Spoilers for Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
When you think about Don Chaffey’s 1963 swords and sandals epic, Jason and the Argonauts, you likely think of Ray Harryhausen’s iconic stop motion work, bringing the various mythical creatures to life. As entertaining as the rest of the film is, it’s Harryhausen’s work that captures the imagination.
After all, the most iconic scenes in that film are from Harryhausen. Jason (Todd Armstrong) battling the skeletons on Colchis at the climax of the film is four months of work from the animator. The attack of Talos on the Isle of Bronze remains one of the most surprising, satisfying scenes in fantasy cinema.
And this scene where you can see how clever and how in sync the design teams were on this film. The crew of the Argo are led to the Isle of Bronze by the goddess Hera with the instructions that they can take all the provisions they need but must take nothing else.
Hercules (played with aplomb by Nigel Green) and Hylas (John Cairney) split from the group and come across a series of statues, including one of the titan Talos. Under the statue, they find the treasure trove of the gods and Hercules cannot resist stealing a broach pin large enough to be used as a weapon.
Here we get the first hints of what’s going to happen. The audience will be savvy enough to know that the crew will be punished for this infraction, but the first indications are subtle, hidden in the soundtrack. A slight creaking, which might be missed the first few times.
When Hercules and Hylas manage to escape the base of the statue, all seems quiet again. The camera moves from the two actors to the statue, and back. When the actors are in view, the creaking starts to permeate the soundtrack again. The statue appears to be in a different position, but the audience questions themselves about that.
Then the reveal happens. With the camera locked onto the statue, it turns and looks directly at the two crewmen. Even 60 years later, it’s a wonderfully effective scene. The effort that it must have taken to get the scale of that statue right against the real-life actors (who had filmed their scenes months in advance) is mind-boggling.
And of course, you can see the cracks in the façade, but this has aged far better than a lot of early examples of CGI. It certainly looks more convincing than Dwayne Johnson at the end of The Mummy Returns (Stephen Sommers, 2001). Despite being shot at different times; the physical weight of a puppet makes this feel real.
When you combine that with the creaking sound, the audible cues that this is a metal statue that has been dormant for years, it becomes a scene as real as stunt work. When people talk about practical effects, Harryhausen’s work must be considered one of the prime examples. The clay gave him the freedom to create things that even with the very best makeup, would be nye on impossible to achieve, and which arguably could only be done convincingly with CGI within the last decade.
That creaking becomes almost horror-like; akin to Bernard Herrmann’s shrieking strings in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). As the tension builds and the Argonauts try and escape the island, the soundtrack continues to rise, and the creaking gets louder as Talos approaches from around the mountain.
With the perfect combination of painstaking animation and perfectly timed soundtrack cues, Jason and the Argonauts creates one of the most iconic monster scenes in cinema history.
Director: Don Chaffey
Writers: Beverley Cross, Jan Read
Starring: Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack, Honor Blackman, Gary Raymond