Review of Clash of the Titans (1981) by Alan — 23 Aug 2008

Ray Harryhausen's final film and it had his highest budget ever, roughly $10,000,000. Ray told me most of the budget went to pay the group of actors in the film including Laurence Olivier instead of his usual cast of virtual unknowns.

He also for the first time in his career hired two other animators to ease the heavy animation workload, well known animator Jim Danforth and an unknown animator from England, Steven Archer. Harryhausen did handle the whole Medusa sequence on his own and it was one of the best of his career.

He made a smart move on this film as he cut a deal paying him a percentage of the profits instead of his usual standard fee. He was set to do Force of the Trojans after this but couldn't get it off the ground as the film studios felt these kinds of films were no longer viable and that they thought the public's tastes had changed.

So, at age 61 and tiring of spending thousands of hours alone animating he retired. Harryhausen was and still is a creative genius and now at 88 years of age is launching yet another group of projects, he has written three books, sculpted a series of high end bronzes, done a series of comic books, colorized a number of his older films, and is involved in some new film projects, although the old style stop motion epic films are probably gone forever he has become an icon in the world of fantasy film.