Review of Jason and the Argonauts (1963) by Andrew T — 17 Jul 2008

The ultimate Harryhausen film--a fun, genuinely exciting, lamentably sexist, beautifully photographed and scored (by Bernard Herrman) and well-paced melding of Greek myth craziness and adventure movie camp, complete with a ridiculously perfect hero and a ridiculously submissive heroine, in which a man with a ridiculous beard can say with an entirely straight face, "Against the children of the hydra's teeth there is no protection!" Of course, it's built around a number of Harryhausen special effects-driven set pieces that are nothing short of wondrous--the sword fight with the aforesaid hydra's teeth offspring is justly legendary, and equally awesome are an encounter with a giant statue and another with some truly terrifying flying blue dudes.

In spite of some really blatant (sometimes sort of charming, sometimes not) shortcomings, this is one of the great adventure films. Also--the ridiculous open-for-a-sequel-that-to-my-knowledge-never-happened ending is priceless.