If you know Fantasy films at all, you know Ray Harryhausen. As successor to Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong, Ray gave us so many classic images of aliens, dinosaurs, giant apes and best of all, Sword & Sorcery. His movies with mythological settings feature all manner of strange creatures, lovingly animated to our wondrous eyes, images that linger on to inspire our own sword-swinging heroes.
After a string of monster invasion films, Ray decided to try new territory, the land of myth. The first of these films was The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) starring Kerwin Mathews as Sinbad and Torin Thatcher as Sokurah, a wizard who steals the Caliph’s daughter and sets Sinbad on a voyage to rescue her. (Sokurah set the standard for Harryhausen wizards, always the villains in the picture.) The film features a snakewoman, a cyclops, a dragon, the famous Roc of the Sinbad legend, and the genii, Barani, who helps Sinbad to win the day. In return, he frees the boy spirit. Sinbad has to fight a skeleton controlled by the sorcerer. This sequence was so popular Harryhausen repeated it (times seven) in his next film.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) starred Todd Armstrong as Jason, Honor Blackman as the goddess Hera, Nancy Kovack as Medea and Patrick Troughton as Phineas. (The first Doctor Who actor to appear. Tom Baker would be along in the next film.) Jason and his crew are the pawns in a game between Hera and Zeus as they travel to the Colchis to steal the golden fleece for its magical healing properties. We get such Greek creatures as the harpies, the giant statue Talos, and the famous Hydra, as well as perhaps Harryhausen’s most famous sequence, the skeleton fight at the end of the picture, with Jason and two allies fighting seven undead warriors.
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) features John Phillip Law as Sinbad, Carolyn Monroe as the love interest Margiana, and Tom Baker as the conniving wizard, Koura. This time Sinbad is set on a quest because he comes across a third of a magic map that shows the route to Lemuria and the fables fountain of youth. Koura follows Sinbad in his own ship, using his magic to attack the crew. Each time Koura uses the powers of evil, his body gets older and older. Creatures include a tiny homunculus, an animated ship’s figurehead, another tour-de-force, the multi-armed Kali, a griffin and a cycloptic centaur.
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) features a lackluster Patrick Wayne as Sinbad, Margaret Whiting as the evil witch, Zenobia, Jane Seymour, Patrick Troughton (again!), and best of all, an animated baboon who was once a prince. Sinbad is off to Hyberborea to find a cure for Kassim, the royal heir who has been transformed into an ape. Monsters include a giant wasp and walrus, the troglodyte named not surprisingly, Trog, the minotaun, a robot minotaur, and in the finale, the giant sabertooth. The mix is familiar but Harryhausen’s technique shows some innovations, which he will need for his last film.
Clash of the Titans (1983) features an all-star cast with Harry Hamlin as Perseus, Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis, Sian Phillips, Burgess Meredith, Claire Bloom and Ursula Andress. Another game of the gods pits Perseus against Calibos, a monstrous hybrid, as Perseus seeks the head of the Medusa to use against the Kraken, a gigantic monster set to devour Andromeda (Judi Bowker). Harryhausen sets the bar high with a wonderfully animated Pegasus, a sinister snaky version of Medusa and the final confrontation with the Kraken. Jam-packed with gods, miracles, monsters and classic Harryhausen action, the final film in his ouvre is a fitting masterpiece to a style of film making that has no successor in CGI-driven Hollywood. Ray bowed out on a high and is remembered well for all his fantastic visions and sequences.
His work has inspired other filmmakers, writers, artists, gamers and anyone who loves Fantasy. Post-pulp Fantasy writers began their careers as storytellers sitting in movie theaters and being inspired by the titans in Ray’s films. His skeletons and other monsters live on as essential creatures in role-playing games. When the 1982 film version of Conan the Barbarian hit big screens many of us waited with bated breath as Conan encountered the skeleton in the crypt at the opening of the film. When it fell into a pile of old bones and did not get up and fight in a manner befitting both Ray Harryhausen (and Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp’s story), we knew what we were in for. I know I sighed in disappointment.
That was a moment when Conan’s legacy could have come to life. Instead we were destined to go down a road of stupidity that would bring us the Deathstalker films. The recent Conan the Barbarian (2010), though not a great film, did feature a sequence where Conan battled demons made of sand. This one, done in CGI, was closer in spirit to Ray’s skeleton fight. The recent CGI remakes of Clash of Titans come even closer to what all S&S fans have waited (not always patiently) for, a true S&S film. Of all the moviemakers in the last eighty years, Ray Harryhausen is perhaps the only one who can take claim the title of Sword & Sorcery filmmaker. He passed away on May 7, 2013. VIDEO
This piece continues my History of Sword & Sorcery at appears at Amazing Stories.
