CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981): Shakespeare with Monsters But No Titans?!

This week, GB and AJ head back to 1981 for Clash of the Titans, the final feature film from legendary stop-motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen.

With Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith and Ursula Andress delivering grand, Shakespearean dialogue about gods, destiny, honour and death, while giant scorpions, Medusa, a mechanical owl and a bloody great sea monster wander around in the background, this is a fantasy film unlike anything else.

AJ watches Clash of the Titans for the first time, while GB revisits one of his childhood favourites. We talk about Harryhausen’s incredible career and the end of an era for this style of fantasy filmmaking, as well as the occasionally janky effects that already looked old-fashioned when the film was released in 1981.

We discuss the incredible Medusa sequence, one of the film’s most memorable and genuinely tense scenes, the creepy skeletal ferryman, the witches, giant scorpions, Calibos, Bubo the owl and, of course, the legendary command to…

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

There’s also the small matter of Greek mythology, Cornwall pretending to be ancient Greece, Laurence Olivier apparently forgetting his lines, Arnold Schwarzenegger nearly playing Perseus and the original plans for an even darker ending.

But one question continues to bother us.

Why is a film called Clash of the Titans filled with gods, monsters, Gorgons and the Kraken…

…when there aren’t actually any Titans?

Has this 1981 fantasy classic aged badly, or is there still something magical about Harryhausen’s old-school filmmaking? Can practical effects and imagination overcome some very visible matte lines? And can a film be both incredibly grand and completely ridiculous at the same time?

Join us as we revisit Clash of the Titans and decide where it belongs in our Rewind Classic Movies rankings.

And most importantly…

Where the hell are the Titans?!

READ NEXT: The James Bond Theory That Rewrites The Rock (1996)

Next week: We Fast Forward to look at the Top 10 Worst Movie Remakes Of All Time, thanks to the inspiration of the Clash’s 2010 follow-up.

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