probably spend more time talking about
Speaker 1: in another picture that's not so loaded, but suffice to say,
Speaker 1: accomplished English actor with a long career on stage, screen
Speaker 1: and TV, and in the later stages of his career
Speaker 1: he appeared in such big partout auctions as Gangs of
Speaker 1: New York from two thousand and two, Alexander from two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, v for Vendetta from two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and The Quantum of Solace from two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: All Right, moving on, let's get to some monsters. We
Speaker 1: mentioned Calibos already. This is the tragic beast man villain
Speaker 1: positioned as the son of Thedus instead of Achilles, who's
Speaker 1: actually her son in various Greek myths. But instead this
Speaker 1: character is actually based on Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Speaker 2: The Caliban connection makes sense because so while Calibos is
Speaker 2: of course one of the villains of the movie, he
Speaker 2: does a lot of evil and he lashes out for revenge,
Speaker 2: he's also a character like you feel his pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I remember this from watching this movie as
Speaker 1: a kid, even like, I sympathize with Calibos a lot,
Speaker 1: and part of that was like, yeah, he's the monster
Speaker 1: character in a movie full of a lot of humanoid characters.
Speaker 1: But I think also it's just baked into the movie.
Speaker 1: The movie stresses that, yeah, he did some terrible things,
Speaker 1: but also the gods have been potentially unfair to him
Speaker 1: and have punished him with this monstrous transformation.
Speaker 2: There's like a whole scene on Mount Olympus where the
Speaker 2: gods are talking about how, oh, if he'd been the
Speaker 2: son of Zeus and he'd done all the same stuff,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have gotten punished.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Zeus is light, but he's not and yeah,
Speaker 1: oh god, we'll get to Zeus in a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, anyway, Calibos is played by Neil McCarthy, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen thirty two through nineteen eighty five, And yeah,
Speaker 1: had a very distinct face, so you'll recognize him from
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures. He was in sixty eight's Where
Speaker 1: Eagles Dare nineteen sixty four Zulu, and he was in
Speaker 1: Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits from nineteen eighty one. Other monsters
Speaker 1: in this picture that are played by human beings we
Speaker 1: have the Stygian witches. So there are three witches. We
Speaker 1: talk about these, these characters that they're based on a
Speaker 1: good bit in the Medusa episode. But these are the
Speaker 1: three blind witches that Percus has to go to in
Speaker 1: order to find them a do so so essentially, and
Speaker 1: they're played by Flora Robson who lived nineteen oh two
Speaker 1: through nineteen eighty four, Anna Manahan who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: four through two thousand and nine, and Freda Jackson who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen oh seven through nineteen ninety. Great witch performances
Speaker 1: by all three, though I do not know which one
Speaker 1: is which because they're all they all have a lot
Speaker 1: of makeup on but and they all three have very
Speaker 1: packed filmographies. So maybe in the future we'll hit on
Speaker 1: a movie that has one of them in it and
Speaker 1: we'll refer back to it. But suffice to say, great
Speaker 1: witch scene. Three great witches here.
Speaker 2: Very much agree that they are great, but they kind
Speaker 2: of act as one. They're not very individually distinctive by design.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I think we've said this before.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it is. There is a lot
Speaker 1: of sexism in the whole Older female actors end up
Speaker 1: playing witches in a lot of pictures, but when they
Speaker 1: do it really well, you gotta give them credit. And
Speaker 1: all three of these witches are great. All right, let's
Speaker 1: move on to the gods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of sexism, let's get to Zeus.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, he is the king of the gods,
Speaker 1: so we have to start with him, and yeah, he
Speaker 1: is pretty sexist. But yeah, this is the great Lawrence
Speaker 1: Olivier playing Zeus. Lawrence Olivia, of course, lived nineteen oh
Speaker 1: seventh through nineteen eighty nine, one of the biggest British
Speaker 1: acting names of the twentieth century, appearing in Clash as
Speaker 1: the Greek king of the gods in What I'm to
Speaker 1: Understand was largely a favor to co star Maggie Smith
Speaker 1: and her husband.
Speaker 2: Okay, so her husband wrote the movie and decided to
Speaker 2: really play up the part of the goddess Thetis and
Speaker 2: then have his wife cast in that role, and then
Speaker 2: get their friend Lawrence Olivier to play Zeus, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, what I've that's what I've read. That being said though,
Speaker 1: and also taking into the fact that apparently Olivier was
Speaker 1: sick during the filming, I think he's really good in this.
Speaker 1: Like it's yes, he's playing he's playing a god, he's
Speaker 1: playing Zeus, and he may he doesn't feel like he's
Speaker 1: going through the motions. Maybe he was, and that's just
Speaker 1: how good he was as an actor. But I feel
Speaker 1: like there's some wonderful dimensions to this performance as this egotistical,
Speaker 1: calmly threatening tyrant who is also not the villain of
Speaker 1: the piece.
Speaker 2: No, it's interesting. Yeah, you're right, he's not the villain,
Speaker 2: even though a lot of what's happening in the movie
Speaker 2: is a result of his capriciousness and hypocrisy. And there's
Speaker 2: just just it's kind of accepted, sort of as a
Speaker 2: law of nature that Zeus is just completely unfair and
Speaker 2: that's just the reality. It's like the Yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: the reality everybody has to deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like the scene I think it's very pronouncing,
Speaker 1: the scene where he asked Athena to give up her
Speaker 1: owl to Perseus and she doesn't want to but he's like,
Speaker 1: but it's my wish, and he does it in this
Speaker 1: way where it's like it oh, it's just so good.
Speaker 1: He hits it perfectly well.
Speaker 2: Also the backstory is hilarious because Athena already gave Perseus
Speaker 2: a helmet that would make him invisible. Good, right, that's
Speaker 2: that's a good Christmas present, And Percys, He's like, well
Speaker 2: I lost it, dropped it in the swamp. So Zeus
Speaker 2: is like, you will get my little boy a new present.
Speaker 1: Yes, give him your toy, give him your favorite thing.
Speaker 1: And you know she has to do it, but she
Speaker 1: finds a loophole anyway. Lawrence Olivier tons of pictures that
Speaker 1: he was in. He was, of course a major Shakespearean
Speaker 1: actor of stage and screen, and his credits and compass
Speaker 1: everything from the likes of nineteen forties Rebecca directed by
Speaker 1: Alfred Hitchcock, forty eight's Hamlet, and also such a later
Speaker 1: day largely I guess genre hits such as nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight's The Boys from Brazil. Nineteen seventy six is Marathon
Speaker 1: Man in nineteen seventy two Sleuth.
Speaker 2: He is the diabolical Nazi dentist in Marathon Man.
Speaker 1: Right, and he's a Nazi hunter in The Boys from Brazil,
Speaker 1: so I guess you know they bounce out Boys from Brazil.
Speaker 1: Of course, is the they tried to clone Hitler movie.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've never seen that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's oh, it's it's I haven't seen it in
Speaker 1: a while, but I remember thinking it was good. It
Speaker 1: has Gregory Peck in it. Gregory Peck plays doctor Mangela
Speaker 1: on the run. Yeah, all right, other gods and try
Speaker 1: and run through some of these quickly because okay, we
Speaker 1: have hair Out played by Claire Bloom born nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: known for such films as fifty two's Limelight, sixty three
Speaker 1: is The Haunting, in twenty ten's The King's Speech, Still active,
Speaker 1: still going at it. Doesn't do much in this picture.
Speaker 2: She's got like three lines maybe yep.
Speaker 1: But then we have Maggie Smith again playing Thedus born
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four. Yeah, legendary Maggie Smith, known probably more
Speaker 1: to modern fans for her roles in Gosford Park, Dalton
Speaker 1: Abbey and the Harry Potter franchise. But she's had a
Speaker 1: very long career and is also still active. She has
Speaker 1: upcoming pictures coming down the pipe, and she's been active
Speaker 1: on TV and screen since nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: Maggie Smith is great in this She's great in everything
Speaker 2: I've ever seen her in. She's always excellent, and her
Speaker 2: character is really interesting because you see her from two
Speaker 2: completely different sides to the human characters. She's basically a villain,
Speaker 2: like she imposes the need to sacrifice Princess Andromeda to
Speaker 2: the Kraken as she speaks out of a statue to
Speaker 2: lay a curse upon the city. But then you also
Speaker 2: see the other side, which is that on Mount Olympus
Speaker 2: she's the underdog. You feel for her, and you see
Speaker 2: that Zeus mistreats her. So she appears both as a
Speaker 2: kind of sympathetic hero and as an end as a cruel,
Speaker 2: overbearing villain, depending on whether your point of view is
Speaker 2: earthly or heavenly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So she definitely gets a lot of screen
Speaker 1: time and has ultimately a really well defined character. And
Speaker 1: then on the other end of the spectrum we have
Speaker 1: Ursula Andres as Aphrodite born nineteen thirty six. She only
Speaker 1: has like one line in this film, but the Swiss
Speaker 1: model turned actor was a major sex symbol of her
Speaker 1: time with a breakout role in nineteen sixty two's Doctor
Speaker 1: No Bond film. Her other credits are kind of all
Speaker 1: over the place, like, for instance, she's in Sergio Martino's
Speaker 1: Slave of the Cannibal God from nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: I was not prepared for this. On rewatching, I was
Speaker 2: like Ursula andres Oh. I guess she was excited to
Speaker 2: see her in this movie. She says like one thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just one line. And I think she was
Speaker 1: pretty highly built in the picture too. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: other gods, we've still got multiple guns to go here.
Speaker 1: God packed this movie, but we have Poseidon, a severely
Speaker 1: I think depowered Poseidon, played by Jack Gwillam, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine through two thousand and one. He had
Speaker 1: parts in sixty twos Lawrence of Arabia, seventies Patent, He
Speaker 1: played Van Helsing in nineteen eighty seven's The Monster Squad,
Speaker 1: and he was also in such films as nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: Cromwell nineteen sixty six is a Man for All Seasons
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, It's the Curse of the Mummies Tomb.
Speaker 2: A Man for all Seasons is that the one that
Speaker 2: has that has Robert Shaw as Henry the Eighth.
Speaker 1: I believe that's right. I've seen this film before, but
Speaker 1: it's been a while. Yeah, Robert Shaw and a pretty
Speaker 1: stacked cast. I mean, you got people like John Hurt
Speaker 1: and at Orson Wells, et cetera. A really good cast.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they brought in another heavy hitter to play Poseidon.
Speaker 2: And does Poseidon even have one line? I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I think he speaks, but yeah, he's a very meek
Speaker 1: Poseidon like basically his role is to go down in
Speaker 1: the water and call up the kraken. Once Zeus has
Speaker 1: said released the kraken, so's he's the one who actually
Speaker 1: does the releasing. So, especially given how powerful Poseidon is
Speaker 1: in many of the traditions of Greek mythology, he really
Speaker 1: he really feels deepowered here.
Speaker 2: But I would say, in this film, Maggie Smith as
Speaker 2: they just fills the role that would have been played
Speaker 2: by Poseidon.
Speaker 1: Hmm, yeah, I think I think you're right. That role
Speaker 1: ends up absorbing a lot of the power from various
Speaker 1: other figures in it in the film. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: another one, another major character from mythology, Athena, the goddess Athena,
Speaker 1: is in this played by Susan Fleetwood who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: forty four through nineteen ninety five. Her other credits include
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties The Craze, This is the one about the Underworld,
Speaker 1: The London Underworld Twins, nineteen eighty five's Young Sherlock Holmes,
Speaker 1: and she's in apparently in Tarkovsky's nineteen eighty six film
Speaker 1: The Sacrifice, which, as I remember, is very haunting and
Speaker 1: heavy and also very long.
Speaker 2: I love Tarkowski, but I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's kind of a it's good, it's
Speaker 1: a deep picture. I saw it in college. I got
Speaker 1: to see it on the big screen.
Speaker 2: But judging by this movie, Okay, Athena, what's she got
Speaker 2: us of, you know, like wisdom, crafts, war or any
Speaker 2: of that stuff. No, I think she's got us of
Speaker 2: owls in this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Goddess of pet ownership, basically, that's all she does.
Speaker 2: Goddess of veterinary practice.
Speaker 1: Oh but we also have one more god, We have
Speaker 1: a Festus in this played by Pat Roach Big Pat
Speaker 1: Roach who lived nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: He plays the robot owl repairman of the gods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean he is the one you would,
Speaker 1: I guess, go to for this sort of thing if
Speaker 1: if you can't get a hold of data lists, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to keep it in Mount Olympus, then
Speaker 1: he's the one to go to. Well he didn't he
Speaker 1: train datalists. I'll given some of the traditions.
Speaker 2: Oh maybe anyway.
Speaker 1: Pat Roach British wrestler turned actor who's really in tons
Speaker 1: of nostalgic flicks from the eighties and nineties. I think
Speaker 1: one of the big ones that most people are familiar
Speaker 1: with is he of course plays that German mechanic that
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones fistfights underneath the propeller driven airplane in Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Last Lost Arc in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it gets turned into Nazi soup by the propeller.
Speaker 1: He's I think he's actually in all three of the
Speaker 1: original Indie movies, playing smaller roles, and I think he
Speaker 1: plays another role in Raiders of the Lost Ark is
Speaker 1: the big one. He plays the wizard that turns into
Speaker 1: a monster in nineteen eighty fours Conan the Destroyer. So
Speaker 1: he's one of many big, meaty men in a movie
Speaker 1: that has like a full cast of big meaty men.
Speaker 2: I like that. You'd make even your wizard big in meaty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a very very meaty picture, that one.
Speaker 1: It's weird. It's like I think if we were to
Speaker 1: talk about a Conan film on Weird House, I think
Speaker 1: it would need to be Conan the Destroyer, like the
Speaker 1: Goofier went. But anyway, Pat Roach also played General Kale
Speaker 1: or kl I can't remember how it's pronounced in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight's Willow. This is the dude with a big
Speaker 1: guerrilla skull on his mask. And oh, and he also
Speaker 1: played the Titan Atlas in Jim Henson's The Storyteller the
Speaker 1: Greek Myths. So even though he's not a Titan in
Speaker 1: this and there are very questionable titan classifications in this film,
Speaker 1: he has played a Titan before.
Speaker 2: That series of Jim Henson's Storyteller. By the way, I'd
Speaker 2: say is probably my other favorite adaptation of this story
Speaker 2: of like the Perseus and Medusa arc and has a
Speaker 2: I would say, has a Medusa designed to rival this one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember that one did the wings, which
Speaker 1: you do see in a number of the accounts of
Speaker 1: old All right, we'll show we get into the plot
Speaker 1: of Clash of the Titans. These Titans got a clash, baby,
Speaker 1: so let's let's find out how they do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, one thing I wanted to note is it
Speaker 2: is amazing how much plot they are able to cram
Speaker 2: into two hours in this movie. We may focus in
Speaker 2: more granular detail on the earlier parts of the movie
Speaker 2: and then hop around for some of the later adventures.
Speaker 2: But it has a great openings howling wind dust blowing
Speaker 2: in the foreground, and then through a haze we see
Speaker 2: a procession of Greek soldiers escorting like a coffin or
Speaker 2: a litter. It's a it's a box. And then we
Speaker 2: get the opening lines spoken by the wicked King Ecrazias,
Speaker 2: who says, bear witness Zeus and all you gods on
Speaker 2: high Olympus, I condemn my daughter Danae and her son
Speaker 2: Perseus to the sea. Her guilt and sin have brought
Speaker 2: shame to Argus. I Acrazias, the king, now purge her
Speaker 2: crime and restore my honor. Their blood is not on
Speaker 2: my hands. And then he has them put into the box.
Speaker 2: Danny is clutching her baby boy and they put him
Speaker 2: in the box, cast him into the ocean and we
Speaker 2: see the box being tossed cruelly by the waves. Now
Speaker 2: we know in the story that Acrasius does this to
Speaker 2: avert a prophecy that Perseus will bring about his doom.
Speaker 2: Does the movie tell us this? I don't think it does,
Speaker 2: or if it does, I missed it.
Speaker 1: No. What I got from it was just the basic like,
Speaker 1: something's wrong. Zeus demands this, so I'm going to do it,
Speaker 1: and that's all there is to it. Zeus said it,
Speaker 1: I believe it. There you go.
Speaker 2: But it turns out Zeus does not want this, because
Speaker 2: we're going to go to Mount Olympus in a minute
Speaker 2: and Zeus is going to be like, why did you
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: So what I wanted to ask first, I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: where a lot of the location shots in this movie
Speaker 2: were coming from. There are parts right here at the
Speaker 2: opening on this coastline, which I assume is supposed to
Speaker 2: be in Greece, but they look like Scotland.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I read that they filmed at Pinewood Studios, I
Speaker 1: guess for you know, the interiors, and then they also
Speaker 1: shot in various places in the Mediterranean, So I mean
Speaker 1: that's ultimately I'm not sure where that they are in
Speaker 1: this particular scene, though.
Speaker 2: Well, from here we go to the opening credits and
Speaker 2: we zoom over beautiful landscapes and you see the mountain peaks,
Speaker 2: the spires, glacier pockets, and the crevices of the rocks.
Speaker 2: And this is the kind of landscape stuff that always
Speaker 2: works on me. You know, it puts me in the
Speaker 2: right mood for an epic. I recall thinking that Krull
Speaker 2: also got a lot of mileage out of just beautiful
Speaker 2: landscape shots that weren't strictly related to the story. Just
Speaker 2: put a camera up on top of the mountains, and
Speaker 2: you know it works. They do it for a reason.
Speaker 1: Well, Kral is the planet, so you got to see
Speaker 1: a lot of it yet.
Speaker 2: Right, Ladies and gentlemen meet Krol. But from here we
Speaker 2: go to Mount Olympus, which this is not on a mountain,
Speaker 2: it's an indoor studio set, and you know, a bunch
Speaker 2: of gods in white robes are standing around on marble
Speaker 2: floors with big columns in the background. I'd love Clash
Speaker 2: of the Titans, but I feel like the Olympus set,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it feels kind of boring to me.
Speaker 2: I feel like they could have made the gods look
Speaker 2: more interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it basically looks like a bunch of
Speaker 1: older people are about to be adult baptized, you know.
Speaker 1: They have like baptismal gowns on, and they're standing around
Speaker 1: in like the standing around a big mall somewhere with
Speaker 1: a lot of white marble. Though I do love the
Speaker 1: throne the throat. When we switch the scenes of the Throne,
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty great because there is Lawrence Olivier and
Speaker 1: his big derling white robe with a gold lion on
Speaker 1: one side, a gold snake wrapped around an egg on
Speaker 1: the other. He is on a throne of white marble,
Speaker 1: and behind his head is like a blue laser show.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do like the laser show. And I guess
Speaker 2: that's to show the power emanating from the throne of Zeus.
Speaker 2: And he clearly he's more powerful than all the other gods.
Speaker 2: They're not going to do anything without his approval. So
Speaker 2: one of the gods brings the report of what he
Speaker 2: just saw, which is King Ecrezius. Hey, he threw his
Speaker 2: daughter and her baby son into the ocean in a box,
Speaker 2: and some of the gods here. I think maybe this
Speaker 2: is Thetis or Hera, maybe Thetis. They try to defend Ecrazias.
Speaker 2: They say, hey, look, Zeus, he built a lot of
Speaker 2: really solid temples. He dedicated them to you. Who really
Speaker 2: cares if you throw a woman and a child in
Speaker 2: the ocean. But Zeus is incensed by this. He says,
Speaker 2: one hundred good deeds cannot atone for murder. I don't
Speaker 2: care how many temples he dedicated to me. You can't.
Speaker 2: You can't do this to people. And in this scene
Speaker 2: we go around he kind of like addresses each of
Speaker 2: the gods. We see Athena holding her owl. We see Aphrodite,
Speaker 2: and again this is Ursula andras here and she It's interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, Aphrodite is supposed to be the goddess of love,
Speaker 2: but she is making a face like she has just
Speaker 2: handed someone a goblet full of poisoned wine and is
Speaker 2: watching them drink.
Speaker 1: It, like she just found out that all of her
Speaker 1: dialogue got cut from the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Zeus Zeus's demand, He demands justice. He says
Speaker 2: nothing can erase this horrible crime. And so he says
Speaker 2: that King Ecrasias must be punished, but not just him,
Speaker 2: him and his people too. By the way, let's let's
Speaker 2: just do his whole city. Let's throw them in there.
Speaker 2: So he calls up Posidon and he says, I command
Speaker 2: you to raise the wind and the sea and then
Speaker 2: let loose the kraken. Oh, and also protect Danny and
Speaker 2: her son. He's like, make sure they get somewhere safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they I don't know if it's revealed yet,
Speaker 1: but they reveal it shortly after this.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 1: Of course, as we know from the mythology, Perseus is
Speaker 1: Zeus's son, so of course he's invested in this particular
Speaker 1: individual and his mom because it's for Zeus. It's all
Speaker 1: about him. Like that's and I guess he is the
Speaker 1: king of the universe in this narrative, so maybe he
Speaker 1: has a reason to feel so feel that way, but
Speaker 1: that's how he approaches everything.
Speaker 2: Right, that is what happened. And they go back to
Speaker 2: sort of like all the gods gossiping about it. They're
Speaker 2: all like, oh, you know what really happened. He Zeus
Speaker 2: quote loved that girl, Danny, and then he got her
Speaker 2: pregnant with Perseus, and so that's his own son. So
Speaker 2: that's why he's protecting them, and that's why he's mad. Now,
Speaker 2: Rob did you have any thoughts about the fact that
Speaker 2: in this movie Zeus appears to have a miniature's hobby,
Speaker 2: As I know you sometimes mess around with some miniatures yourself,
Speaker 2: So yeah, what are your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think this is one of the
Speaker 1: great set pieces in the Pure because he has this
Speaker 1: room with this these wonderful shelves. Each one has a
Speaker 1: mini on it, a mini representing a different mortal in
Speaker 1: the world. On one level, I've always liked this because
Speaker 1: this is just prime, uh, this is a prime way
Speaker 1: to display your miniature collection. But also it's a it's
Speaker 1: a great set and it it really nicely displays this
Speaker 1: idea that the mortals are, in this case, literally the
Speaker 1: playthings of the gods. Like they're like that's that's literally
Speaker 1: like he'll we see this time and time again. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll pick one of these up and they'll do something
Speaker 1: to it. They'll break it or they'll repair it. And
Speaker 1: it has real world ramifications for the individual it represents,
Speaker 1: But to the gods, it's it's all a game. It's
Speaker 1: all ultimately about them. Well at least that's what the
Speaker 1: movie's saying. So Greek Pantheon, if you're listening. I'm just
Speaker 1: interpreting what the film is saying. It's not me. Don't
Speaker 1: turn me into a spider.
Speaker 2: We see Zeus kind of pulled it does He pull
Speaker 2: down the the craziest minifig here and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm done with you, and just crushes it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we see like basically then we see
Speaker 1: the real life king just have a heart attack in
Speaker 1: the middle of the street while the winds and are
Speaker 1: rolling in and the earthquakes are beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just goes ah, blood starts coming out of
Speaker 2: his mouth and and also yes, argos the city is doomed.
Speaker 2: So we see Poseidon. He's underwater and he raises up
Speaker 2: the waters and causes like a tidal wave to wash
Speaker 2: over the city, destroy all the buildings, kill the people.
Speaker 2: And then the cracking attacks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the effects here, you know, by modern standards, are
Speaker 1: maybe a little a little rougher around the edges, but
Speaker 1: there's no denying the cracking when he shows up. This
Speaker 1: is our first glimpse at the big stop motion beast here.
Speaker 1: I've always loved this design. It's you know, there's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of creature from the Black Lagoon wound up
Speaker 1: in him, but you know, he also has these these
Speaker 1: four long arms that are kind of squid like. He's
Speaker 1: also very reminiscent of some sort of great, gigantic mirv beast.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, cross between creature from the Black
Speaker 2: Lagoon and kind of a capuchin monkey.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, So we get a report about that in
Speaker 2: ment Olympus, that city's been destroyed and Danny and her
Speaker 2: child have been brought to safety on the island of Saraphos,
Speaker 2: where they will be allowed to live in peace and security.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then we get some scenes indicating that Perseus has
Speaker 2: really grown up fast, because we see him do like
Speaker 2: trick riding on ponies on the beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's a strapping young lad.
Speaker 2: And Zeus is commenting on this, He's like, the advantage
Speaker 2: of a strong body and a handsome face. What could
Speaker 2: any mortal desire or deserve more?
Speaker 1: He puts him up there on the shelf. Forget it's great,
Speaker 1: because he's like, he's like, it's it's all all these
Speaker 1: these mortals are to him, are just like fancy beautiful playthings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one he's personally invested in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, Harora, tell me my son is handsome. Oh.
Speaker 2: But then so Maggie Smith comes in and she she
Speaker 2: you know, he's talking about his son, and she goes,
Speaker 2: what of my son Calibos. This is the first we've
Speaker 2: heard of him, but Zeus essentially is like, well, it
Speaker 2: sucks to be him. We get the impression that Calibos
Speaker 2: was sort of a Taz like figure, just sort of
Speaker 2: like going around destroying everything he touched. He even killed
Speaker 2: all of Zeus's flying horses except for the one Pegasus.
Speaker 2: And for his crimes, Calibos has been sent to live
Speaker 2: in a soggy marsh where he is transformed into a monster,
Speaker 2: a mockery of the human form. And we don't see
Speaker 2: Calibos yet, but we do see a mini fig of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is kind of the transformation sequence,
Speaker 1: right where he puts he puts the figurine of human
Speaker 1: Calibos in the middle of this arena they have there,
Speaker 1: and then we cut to the shadow of the mini
Speaker 1: and we see it twist and mutate into this beast man.
Speaker 1: And so I always love this scene because yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't actually see a man turn into a monster. We
Speaker 1: just see the shadow of a minifigure of that man.
Speaker 1: Turn into a monster and it's still highly effective.
Speaker 2: I agree. But then, of course Maggie Smith, she's she's suffering.
Speaker 2: She's like, how could you do this to my son?
Speaker 2: He's to marry the princess Andromeda, and Zeus says, let
Speaker 2: the princess look upon him. Now. Now, of course, Thetis
Speaker 2: points out Zeus's hypocrisy here. She's like, you know, if
Speaker 2: if that were your son, you wouldn't do this to him.
Speaker 2: So eventually, when Zeus is gone, she's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get revenge. If my son is not to marry Princess Andromeda,
Speaker 2: then no man will I will speak to the priests
Speaker 2: of Jappa and dreams and omens. And as my son
Speaker 2: Calibas suffers, so will Andromeda. So she's gonna send some
Speaker 2: send some people some revelations that will interfere with with
Speaker 2: Andromeda's ability to live a happy life and and with
Speaker 2: the general well being of the city of japa Ah.
Speaker 2: But what if person Oh yeah, she's got to get
Speaker 2: revenge against Zeus's son as well. So here's where she
Speaker 2: I didn't quite get this. It's like, why is this vengeance?
Speaker 2: But her vengeance is Perseus. Now he's grown up, now
Speaker 2: he's Harry Hamlin and he's just laying out on the
Speaker 2: beach one night, you know, just laying there, and the
Speaker 2: saying looking at the stars, I guess, And she says,
Speaker 2: time to know the terrors of the dark and look
Speaker 2: on death. Time your eyes were open to grim reality.
Speaker 2: And she picks up the mini fig of him and
Speaker 2: moves it to an amphitheater setting, and somehow Harry Hamlin
Speaker 2: is transported from the island of Saraphas to the Amphitheater
Speaker 2: of Joppa.
Speaker 1: And there he wakes up.
Speaker 2: Yep, did you understand why this was revenge? You just said, Well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take you to a random different place.
Speaker 1: I yeah. I mean, you know, she has the forethought
Speaker 1: of a goddess, so maybe she knows more about it.
Speaker 1: But at the very least, I guess it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take you away from your seclude to beach home,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to drop you into the middle of
Speaker 1: a very complex and dangerous city and we'll see, we'll
Speaker 1: see how fancy you are.
Speaker 2: But when he wakes up here he meets a mysterious
Speaker 2: figure wearing a grotesque theater mask and shouting at him,
Speaker 2: who are you walking among all this smoke. But it
Speaker 2: turns out to be Burgess Meredith, who is perfectly friendly
Speaker 2: as this character Ammon. Once they get to know each other,
Speaker 2: and he explains, Oh yeah, yeah, I see. I pretend
Speaker 2: that this amphitheater is haunted to keep people away. This
Speaker 2: is the Amphitheater of Jappa. Here's where you are now,
Speaker 2: and you must have made the gods angry somehow to
Speaker 2: get transported here.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the business model for this amphitheater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder about that. But they share some backstory.
Speaker 2: It turns out Ammon already knows Perseus's backstory because he
Speaker 2: even wrote a poem about it. It turns out Perseus
Speaker 2: is famous and he didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but every moment with Amon, it's just a lot
Speaker 1: of fun because again it's a light hearted character, and
Speaker 1: Bert's Meretith just brings so much to this performance, just
Speaker 1: breathes life into every little line.
Speaker 2: I like how he's got a lot of kitty cats
Speaker 2: around his house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, a whole bunch of Like you just can't
Speaker 1: even get to important paperwork because they're just kitty cats everywhere.
Speaker 2: He gives Perseus a prince costume. So he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: welcome to Joppa. You know this is more befitting of
Speaker 2: your role as a prince because you are the son
Speaker 2: of Zeus. And then Zeus finds out that Thedus transported
Speaker 2: Perseus from Saraphas to Jappa, and he's mad about this.
Speaker 2: So what's he going to do about it. He's like, well, yea,
Speaker 2: Perseus is naked. That's no good. We've got to equip
Speaker 2: some items with him. He says, we need weapons of
Speaker 2: divine temper. So what are the weapons he gets? It
Speaker 2: seems like only two of the three things are actually weapons,
Speaker 2: but let's describe them all. So he gets a magical
Speaker 2: helmet from Athena, he gets a sword from Aphrodite and
Speaker 2: a shield from Hera. And what's the deal with all
Speaker 2: three of these things?
Speaker 1: Well, let's see what them. The magical helmet makes them invisible,
Speaker 1: the sword is just really good. And the shield Zeus
Speaker 1: can talk to him through the shield. I think that's
Speaker 1: the main power.
Speaker 2: I think he only does one time though. Well, no,
Speaker 2: the shield is reflective, that's.
Speaker 1: What it is. Oh yeah, it has a nice mirror one.
Speaker 2: It's a mirrored shield which will come in with Medusa.
Speaker 2: But the sword from Aphrodite. I don't know why Aphrodite
Speaker 2: has the strongest sword in the world, but it's a
Speaker 2: sword that can cut through stone.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, we see a scene where it cuts
Speaker 1: through the stone. That's right. But all of it's really shiny.
Speaker 1: All of it looks really good. And this is also
Speaker 1: really It also kind of feels at this point in
Speaker 1: the picture it's kind of like lazy dungeon mastering because
Speaker 1: our character has just been moved by the gods, dropped
Speaker 1: into a new location, and instantly given three legendary strength
Speaker 1: magical items which he doesn't have to do anything in
Speaker 1: order to get them. They're just laying around when he
Speaker 1: comes too.
Speaker 2: But I'm imagining Perseus here having to do wisdom saving
Speaker 2: throws and I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of have a disadvantage there because I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't done any real adventuring. He's done
Speaker 1: some horse tricks on a beach somewhere, but we have
Speaker 1: nothing to indicate that he's he's ready from an experienced standpoint,
Speaker 1: to do with a lot of adventuring. But again, he
Speaker 1: is the son of a god, so ideally I guess
Speaker 1: there's a lot of this. It's just sort of built
Speaker 1: into his godlike DNA, I guess so.
Speaker 2: But as soon as Perseus figures out that the helmet
Speaker 2: makes him invisible, he puts it on and runs off
Speaker 2: to Joppa. So in Djappa, Perseus is amazed by the culture.
Speaker 2: He's a small town boy, after all, he's from the
Speaker 2: sleepy island of Saraphas, so I think he's never seen
Speaker 2: the big city before. And he goes around marveling at
Speaker 2: all the sights and sounds in the marketplace, the most
Speaker 2: impressive of which, in my opinion, is the man with
Speaker 2: the iron mustache, a guy who is lifting up this
Speaker 2: like it's got this lady getting into a harness, and
Speaker 2: this dude uses it to lift her entire body off
Speaker 2: the ground with his mustache.
Speaker 1: It is most impressive. Yeah, and this is all. I
Speaker 1: love this whole sequence here, because it's like lepers, strong men,
Speaker 1: you know, a fancy ladies, seductive ladies, people selling things.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a neat scene.
Speaker 2: But then Perseus comes across a horrible sight a body
Speaker 2: burning on a steak, and he meets a guard. Is
Speaker 2: this thallow is that this would be him? Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: He meets Thalo and he gets some exposition. So we
Speaker 2: learned that this guy burning over here, this was a
Speaker 2: suitor to the beautiful Princess Andromeda. And Rabina's mother Cassiopeia,
Speaker 2: originally pledged Andromeda's hand in marriage to Calibos. But Calibos
Speaker 2: was cruel and he did some bad stuff. He was
Speaker 2: kind of a taz and then he got transformed into
Speaker 2: a horrible monster. So now he's very ugly. And Andromeda
Speaker 2: refused to marry him, and as a result, the city
Speaker 2: is cursed. It's swarmed with stinging marsh flies. And also
Speaker 2: now any man can propose to Andromeda. I guess they've
Speaker 2: lowered their standards. But he's got to answer a riddle first,
Speaker 2: and those who fail the riddle die.
Speaker 1: Perseus, however, is up for a challenge. He seems interested
Speaker 1: in this. He's like, well, maybe this is where I
Speaker 1: should apply myself.
Speaker 2: Right, So he puts on the invisible helmet sneaks up
Speaker 2: to Andromeda's room at night, and I was thinking, what's
Speaker 2: the plan here? Does he be like, Hi, you don't
Speaker 2: know me, but I can turn invisible. What do you say?
Speaker 2: We get married? And I skip the riddle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like what Denny just sort of like he just
Speaker 1: looks at her while she's sleeping like a creep for
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, Perseus.
Speaker 1: But I guess the idea is he confirms, like he's
Speaker 1: sleted first sight, he like realizes, I am now in
Speaker 1: love with her. I will do whatever it takes to
Speaker 1: get a shot at this riddle and answer it right.
Speaker 2: And he sees that every night to her rooms, it
Speaker 2: flies a giant vulture like that settles on her balcony
Speaker 2: and brings a cage, and I think her soul leaves
Speaker 2: her body and it gets into the cage and then
Speaker 2: the vulture carries it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is another great harry House in effect,
Speaker 1: this giant vulture.
Speaker 2: The vulture takes it to the swampy stronghold of Calibos
Speaker 2: every night to receive the new riddle for her suitors.
Speaker 2: And so Perseus figures, hey, I can follow her to
Speaker 2: the enemy encampment and there I could learn the riddle
Speaker 2: in advance, so I can cheat the moral of the story.
Speaker 2: Real heroes cheat.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess he realizes as a rig system.
Speaker 1: So he's gonna try and get Dan Tally needs.
Speaker 2: But in order to follow the flying vulture, he has
Speaker 2: to be able to fly himself. So first there's a
Speaker 2: scene where he has to capture Pegasus, the winged horse.
Speaker 2: You know, I liked Pegasus, but I don't really love
Speaker 2: this sequence. It feels kind of nasty when he's catching
Speaker 2: the horse by throwing a rope around its neck. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: the poor, poor Pegasus.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't think about that's much of I
Speaker 1: was just so blown away by how good this, uh,
Speaker 1: this effect looks. He kept thinking about, how like you're
Speaker 1: having to animate a realistic horse, which is a very
Speaker 1: dynamic animal. I mean, this isn't like an articulated crab
Speaker 1: or a scorpion, Like this is a horse. There's a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of animal, and then on top of that,
Speaker 1: you've added these beautiful wings to it. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like quite a challenge. But yeah, Harry howis
Speaker 1: and pulls it off.
Speaker 2: But the taming process works. He tames and rides the Pegasus.
Speaker 2: So now he's got one, uh, and the next night
Speaker 2: he he he's got one. Like there's multiple Pegasus. There's
Speaker 2: just one Pegasus. I guess the last one, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: He tells us like grilled up the other ones.
Speaker 2: I turned him into barbecue and so, uh yeah, he
Speaker 2: rides Pegasus to the swamp, follows the the vulture at
Speaker 2: the night and they go to the swamp of Kelbos,
Speaker 2: you know where the bullgaters beller and the panther squall
Speaker 2: and they they land there. And I love this set.
Speaker 2: It's a you know, a classic misty indoor for outdoor
Speaker 2: swamp that's got skeletons hanging from trees and little alligators
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. General thoughts about the Calibas sequence, Rob.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if memory serves, the part of the
Speaker 1: situation of the Calibus character is that originally it was
Speaker 1: going to be entirely stop motion, and then at some
Speaker 1: point in creating the script, they realized they wanted they
Speaker 1: were going to need a human to play the character
Speaker 1: as well. So we do a lot of cutting back
Speaker 1: and forth between stop motion Calibus and the actual actual
Speaker 1: human actor and makeup and and so I guess it
Speaker 1: can still be a little jarring even in a picture
Speaker 1: like this that kind of that has a lot of
Speaker 1: cutting back and forth between and integration between live action
Speaker 1: and stop motion. But of course that being said, like
Speaker 1: the stop motion, Calabus looks amazing. You get that tail
Speaker 1: sweeping around and so forth looks really good. And then,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, the character of Calabus as we
Speaker 1: get to know him here, you know, he's he's a
Speaker 1: tragic villain. He's seated on this throne of sadness in
Speaker 1: his swamp. It's so there's a this is this is
Speaker 1: a fun sequence.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Andromeda is there and she begs him, you know,
Speaker 2: lift the curse from Joppa, release my soul. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you a new riddle, so you know,
Speaker 2: use this to to doom yet another suitor, another would
Speaker 2: be hero. And you can see also but there's like
Speaker 2: a scene where she touches his face I think when
Speaker 2: she's asking him to lift the curse, and I don't know,
Speaker 2: it is very sad like you see him, you know,
Speaker 2: like wishing he could have had a better life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But oh she walks away and then Calibos he looks
Speaker 2: in the sand and sees what is that is that
Speaker 2: invisible the footsteps of an invisible Harry Hamlin. And then
Speaker 2: he's mad, So Harry Hamblin We see him walking off
Speaker 2: into the into the swamp, and then Calibos ambushes him
Speaker 2: and they fight for a bit. The helmet of invisible
Speaker 2: Ability gets knocked off of Perseus's belt and falls into
Speaker 2: the swamp waters. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one legendary magical item completely gone, just lost it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we don't know exactly how the fight resolves.
Speaker 2: We see Percy has like land some kind of blow
Speaker 2: with his sword, and then it just cuts to the
Speaker 2: next day where Andromeda is. They are gathered, I guess
Speaker 2: in the temple of Thetis and Jappa, and you know,
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, is anybody gonna step up and propose
Speaker 2: marriage to her? Perseus does, and so they ask him
Speaker 2: the riddle and I was like, this is not a riddle.
Speaker 2: She just describes a strange image and then says what
Speaker 2: can it be? And the answer does not really rely
Speaker 2: on any cleverness. The answer is the ring on Calibos's hand,
Speaker 2: which Harry Hamlin has because he cut Calabos's hand off.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so he fills this in. He says, hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: I defeated Calibos in battle. I cut off his hand
Speaker 2: and I spared his life on the condition that he
Speaker 2: lift the curse from the city. So he correctly answered
Speaker 2: the riddle and the curse it seems at least has
Speaker 2: been lifted. So are we happily ever after now? But
Speaker 2: that wouldn't make sense. We're only like forty five minutes
Speaker 2: into the movie.
Speaker 1: I know, it seems like things are going well. The
Speaker 1: labyrinth is a piece of cake.
Speaker 2: But so while they're off partying and you know, Perseus
Speaker 2: and Andromeda are kind of getting to know each other,
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, yes, I guess we are in love now.
Speaker 2: Calibos comes into the temple. He kneels before the statue
Speaker 2: of Thetis and he prays for a way to get
Speaker 2: revenge on Perseus. He says, show me how to punish
Speaker 2: Perseus for this blasphemy, and Theda says, damn, well, can't
Speaker 2: hurt Perseus because Zeus protects him. So Calibos instead is like, well,
Speaker 2: then let me get revenge on the people Perseus loves
Speaker 2: Andromeda and the people of Joppa. He begs her to
Speaker 2: send the kraken. So I think it's the next day
Speaker 2: there's the marriage ceremony. They're about to be joined together forever.
Speaker 2: And then it's at the marriage ceremony that the Queen
Speaker 2: Cassiopia is like, good thing my daughter is even more
Speaker 2: beautiful than the goddess in this statue here and then
Speaker 2: the statue is like raw and its head falls off.
Speaker 1: And then we get that scene where suddenly it's Maggie
Speaker 1: Smith's face like superimposed onto the statue speaking to them.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, this effect looks funny, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it was supposed to. Most of the effects in
Speaker 2: this movie I think are beautiful, but this one is
Speaker 2: a bit comic.
Speaker 1: I like that. I mean, I'm on one level, I
Speaker 1: like the effect of it. It's like you really nested up,
Speaker 1: you went too far, you mocked the gods, and so
Speaker 1: now the goddess is appearing to you through this crumpled
Speaker 1: statue and pronouncing doom. That's right, she does lay out
Speaker 1: some doom.
Speaker 2: Yes for the insults to me and my son, I
Speaker 2: demand the sacrifice of Andromeda in thirty days. We're going
Speaker 2: to feed her to the kraken.
Speaker 1: So now Percius has a new riddle to solve, and
Speaker 1: that is what are we gonna do about this cracking?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you kill a kraken? Emmon originally says,
Speaker 2: no man knows how to kill a kraken, and so
Speaker 2: Perseus says, oh, that's no good. But Emmon says, but
Speaker 2: there may be a woman who does, actually three women.
Speaker 2: We must consult the Stygian witches. They may know away,
Speaker 2: but there's a problem. They tend to eat people. But
Speaker 2: the heroes are not deterred. So all of our friends
Speaker 2: now get together Harry Hamlin, Burgess, Meredith, Andromeda what's his name,
Speaker 2: the soldier that Thallo or whatever it is, and then
Speaker 2: a bunch of other unnamed soldiers who were might as
Speaker 2: well be wearing you know, red Starfleet shirts.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, they're damned do you know that? They're just
Speaker 1: pure monster fodder.
Speaker 2: So they're going to head off to find the witches.
Speaker 2: Now I think they don't initially know how to find
Speaker 2: the witches, but the Zeus has a way to help
Speaker 2: with this. We go back to the gods and Zeus
Speaker 2: is like, this is the part where he goes up
Speaker 2: to Athena. He's like, hey, that helmet you gave my son,
Speaker 2: well he dropped it in a swamp. He needs a
Speaker 2: new gift. Give him your owl, your friend the boobo here.
Speaker 2: You know it is all seeming all knowing you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be a problem for you to give it to my son,
Speaker 2: and she's like, ew, let a mortal have my owl.
Speaker 2: That's gross. So she's not gonna do that. Instead, she
Speaker 2: gets pat Roach to make him a robot owl, and
Speaker 2: we briefly see a scene in the Forge of effaced
Speaker 2: Us where he's kneeling over a table and he's like
Speaker 2: a watchmaker. He's messing with all little gears and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fun sleepence. I don't know. It's a
Speaker 1: different type of role for pat Roach here. And also
Speaker 1: it's kind of like we've talked about the tactile nature
Speaker 1: of the stop motion effects, and Boobo really has that
Speaker 1: tactile feel and it really begins here watching him physically
Speaker 1: assembled by Avestus.
Speaker 2: Now he flies up to our heroes and settles down
Speaker 2: on a tree branch. But Boobo was also played for
Speaker 2: comic relief, much like the Droids and Star Wars. He
Speaker 2: kind of like beepy Boop and then he falls off
Speaker 2: the branch and land's head first on the ground and
Speaker 2: goes whoo woo, you.
Speaker 1: Know, m Yeah, And this is again, every time Boobo
Speaker 1: does something, there are a lot of movements to it,
Speaker 1: like a lot of love went into creating this effect.
Speaker 2: I do love Boobo, and I bet little kids especially
Speaker 2: love Boobo.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember showing this to my son a
Speaker 1: couple of years, but he loved He wasn't not for
Speaker 1: rewatching it. He wasn't interested in rewatching it with me
Speaker 1: for this episode. But he's watched it a couple of
Speaker 1: times in the past and loved all the monsters in it,
Speaker 1: of course, and loved Bubo.
Speaker 2: The ancient Greek astromecterroid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which does it does sort of a navigational function,
Speaker 1: guides them to the three witches.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Bubo can lead them to the shrine
Speaker 2: of the Stygian Witches, and so they go there. They
Speaker 2: have to climb a mountain to get up to the
Speaker 2: shrine the three witches, just as in the myth. The
Speaker 2: three of them share one eye between them, though it's
Speaker 2: not an eye here. Really, it's like a crystal ball,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: They hold it up to their forehead into their like
Speaker 1: fleshed over eye sockets, and there's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: squabbling among them about who gets to use it next.
Speaker 1: And oh but yeah, this sequence is a lot of
Speaker 1: fun because there's a lot of cackling, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like, oh, of course, I'll tell you about the
Speaker 1: about where you can find I guess they reveal that
Speaker 1: they're not even looking for Medusa at this point, right,
Speaker 1: but they revealed that Medusa's way. But well, but I'm
Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself, Like, in order to get the advantage,
Speaker 1: of course, Perseus has Bubou fly in and steal the eye,
Speaker 1: so now he has something to bargain with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're like, give us back the eye, and
Speaker 2: he says, no, first, you got to tell me how
Speaker 2: I can defeat a kraken, and they they do tell
Speaker 2: him an idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's you should go get the head of
Speaker 1: the Medusa. It works even if she's been slain. Of course,
Speaker 1: the only problem is she's more dangerous than the kracking,
Speaker 1: so you're you're gonna have a really hard time pulling
Speaker 1: this off. And in the midst there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: fun stuff going on in here. They have a big
Speaker 1: cannibal stew going they have to like push a squirming
Speaker 1: hand back into it. And I really love the one
Speaker 1: witch who's she's like talking about how, yes, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to use the Medusa's head against against the krake
Speaker 1: in a titan against a titan and she's all excited
Speaker 1: about it. It really excited to deliver on the film's title.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and I do love their disgusting cauldron of slop.
Speaker 2: There is very funny sound effects and when like a
Speaker 2: human hand reaches out of it, going like eh, and
Speaker 2: they just kind of like tuck it back in the shit.
Speaker 2: You quiet get down in there, all right. So next
Speaker 2: thing is they got to get the head of the
Speaker 2: Gorgon Medusa, so they crossed the river sticks to get
Speaker 2: to the island of the Gorgon. There is, of course
Speaker 2: a big battle. I'm not going to go into detail
Speaker 2: about everything about this bottle. You just need to watch
Speaker 2: it for yourself. But it is wonderfully atmospheric. It's very
Speaker 2: well paced. Like the lead up to it, a little
Speaker 2: things they see approaching her layer, the human shaped stone statues,
Speaker 2: the kind of crumble. Oh, and that, of course, we
Speaker 2: find out the Medusa has been working in the Kremlin
Speaker 2: with the two headed dog.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the two headed dog. I think may have
Speaker 1: been cut from the Turner broadcast. They've probably cut it
Speaker 1: cut the movie for length, So I don't remember ever
Speaker 1: seeing the two headed dog when I watched it. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong on that. But it's a two headed dog
Speaker 1: instead of a three headed dog. It's not it's not Cerberus,
Speaker 1: but I think it's because it was too much work
Speaker 1: to do a three headed dog. That's what I've always read,
Speaker 1: so they went with two. They scaled it back a bit.
Speaker 2: I don't love the two headed dog fight because I
Speaker 2: don't know, I just always seeing somebody fight a dog,
Speaker 2: even a vicious one with the sword, always just makes
Speaker 2: me be like.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, Like the movie doesn't lose anything to
Speaker 1: have that whole sequence cut, in my opinion. But setting
Speaker 1: aside the battle with the two headed dog, I would
Speaker 1: say the Island of the Dead sequence here where they
Speaker 1: find Medusa's layer, go in fight Medusa. Multiple soldiers get
Speaker 1: killed by Medusa. We have this fabulous stop motion Medusa.
Speaker 1: This whole sequence is just absolutely perfect. No matter what
Speaker 1: problems you know you might have with the rest of
Speaker 1: the picture and its tone and the lazy dming and
Speaker 1: Harry Hamlin's performance and being a bit green, I feel
Speaker 1: like everything's firing on all cylinders in this sequence. Even
Speaker 1: Harry Hamlin, I think is really good because he's he's
Speaker 1: he embodies this like hero sphere rather well. I think
Speaker 1: in this sequence, like it feels like there are actual stakes,
Speaker 1: even for the son of a god.
Speaker 2: Completely agree. Pretty much everything in this scene is pitch perfect.
Speaker 2: There are so many little details I love. I like
Speaker 2: how quiet it is. Actually. You would have expected the
Speaker 2: whole thing to be, you know, ramping up with like loud,
Speaker 2: intense music, but there are parts of it that are
Speaker 2: actually very quiet, and I love that it contributes to
Speaker 2: the creepy atmosphere, like the part before you see the gorgon,
Speaker 2: when they're looking for her and they're walking between the columns,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly you see her shadow go move into
Speaker 2: the move onto the wall, and there's this soft, almost
Speaker 2: silent slithering sound, just the sound of a snake, you know,
Speaker 2: moving over a stone and not even hissing yet, just
Speaker 2: just that little gliding, and you see the shadow with
Speaker 2: the snakes writhing in her hair, and oh it's so good.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The lighting is brilliant in all of this
Speaker 1: as well, so so many Harry Hamlin, not Herry Hamlin,
Speaker 1: Harry Housen scenes. You often have things going on in
Speaker 1: very like stark lighting, but in this sequence it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a dark cavern with with fires lighting everything deep
Speaker 1: shadows and so forth. It's so good.
Speaker 2: Also, the moment when you see Medusa kind of activate
Speaker 2: her powers to turn one of the other soldiers to stone,
Speaker 2: where we zoom in on her face, which is horrifying,
Speaker 2: and her eyes glow green and the power emanates from
Speaker 2: her and then he's calcified. That is just It's a
Speaker 2: scene for the ages.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've also read, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: true or not, but I've read that Harry Hamlin himself
Speaker 1: had to argue for the traditional beheading of the monster.
Speaker 1: I think there I had read read like some version
Speaker 1: of the script or the way they were going to
Speaker 1: shoot it was him throwing the shield and using it
Speaker 1: as a weapon. Supposedly it's like to have it be
Speaker 1: a little less gory for censors. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is true, but it said that Harry Hamlin
Speaker 1: was one of the ones was like, no, we should
Speaker 1: stick to the myth on this. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: at any rate, and if that is the case, I'm
Speaker 1: glad they did because it I can't imagine this sequence
Speaker 1: playing out any other way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then he and you can feel the danger
Speaker 2: in the scene even after he has beheaded her he's afraid.
Speaker 2: He's being very cautious because her blood is running out,
Speaker 2: and her blood, her blood is like it's like the
Speaker 2: blood of the Xenomorph and Alien. It's just this burning
Speaker 2: acid that melts his shield and he takes her head,
Speaker 2: but he's afraid. He's like careful not to accidentally even
Speaker 2: look at it. He's like holding it out of his view.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned Alien because Alien came out a
Speaker 1: few years earlier. And I feel like this sequence has
Speaker 1: some similarities to that final showdown on the Life vest
Speaker 1: Soul between Ripley and the xeno Morph. You know, the
Speaker 1: sense of intense danger, like the monster is so dangerous
Speaker 1: that the wrong move will just be absolutely lethal.
Speaker 2: I can see exactly what you mean. Yeah, that similarity
Speaker 2: is there, And they.
Speaker 1: Also both take it yes, fairly dressed.
Speaker 2: Yes, And the posture with which the hero is oriented
Speaker 2: to the monster with like with the back to it,
Speaker 2: but against you know, hiding behind an obstruction.
Speaker 1: And so when we finally finish up the Medusa secrets,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like we've done it. This is the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, right, Like it's just so satisfying,
Speaker 1: but we still have like a large chunk of the
Speaker 1: film to go at that point because they have to.
Speaker 1: This was just a side quest to get something to
Speaker 1: defeat the ultimate threat in the picture.
Speaker 2: Though I do think it is the highlight. But we yeah,
Speaker 2: we do get several other battles. There's a great battle.
Speaker 2: Calibos shows back up and attacks Perseus and his friends
Speaker 2: with scorpions, giant scorpions. This is your you know, this
Speaker 2: is about his classic Harry Housen is he get you know,
Speaker 2: stop motion scorpions come into your heroes and they have
Speaker 2: a big fight, and then Calibos comes in himself and
Speaker 2: they fight him. And Calabos is going he's bringing a whip,
Speaker 2: which is that's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as the whip, and he also he's replaced his
Speaker 1: hand with like a stabby tool which he used to
Speaker 1: like stab the medusa head, get it bleeding and the
Speaker 1: blood turned into scorpions on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Calibos is defeated in the end. And then finally,
Speaker 2: how is Perseus going to defeat the Kraken? While we
Speaker 2: see Andromeda, you know, they take her down to the shore.
Speaker 2: It's like, yep, too bad, We're gonna have to give
Speaker 2: you to the sea monster. And he pops up. Perseus
Speaker 2: at the last minute is able to unveil that gorgon
Speaker 2: head to show it right to the monster and just
Speaker 2: stone him.
Speaker 1: Up yeap, and then he crumbles, which is something I
Speaker 1: always liked and I reckon as a kid. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about. It's kind of like, Okay, the creature, its
Speaker 1: body can physically hold itself together while it's flesh, but
Speaker 1: once it becomes stone, like, it just begins to crumble,
Speaker 1: like it can no longer stand. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: always like that that detail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it introduces the brittleness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's very dramatic too. It's like, not only
Speaker 1: is the monster petrified, but now it crumbles into pieces.
Speaker 1: It's completely destroyed. And then we get like we do
Speaker 1: get a little sort of outro with the gods, which
Speaker 1: felt kind of weird because we've we've seen how how
Speaker 1: petty and cruel they are, and they just have this
Speaker 1: kind of bit where the other gods are like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, these human these mortals really showed how heroic
Speaker 1: and brave they can be. It's I hope there aren't
Speaker 1: too many brave ones, otherwise we're going to be out
Speaker 1: of a job and they're just They kind of have
Speaker 1: like a bemused laugh at all of this, but are
Speaker 1: also kind of like, yeah, humans are all right after all.
Speaker 2: And they all live happily ever after. Yeah, so I
Speaker 2: love Clash of the Titans.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Yeah. This is a This one's near and
Speaker 1: dear to me. So it's great to finally discuss it
Speaker 1: here on Weird House Cinema. And like you say, maybe
Speaker 1: in the future will come back and look at another
Speaker 1: Harry hows and picture. We are good ones to choose
Speaker 1: from there. All right, we're gonna go ahead and wrap
Speaker 1: this one up, but yeah, we'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: everyone out there. Do you have memories of seeing Clash
Speaker 1: of the Titans on Turner Networks growing up like I do?
Speaker 1: Or did you see it in the theater? What was
Speaker 1: that like back in eighty one? Let us know. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: other films to cover in the future. Do you have
Speaker 1: favorite Harry hows and effects or monsters or favorite Hairy
Speaker 1: hous and movies? Yeah, write in we'll discuss it on
Speaker 1: listener mails, which publish on Mondays. We're primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we
Speaker 1: do a short form artifact or monster fact, and then
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: And if you want to see a list of the
Speaker 1: films we've covered in the past, you can go to
Speaker 1: a couple of different places. I blog about these episodes
Speaker 1: at immutamusic dot com and also if you go to
Speaker 1: a letterbox that's l E T T E r box
Speaker 1: d dot com, well, we have a user account there
Speaker 1: weird House and we have a list of all the
Speaker 1: films we've covered and sometimes a peek ahead at what's
Speaker 1: coming up been the week to follow.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hi, you can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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