cinema history class: jason and the argonauts (1963)

 The session: "Holiday-Premiered Fantasy Films—Get Your Ray Harryhausen On"

All four movies in this session are fantasy films that were released during the holiday season. In addition, the first three featured the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Directed by Don Chaffey

My Impressions Going In:

I was vaguely aware of this movie, and had seen some clips from it, but had little real knowledge.

Plot:

Jason and his crew go in search of the golden fleece while the gods toy with him.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

I liked the whole concept of the gods playing with the mere mortals, turning them into pawns on the chessboard of life (as Bob-O put it). But that wasn't really the main focus of the movie. The scenes with the gods were mostly there to kind of transition the movie from episode to episode, which gets at the film's biggest weakness -- that it was too disjointed and episodic (a criticism I made of the previous film, Mysterious Island). That said, Hera's presence was kind of an interesting twist.

As with the prior two films, the effects were very good, and made the movie more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. That's especially true of the scene with the giant bronze Talos statue chasing down Jason's crew (thanks a lot, Hercules).

Ratings

Me: 8

Bob-O: 10

Christina: 10

Dave: 9.9

Ethan: 8
Joe: 10