Million Monkey Theater B-Movie Reviews!

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Guest review by Mike Martinez. Thanks!

Clash of the Titans is seen by many to be the penultimate film of legendary special effects director Ray Harryhausen's career. After a 30-odd years of stop motion pioneering, this came as his final crowning achievement, giving us some of his most detailed creations yet. Teamed back up with his old friend producer Charles H. Schneer, Harryhausen had his largest ever budget ever to work with, enough to hire a team of assistants. Among these were some fairly big names in the biz at the time like Frank Van der Veer (who did the effects on Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian) and legendary matte artist Jim Danforth (of numerous John Carpenter films among many others).

Technically, yes, this is an excellent film with some of the best stop motion effects in recorded history, strong music (sadly missing Bernard Herrmann this time though), good cinematography, and an excellent supporting cast. However, this does not necessarily a good movie make. Overall the film is quite fun and watchable (especially for kids) but with more than its share of wince-inducing moments. It's the sort of thing that kids raised on (like me) shall grow up to love unexplainably much like other cheesy early 80's fantasy films like Flash Gordon. In fact, this film shares a lot of the same problems and makes many parallels with Flash Gordon. I'm amazed I didn't pick up on them earlier.

To start with, the script is by a true scriptwriting legend (Beverley Cross in this case as opposed to Lorenzo Semple Jr.) but whose product here does not represent their best work. Also a lot of nepotistic cast/crewing decisions were made with Cross's wife (yes, Beverley can apparently be a man's name too) Maggie Smith in the rather crucial central role as Thetis, goddess of the sea. The big difference here is that she's arguably one of the film's best non-SFX-related assets. Much like with Flash Gordon, the entire supporting cast cracks, while the two relative unknown young leads (Harry Hamlin and Judi Bowker) demonstrate a disturbing lack of acting ability or onscreen chemistry. In Hamlin's case, it may have been due to some distraction over off-screen drama involving an affair with much-older co-star Ursula Andress, who bore him an out-of-wedlock child during the production.

This film was released in June of 1981 and did marginally well at the box office, making a substantial profit but not becoming the huge Star Wars-esque hit the producers were looking for. Stop motion has since declined in favor of puppetry and ultimately (and most unfortunately) cheap, easy, and lifeless computer graphics. There has since been the odd-retread such as Army of Darkness (1993) or Robocop (1987) which both made tons of money but not enough to really revive the dying art of stop-motion animation.

Anyway, on to our show before I get too nostalgic...

We open with a bunch of Bronze Age (?) Greco-Roman soldiers on some random Mediterranean Beach carrying a fancy coffin. One of them (late unsung British thespian [there's a lot of those in this film] 57-year-old Donald Houston) announces himself to be Acrisius the King of Argos. He angrily denounces his daughter for giving birth to a son out of wedlock and has her (complete with crying infant) sealed up in the coffin and carelessly tossed out into the waves.

The dichotomy of the full helmet and the miniskirt for soldiers is striking.

Lara puts Jor-El into the capsule...

Above, a seagull catches all the action and decides to hightail it to Mt. Olympus while the opening credits role. This seagull really takes the scenic route on its way up the coast... deciding to give a number of Spanish, Italian, and North American locations (including Monument Valley and Montana's Glacier National Park) a fly-over. I guess all this looks pretty, but doesn't really make much sense (unless the seagull is taking some time to do some serious soul-searching before delivering his bad news to the other gods).

Flap.

The seagull flies over the Misty Mountains, home of the Mines of Moria.

Yes, this seagull is in fact a god himself, and as a cheap silhouette animation tells us, is 71-year-old highly regarded British thespian Jack Gwillim (who you might remember as the main villain Aetes in Jason and the Argonauts). He arrives in the court of Olympus, dotted by half a dozen other robed figures, and approaches the altar of Zeus, the king of the gods.

Sure, it's a nice location, but how are the schools?

Why don't they ever have any furniture in these palaces?

Zeus is played by 74-year-old legendary thespian Laurence Olivier, whose very name is equated with Shakespearian acting talent. However, by this point in his career, Olivier has completely besmirched his name by putting in a series of terrible performances in awful films *sneezes in a way that sounds like "Inchon"* purely for the money. This film came late in that cycle and did a little to restore his good name, but his performance here (while good) is decidedly uneven, owing more than a bit to the fact that he was slowly dying of multiple terminal illnesses at the time. He doesn't really move much over the course of the film, overall glued to a throne and just sitting there ordering other gods to actually do the dirty work.

Zeus.

It turns out that the earlier chick being cast out to the ocean was actually knocked up by Zeus himself and that the screaming infant is in fact his earthly son (one of many I guess, as being a God and banging the same middle-aged Goddess for eternity must get pretty dull). You wonder why these Gods, who can assume any form they wish, would all appear as middle-aged-to-elderly dorky losers in white togas. We now get a lot of shamelessly expository dialog to introduce each god or goddess and are informed on what they're the god of. Hera's a crusty old bitch with a grudge (probably due to her hubby's infidelity), Athena is an aloof looking woman with an owl (!), Thetis (in a rather large role for a decidedly minor player in mythology) is a brooding snooty woman played by 46-year-old Maggie Smith, and finally Aphrodite is played by a 45-years-old-but-still-got-it Ursula Andress (who was pregnant at the time). Sorry about my run-on sentences. Still, I gotta say polytheism is a hell of a lot more interesting than monotheism. At least these gods have some personality to them.

Hera.

Thetis.

Athena.

Aphrodite.

Kiera Knightly, just wondering if you were paying attention.

Well anyway, Zeus is totally pissed about this whole transpiration of events and orders Poseidon to release the Kraken to destroy Argos in retaliation. Okay, a "Kraken"? Up to now we've had the film planted firmly in Ancient Greek mythology. Now suddenly Cross tosses in a figure from Norse mythology, the Kraken, which was supposedly just a giant squid which would pull ships into the depths of the ocean. According to this film, the Kraken is a gigantic undersea monster who looks like the a reuse of the Venusian monster in Harryhausen's earlier 20 Million Miles to Earth crossed with a merman, yet with four jointless arms and claws. He's quite the ugly son of a bitch actually, despite a great set of abs and pecs.

Deep underwater by some cavern, Neptune or Poseidon or whoever approaches the Kraken's cage (in easily the worst matte effects shot in the whole film) and opens it. The close-ups of Gwillim here reacting to the awesomeness of the Kraken as it swims over him are pretty nifty though. His hair is billowing up as though they actually submerged the 71-year-old actor and forced him to emote in front of the underwater camera.

Doesn't seem big enough or strong enough to hold in the Kraken, but what do I know.

Now we get our first good look at the Kraken bursting out of the water in an iconic shot used in the opening montage for Malcolm in the Middle (which plundered several Harryhausen movies actually, which you'd think would mean that the writers or creators of that show had a little more class and culture than they otherwise demonstrated).

To needlessly add insult to injury (though I still find this concept ridiculously cool), we see Zeus back in his playroom (?) drawing a small GI-Joe sized statue of Acrisius out of a marble cabinet. This room shall be especially exciting to any viewer under the age of 10, as it shows that even an elderly God can still have a totally cool toy collection and playroom. Hell, when I was 6 and watched this movie daily, I think I assumed I'd have a playroom exactly like the one in this film one day, complete with a full wall of GI-Joe's and He-Man figures.

Anyway, Zeus tightens his grip on the statue and it begins to slowly crunch and crumble. Meanwhile down in Argos, Acrisius is cruising around with his guards admiring the scenery when suddenly he starts to convulse and react as though his bones are breaking internally! Cool!! This coincides with the Kraken unleashing a giant tidal wave onto the city (accomplished by a few impressive matted miniatures mixed with some rather unimpressive stock footage shots of waves crashing on a beach).

The following scenes of mass destruction are pretty hit and miss, though the sequence overall is a winner. Lots of pathetic Plebeians in togas run about while super-imposed waves crash around them and lay waste to the scenery. The larger-scale miniature shots of cataclysm hold up real well, but the live-action full-scale shots just look like someone just hosed the extras down with a fire hose. There's also one confusing bit of editing near the end of all this destruction showing Acrisius in agony and biting the dust while his guards are still near him and very much alive. The very next shot shows the waters subsiding. We're then led to believe that the Kraken and tidal wave killed everyone and "destroyed" the city. Hey, it damaged it sure, but most of the major structures are still intact (New Orleans should be so lucky)... and Acrisius's guards all looked fine to me at the end of it. Perhaps they immediately committed suicide due to the loss of their families... or maybe the Gods sent down smaller Kraken death squads to mop up? Who knows? As cool as he is, was the Kraken even really necessary? He didn't really do any direct destruction--it looked like a flood did all the dirty work. Can't Zeus just cause a flood on his own?

So the Kraken immediately and obediently returns to his cage after a job well done. I'm wondering why they need a cage for the beast since he seems to follow directions so well. Zeus also admires his toy-crushing abilities for a moment or two while a gust of wind blows his crumbled-up statue out of his hands. The film gets a little arty and reflective for a moment.

Okay, so remember the chick and the baby in the floating coffin? Well they wash up on the island of Seriphos and the coffin is still closed, indicating that they just rode it out the whole way, trapped inside (how traumatic that must have been!). This must have taken several days as that's a good chunk of the Aegean Sea they covered with no stores of fresh water or baby diapers, so I'm happy they spare us the smell.

On Olympus, Poseidon explains that the woman (whose name is Danae) and her son (Perseus) were greeted by the Seriphosian locals and immediately assimilated into their culture. Zeus is pleased and looks over to his cabinet, where we see a G.I. Joe-sized Danae doll breast-feeding an infant. Dissolve to the actual Danae (with fully exposed breast) feeding young Hercules, er Perseus in a PG-rated movie! Wow, I think breasts get some sort of MPAA exception when shown providing milk... or if they belong to uncivilized African tribal women. That's our westernized puritanical morality for you, don't ask me to explain.

Okay if that wasn't enough, we dissolve to a couple years later and she's walking a 5-year-old Perseus along the beach, naked, and holding hands. Wow! Full non-frontal female and child nudity! Call the police, we're scarred for life! Call the montage police anyway... what an egregious example... Can't we just take the writer's word for it and just cut to Hercules, er I mean Perseus all grown up and establish it's him with a throwaway line rather than have to endure all the "highlights" of his adolescence. And man, growing up has certainly come a long way since the Bronze Age... while MY highlights would involve getting my first Nintendo or when I made an ass of myself attempting to bop at my first Junior High School Dance, Perseus is content with fishing and riding horses. Wow, I'm so impressed. He must really have a lot of life experience under his belt. I'm amazed he even knows how to talk or interact with others being stuck on a barren island for his first 30 years (where are those Seraphosians at, anyway?).

Yes, 30 years! Yeah that's right, Harry Hamlin was 29 when this movie was filmed, and he sure as hell looks it... much too old for a character who by all accounts acts like a 17-to-20-year-old-tops throughout the film. And people call ME immature. Hamlin went on to have a spectacularly marginal Hollywood career, with his only major success after this film being a recurring central role on forgotten crime show L.A. Law. Here he's in full-on flawless hero mode, and since I was about the same age when I bought my first Nintendo as I was when I watched this movie daily, I'll just refer to him as "Mario".

Okay, so back on Olympus, Zeus is gloating about how strong and handsome his illegitimate son has grown up to be despite the fact that he played no part in his raising. He then turns his attention to Thetis's son Calibos who happens to be a Prince of Joppa (they're starting to meld a few different myths together here already if you can't tell). Much to Thetis's dismay, Zeus angrily denounces Calibos for "hunting and destroying EVERY living creature" (surely even The Gods aren't above heavy exaggeration) and places his statuette inside a cool model coliseum he keeps. What an awesome playroom! Zeus is like that one kid who never grew up... like a divine Michael Jackson!

In the film's second totally nifty effect (utilizing some sweet animation), the camera zooms in on the statuette's shadow (in case you didn't realize that this scene is doing some OMINOUS FORESHADOWING) which mutates into that of a horrible demonic lizard man! Now we'll just call him "Bowser" as he's our obvious grotesque villain for the film. But dude, that statuette shadow transformation scene is way too cool! I just blew my load. Oh wait. I can't yet because I'm 10...

Okay 17 years later when I resume writing this overlong review, I come to the next scene, where a vengeful Thetis decides to get back at Zeus (is she sure this is a good idea?) by transporting Mario to a Joppa. Okay? This is the best revenge a GODDESS could come up with? What a stupid plot point! She KNOWS that Zeus is going to find out and get really pissed at her. While she's at it, why not just kill Mario indirectly by placing him... I dunno... on top of 19th Century Krakatoa (East of Java) five seconds before it blows its top. Show a little more imagination... stupid gods...

Mario has the good fortune to wake up in a semi-abandoned Greek Theater. He awakens to find 73-year-old Burgess Meredith as "Ammon" (but he's the helpful mentor character here so I'll just call him "Toad"), an unemployed playwright/poet and the caretaker to the theater, attempting to scare him away with a spooky Mask of Mandragora (I can swear that's a Doctor Who prop).

When Toad realizes Mario is not a burglar, he immediately becomes fast best-friends (!!!) with Mario and gives him clothes, a sword, and a walking tour and introduction to every relevant fact that the rest of the movie is based on. It turns out Mario has suddenly appeared in Joppa (what a coincidence--that's where Bowser is... I sense more ominous foreshadowing) and the exiled (because he's ugly, hence bad) Bowser is in the nearby swamps waging some sort of guerilla war on the town.

Also there's some curse where the princess of Joppa can marry any man, but that man must solve a riddle. If he doesn't then he must be burnt at the stake to appease the Gods. What kind of curse is that? Why do they enforce it? All I can figure is back then there was absolutely no questioning of authority when it was supposedly made by divine mandate.

Zeus is pissed to realize Mario is suddenly in Joppa... but rather than just transport him back to the island, he hatches some ridiculously convoluted scheme to give Mario a bunch of Godly weapons--a helmet, sword, and shield. The sword is a super-mega Wango Zitango Lightbringer Wunderwaffe Power Sword! I'll just call it "Sword" for short. The shield is your standard round Greek-style shield, BUT it periodically displays the all-knowing image of Ben Kenobi, er I mean Zeus, complete with guiding words of wisdom. The Helmet, by far the raddest of all the gifts, rends the wearer invisible.

We then see Mario in the court of the ruined theater playing around with some prop swords like he's a bad ass. Suddenly he spots the sword, shield, and helmet near some convenient god statues, each corresponding to the god who made it. What a coincidence! How many Greek Gods are there? Did they make the statues too? Mario snatches up the invisibility helmet (as any young male would do) and immediately heads to the nearest women's changing room... or failing that, the Joppa city square to advance the plot of this unfortunately PG-rated movie.

Mario strolls into the crossroads city of Joppa, which is supposed to be located in modern day Israel... though you'd never know it from this film. This first scene establishes the city of Joppa as a strange mixture of Middle Eastern mystique mixed with your standard Greek city state. The extras are darker-skinned, the featured ones mostly Spanish/Italian (where this movie was mostly filmed), and the principals are all white-as-snow Brits and Americans. Mario seems pretty lost until he gets to a city square where everyone's standing around watching a dude get burned to death. You guessed it, he tried to take the water of life but wasn't the Quisaat Saderak.

Mario takes the opportunity to instantly befriend a random guard (the only one who isn't wearing a face-covering helmet, so we can see his face and identify him). This guard is named "Thallo" and is played to sneering perfection by 35-year-old Tim Pigott-Smith, who many of you will recognize from several Doctor Who episodes (including The Masque of Mandragora--wow, a reunion of props AND actors!) and recently as the spear-chucking priest in Alexander. He ends up being Mario's best friend throughout the film who actually helps him fight and kill things, so I'll just call him "Luigi". Despite being snooty and above everything, Luigi seems eager to tell Mario everything he wants to know and more. Man, I wish people were that helpful to me every time I black out and wake up in a random city thousands of miles away. Perhaps I should consider curtailing my raging alcoholism?

Mario instantly decides to check out the princess and uses his invisibility helmet to intrude into the palace and ultimately into her room and watch her sleep (!). This isn't creepy for some reason because A) he's good looking, hence B) the Hero, C) he's supposedly naïve and doesn't know any better, and D) the music playing is warm and pure of heart as opposed to dark and brooding. Just from looking at her, Mario instantly falls in love with the princess and just assumes that she is his destiny (doing this got me in a lot of trouble in High School).

The princess's name is "Andromeda" (but I'll just call her "Princess Daisy"), played by a 27-year-old Judi Bowker, though the character is clearly meant to be more in the 16-21-tops range. This film's casting department certainly made it a point to err on the mature side, but then you'd think they'd have found some lead actors who could, you know, act. Bowker is decent but completely non-noteworthy, and is so thin and waifish that she isn't that attractive either in my opinion.

Right when you were starting to think "hey, it's been a while since I've seen a stop-motion monster!" a giant vulture swoops in right on cue. It flies up to the balcony outside the princess's window with a small gold cage clutched in its talons. I really have to commend Harryhausen for bringing this creature to life--his observational skills with wildlife and animal movement are unparalleled. The squawking (taken from the Harpies from earlier Harryhausen film Jason and the Argonauts) does however get a tad shrill, especially since it's supposed to be nighttime in the palace and you'd expect at least several dozen servants and guards would hear all this commotion, especially if it's a regular occurrence as we're led to believe.

Suddenly Princess Daisy splits into two people as though she's Patrick Swayze's character in Ghost. Mario stares amazed as one, slightly more transparent version of the Princess gets up and obediently walks to the cage, though she certainly doesn't look too terribly thrilled about it. Upon sitting down, the cage closes on its own volition and the vulture flies off with the Princess Daisy's um... ghost (?).

Back at the ranch, Mario and Toad scheme on how Mario can follow the vulture to find out where it's taking Princess Daisy. Rather than just bring this strange phenomena to the Queen's or anyone's attention, the two decide to go find Pegasus, a legendary winged horse, who just happens to be in town that night.

Pegasus is a pretty obvious character so I won't bother describing him much beyond that he's white and has large eagle-like wings that can somehow support his decidedly un-aerodynamic shape and heavy frame. His purpose throughout the film will be for Mario to ride, get places faster, and help collect power-ups so I'll just refer to him as "Yoshi".

Without wasting time, the two immediately camp out near a random lake and Yoshi shows up right on cue. Making use of his invisibility helmet, Mario manages to sneak up and rope Yoshi, then hop on his back and tame him... because according to movies any wild stallion can be tamed just by riding it a little bit. This sequence is accomplished using a mixture of stop motion, blue-screening, and some actual location shots using a real horse. It's also done in typical day-for-night blue-tinted fashion with everything still casting shadows even though it's supposedly midnight. We even see the sun's reflection in the lake when Mario fills up his helmet to feed the horse (with water which doesn't turn invisible for some reason).

Okay, so roll same footage from before of the vulture picking up Princess Daisy. Mario of course is right behind, floating around on Yoshi's back and with his flying cape on and a running start... you have to repeatedly press the Y-button to do this. This cheat allows Mario to skip several other sublevels (though we do get some neat stock flyover footage of some various canyons in Jordan or Turkey or somewhere) before finally arriving at Bowser's swamp. Man, Bowser lives pretty far from the city to be the scourge of the place... I mean he has to traverse at least 3 different environments to go to and fro from work... that is unless this vulture (like the seagull at the beginning of the film) was just taking the scenic route.

The vulture sets Daisy's cage down in your usual uninviting studio swampland. Finally we get a good look at the designated villain of the film, named "Calibos" but I'll just refer to him (as I have been) as Bowser. Bowser is played by 47-year-old Neil McCarthy, a gaunt and scary looking actor who never really got his due credit and died just 4 years after this film came out. You may recognize McCarthy from a few Doctor Who appearances or as the second-to-main villain in the 1978 TV version of The Thief of Baghdad. On no, I'm sure you don't, because I think I have one of the very few remaining copies of that lost movie. That's a real shame too because it's really not too bad with an excellent cast and musical score (despite shoddy TV production values). Anyway, McCarthy was good in that and he's absolutely delicious here, complete with whiny desperate demeanor, vicious snarls, and a gurgly deep voice. I'm really bummed he didn't ever get famous but I can understand how he didn't get much recognition. As Bowser, he's under so much makeup that it's difficult to tell what he really looks like, and he only plays Bowser for half his shots--all the full-body Bowser shots are performed by a Harryhausen stop motion figure.

Daisy gets to walk the gauntlet first, passing by all of Bowser's henchmen and Koopa Troopa's as she goes by. Bowser's gang in this scene consists of three midgets, a harmless looking 90-pound old man with a club, and a scraggly toady who looks and sounds like a great British Character Actor but unfortunately he wasn't credited so I have no idea who he is. Apparently these actors were all cast because they're all ugly and deformed, hence bad.

Bowser is a pretty blinged-up gaudy pimp, complete with lots of jewelry, more chest-hair than I care to describe, a set of sharp pointy grillz, and a of course an S&M whip (which he is markedly more skilled at than Bill Murray). He immediately endows the princess with a ridiculously expensive sapphire necklace. I know from experience that if you've already lost it with a chick, just buying her ridiculously expensive stuff is just digging yourself a hole. I actually feel really sorry for the guy. He just doesn't have any dating skills... even less than me. As the following ridiculously expository conversation tells us, the whole reason Daisy broke up with him is because he suddenly got ugly, not because he's cruel and evil. Wow, what a gal! I love shallow chicks. Sign me up.

Bowser cracks his whip (coming dangerously close to whacking his bitch in the face) and his minions show her a blood-inked parchment (?) with the next riddle, which appears to just be the two-word answer. Somehow from that she's able to come up with a lengthy poetic question, leaving me to believe that either this scene or this movie isn't meant to be taken completely literally. She solemnly returns to her cage, and Bowser resumes sitting there to contemplate more mischief, probably mushroom-related.

However, it happens that Bowser is a pretty keen observer and notices invisible Mario's footprints as he sneaks away. Understandably, Bowser gets all kinds of pissed, and follows Mario into the swamp and jumps him.

The final stage of Level 1 commences with a fist fight in the swamp. Why Bowser neglects to bring any weapon I have no idea, but I have to admit this is THE best scene I've ever seen in which a live-action human character interacts with a stop-motion one. It's impressive as hell that the two convincingly grapple on several long shots, but I don't think the stop motion was really necessary. I mean, all that work just to replace his feet with cloven hooves? Couldn't they have just balanced him on some stilts or framed him from the waste up something? Was it really THAT important? In the scuffle, Mario unfortunately clumsily drops his invisibility helmet into the swamp water and out of the plot. He does however manage to get to his sword, raise it up all dramatically, utter "by the POWER OF GRAYSKULL!" and take a swing at Bowser.

Instant CUT to a celebration! Well not exactly. There seems to be some sort of ritual in Joppa where Queen Cassiopeia parades her daughter in front of the court and asks for suitors to present themselves. Well, in this case, nobody bites, none-too-eager to roast alive for a shot at an only mildly-attractive high-maintenance snoot.

That is until MARIO arrives triumphant from killing Bowser. Princess Daisy asks her riddle and there's some tension, as we have had no indication as of yet that Mario can read or that he got a glance at the parchment Princess Daisy saw... but it's a movie, he's the good guy, and answers the riddle correctly. I wonder what would have happened if he'd have just choked and blown it right there. "Hey, thanks for lifting the horrible plague on our city and defeating the boss of Level 1, but yeah sorry about burning alive dude, that sucks."

Well it's happy days. Everyone frolics and dances and suddenly Toad is hanging around like he's in some official position for some reason. Oh yeah, Luigi's there in the background as though he's high up in the Queen's military and gets full run of castle as well... makes you wonder why he'd have just been cavorting with the loser commoners watching that earlier public immolation.

Meanwhile Bowser has managed to somehow sneak into town and is in a temple with a very large surprisingly accurate statue of Maggie Smith. Somehow Bowser is aware that Thetis the goddess is his mother, which confuses me as Mario has no idea that he's half-divine... I guess in the case of mother it's a little less conjecture over the identity of the parent. Anyway, Bowser is pissed that Mario defeated him (but let him live for some reason) and sports a severed stump where his hand used to be. Of course, like in every movie the stump is just as long as it would be if there was a hand tucked away inside. The Thetis statue actually responds to him, leading me to think that either A) she raised him from infancy as a talking statue or that B) he's high.

Okay, a matter of hour later, it's on to Mario and Princess Daisy's wedding. The whole population of Joppa is of course there to see it, represented by about 100 extras cramped onto the soundstage. Toad and Luigi are there with front row seats as though they're important (why is the unemployed playwright suddenly given all these privileges?) and the wedding is presided over by the Queen Cassiopeia.

Queen Cassiopeia is played by 47-year-old-but-still-got-it, Sian Philips, who you may remember as the bald witch lady from Dune. She's wearing a lot of make-up (heavy eye-make-up, Rrrrrrr), has some nicely curly brownish red hair, and is wearing a flowing red tunic. Easily the most attractive woman in the film... but then again I have "different" taste so what do I know?

Cassiopeia then goes on to make one of the dumbest character decisions for the sake of plot point in history. She randomly starts into a mid-wedding boast about how great of a catch her daughter is and that she's way hotter than Thetis, who happens to be the goddess the temple they're in is dedicated to... and whose statue takes up half the room! Well duh, that's a no-brainer. The heavens immediately start pissing and moaning, shaking the room with earthquakes while the Thetis statue's head breaks off and tumbles down onto the floor, presumably smushing and killing several commoners. I love how in the confusion, Toad grabs the queen as though to protect her... which seems like a natural movie hookup situation since he's old and single and she's kinda-old and apparently single. Too bad nothing's ever made of this blossoming romance. We'll just have to assume something's going on offscreen as she seems to have given him an "official" position on her court.

Then in a less than impressive effect, Maggie Smith's face superimposes over the severed statue head. Here at the 1 hour mark, the film finally switches into Act 2, with the real conflict of the story. According to Thetis, Princess Daisy must be sacrificed to the Kraken in 30 days or else the whole city will be destroyed. All this, just for insulting her in her temple? Man, what a bitch. Just to salt the wounds a little bit, Thetis adds that Princess Daisy has to still be a virgin too. A 27-year-old virgin? My how the times have changed in the last few thousand years... Even I didn't last THAT long, and I'm a movie dork.

Dissolve to Mario and Toad trying to figure out what to do. The best they can come up with is to seek out and consult three old blind women who live some ways outside of town. I like how nobody even considers maybe just packing up and abandoning the city for the day when the Kraken shows up... but hey, what are you gonna chose, your house or the life of some rich bitch who collects your tax money and never has to work a day in her life? Luigi just happens to be standing nearby and enthusiastically joins in with a group of about a half-dozen guards. These guards only rarely remove their helmets and aren't really given any personality or purpose other than to get killed by the various monsters to come (much like the red-shirted security officers on Star Trek). Coincidentally, these characters DO have red shirts on underneath all the period armor. Makes washing the fake blood out easier.

Okay, well this journey would be simple if Mario could simply hop on Yoshi and fly to wherever the three old blind women are. But for some reason, Yoshi is NOT tied up or guarded or anything, and is minding his own business untended at the same watering hole that Mario captured him at in the first place. Right on cue, Bowser and about a dozen cavemen (?) but sans midgets run in and net Yoshi, dragging him away. Where does Bowser find all these feral henchmen at? How did he walk all the way back to his hide-out (which was shown earlier to be at least 50 miles out of town), assemble the cavemen, and then walk all the way back to Joppa and net Yoshi in a matter of two days? How did he even know about Yoshi or that Mario would need him right at that moment? Plot convenience, I imagine?

Mario, Luigi, and his men decide that they're not going to bother wasting too much time looking for Yoshi, so they decide to head out and seek the witches on their own. Princess Daisy decides to tag along, though I would wonder why she'd put herself in danger with so much at stake... I mean, what if she falls off her horse and breaks her neck or some barbarians (or one of her undersexed guards) sneak up on her sleeping bag in the middle of the night? Then the Kraken would likely kill them all and ruin everything just for the one stupid oversight because she craved a little adventure. Stupid woman.

Out on the trail, the group encounters a piece of terrain bare of any features (though there is a handy mountain range to one side so you wonder what they're fretting about). Suddenly out of the sky a robotic golden wind-up-toy owl appears! I don't know why Harryhausen, Schneer, or Cross thought this was a good idea, but Zeus has ordered Athena to make up for the helmet Mario carelessly lost in the swamp by supplying a goofy stop-motion robotic owl to aid him on his journey. This owl ends up being the hapless R2-D2 character for the rest of the movie who ends up doing most of the heroic heavy-lifting whilst providing ample comic relief! Yep, he gets to goofily fall down and hurt himself numerous times, each time more irritating than the last, complete with lots of buzzing and whirring and electronic "Hoohoo" noises. The owl is named "Bubo" but we'll just call him Jar-Jar, because his presence is completely uncalled for.

After the requisite falling down and hurting himself, Jar-Jar speaks to Mario (only Mario can understand him) and shows him and the group the way out of the desert. The next thing we know, they're in some neat-looking canyon in Spain or Italy or wherever and find a simple Obelisk-like tower sticking up on top of a cliff. How the three old witches managed to build such a structure so far from civilization (and what they do when they need groceries or supplies for that matter) is left to the imagination. Apparently they just feed off the flesh of anyone dumb enough to pop by asking questions... but can there be that steady a stream of victims to nourish them continuously? How would they be able to overpower and kill their victims (presumably fit young men) anyway?

Here comes time for some serious rock-climbing. These type of scenes are easy ways to pad out adventure movies, but this one is thankfully brief and appropriately tense, especially since the group didn't plan on this or think to bring any climbing gear or ropes. The producers decided for some reason to cut a comical scene where Mario and Luigi get to the top to find out that they could have just taken an escalator if they'd have looked a little harder.

Upon arrival at the witch shrine, we're introduced to the three least-attractive elderly British actresses that the producers could think to come up with at the time, Flora Robson, Freda Jackson, and Anna Manahan (all gifted and respectable actresses in their own right). All three are pretty much indistinguishable, with no eyes, scraggly mop-like gray hair, and garbed in assorted rags, though one of them is a tad more abrasive than the other two. Typical of movie witches, they live in a dank rat-infested hellhole and spend 100% of their time scheming over a boiling cauldron.

They are given the limited ability to see via a jewel (the same prop used ironically enough as the "All-Seeing Eye" in that 1978 TV version of The Thief of Baghdad that you haven't seen) that can be held up to the head to give limited vision, but they only have one and have to share it.

Mario enters and asks calmly enough if they know how to kill the Kraken. The witches make it a point to try and cover up the fact that they're in the process of boiling a man to death (I love the macabre touch of showing a hand reach out of the cauldron, but you wonder how he hasn't drowned by now) and slowly amble toward Mario, apparently eager to subdue him somehow. Suddenly Jar-Jar swoops in and steals the eye from them. He passes it to Mario who uses it as leverage to get them to spill the beans on killing the Kraken. Apparently there is no way other than to go to the underworld itself, behead Medusa, and then show her disembodied head to the Kraken to turn him into stone. You may as well turn the movie off now as they've just laid out 90% of the remaining plot arc.

Rather than immediately hit up a pawn shop, Mario is nice enough to carelessly toss them back their beloved eye, leading to some comical slapstick as they all roll around on the ground desperately feeling for it while some pesky rats play keepaway. How would these women live so long in such unsanitary conditions? Oh yeah, the poor sap in the cauldron is left to his fate. Thanks, Hero.

Back at camp, Toad (why he came along I don't understand since he's a little old to be riding around and fighting monsters) gives Mario his briefing for the next level. Medusa, he says, used to be a beautiful woman, but the gods got pissed at her for some reason and made her so ugly that looking at her would turn a man to stone. Wow, kinda like the last girl my friends hooked me up with for a blind date... sometimes I almost wish I was blind and had to use a jewel to see.

About Medusa: okay, I for one don't find the idea of someone's stare turning me to stone really that scary. Couldn't they just send in someone bashful with supremely bad eye-contact abilities like yours truly or, like, Lieutenant Horatio Caine to slay her? Well the writer decides to also make her also a crack shot with a bow and arrow, which helps a little.

The next morning, Princess Daisy wakes up to find everyone gone except Toad, apparently out on their way to the underworld to kill Medusa. She seems pretty broke up that Mario would dare go to hell and not even ask her if she wants to go with him. Hell, she should consider herself lucky. I'd be the first to invite any of my ex's to go in my stead on such a quest... one-way even.

Okay, so at the banks of the currentless River Styx (which looks more like a lake or inland sea), which is apparently in close geographic proximity to Israel or wherever they are (is this film just a big metaphor, or am I reading this waay too literally?), Mario and his group ride up to find a ferry to take them across. The ferry is piloted by the grim reaper (with a paddle instead of a scythe) himself who still desires legal tender as fee. Even though the group needs to not only go into the underworld but presumably come back out as well, Luigi gives Mario a single gold coin to pay the ferryman.

Also, the group somehow knows that only 4 passengers can ride in the boat and so Mario and three Red Shirts (with no absolutely no qualms about sailing into hell--or lines, for that matter) file out and pile into the boat. I like how the ferryman opens his skeletal hand to collect payment and Mario hands him a coin, though there's nothing to keep the coin from just immediately slipping through between the ferryman's metacarpals. Oh yeah, thankfully Jar-Jar does not tag along for some reason.

A good bit of movie goes by without much dialog. The group unloads on the shores of the underworld (which you'd think would be a big, heavily populated place) and immediately come to the shrine of Medusa without even having to ask for directions. Even though it's the "underworld" there's still plenty of sunlight and foliage, just lots of dry ice fog and insta-fossilized remains of Medusa victims everywhere.

Suddenly out of nowhere the group is attacked... not by Medusa but by one of the most curiously random monsters in the film, a two-headed dog! This dog is a pretty middling Harryhausen creation, not really possessing much in the way of special powers and not getting too many shots interacting with the actual actors. When the dog jumps out, it pounces on one of the Red Shirts who just dies instantly from being knocked down. (!!!) Apparently they don't make guards like they used to.

While the dog busies itself with the two other Red Shirts, Mario has to contend with a decidedly un-poisonous python over ownership of his sword. Once Mario successfully retrieves it, there isn't much the dog can do but submit to his authoritah'. Chalk up one more unique animal exterminated over the course of the film.

Two-Headed Dog out of the way, the group enters Medusa's shrine, which is heavily populated with statues of her past victims. Judging by the number of them, she doesn't do much house-cleaning and is a surprisingly popular target for bored adventurers of the time.

One of the Red Shirts starts to wander off on his own, all tensed up like he's expecting to take a hard fall... and he does! An arrow shoots in from off screen and lodges into his spine, knocking him face-down into a Jacuzzi (!?).

In what is possibly the best, most tense sequence of the film, complete with neat torch-lit cinematography and flawless stop-motion, Medusa then makes her big appearance. I must say that despite all the fan fare, she really doesn't look all that bad. I mean, I'd be a little turned off by her snakes for hair and the fact that her lower half is that of a rattle-snake (or the fact that she's made out of clay), but her facial features and build aren't too bad. At least she's got a decent rack. Somehow most TV sets are shielded from her harmful gaze, as I've not heard of too many people turning into stone watching this movie despite the constant shots of her eyes. As a kid it took me a few viewings to figure that one out.

Mario and the remaining Red Shirt hide behind columns and try to use the reflection in their shields to spot her. However, Medusa is a little too smart for that and shoots the Red Shirt's shield out of his hands, knocking him down. Suddenly in a case of blatant character stupidity, the Red Shirt decides now is a good time to go ahead and give Medusa a good ol' Texas stare-down, despite the constant earlier forewarning by Mario. In a pretty nifty dissolve effect, Medusa gives him the gaze of death and he instantly turns to stone, though you wonder A) what happens if you just give her a quick glance, not a long un-broken stare like this idiot did, and B) why his clothes remain fabric while all the other statues outside had completely turned to stone, clothes, armor and all?

Mario plays around with Medusa a little bit prior to killing her by first tossing a torch across the room. Apparently Medusa had been huffing some glue in between shots and she shoots the nearest statue to the torch. She's a little too wise to be suckered in yet, so Mario tosses his shield onto another statue and uses it to show off his reflection. Medusa, apparently even stupider than I'd previously thought, just shoots that statue and slithers in to conduct an investigation. Mario then leaps out from behind a column and beheads her, but somehow her headless corpse manages to scream (!!!) and crawl around a little bit. Only after about a minute of writhing around, does the corpse desists and allow a deluge of sludge-like neon-red blood to pour forth.

Making it a point not to look at it, Mario feels around for and grabs Medusa's severed head. He staggers out of the temple and carelessly leaves his shield behind, which begins melting (?) in the pool of Medusa's blood. In one of the iconic shots of the film, Mario triumphantly emerges to the outdoors and raises Medusa's head to the heavens.

It's a good thing all the gods are immunized to Medusa-glances or we'd get a lot of insta-fossilized gods plunging down from heaven right now. What a careless thing for Mario to do. What if some other group of adventurers happened to walk up to the temple right as he was holding Medusa's head up?

Rather than go through the process of how Mario was able to convince the ferryman to give him a ride out of the underworld (even though Mario only had the one gold coin to pay him with earlier), the film just cuts to Mario, Luigi, and a single Red Shirt sleeping in some very windy piece of desert. Something about the math in remaining Red Shirts doesn't add up here as Luigi still had at least two of them with him when they separated to enter the underworld. Perhaps one got killed offscreen or rode ahead to tell Joppa of their impending arrival? Who knows.

Level 4 commences with Bowser (remember him?) suddenly showing up with a new sharpened trident (in case you didn't realize he's supposed to be an incarnation of The Devil yet) in place of the hand Mario removed. He uses it to stab the hanging bag with Medusa's head in it (were they afraid bears would get into it?) which (despite being dead for several hours) bleeds pulpy, maggoty goo all over the ground.

Somehow, Bowser knew that this would cause any and all scorpions on the ground to grow really big and attack the sleeping good guys. Why he had to do this, rather than unload the bag and just hold Medusa's head up to Mario's face when he wakes up is anyone's guess.

Bowser then decides to amuse himself by whipping Mario's horses and driving them away to strand the good guys in case they live (good thinking). Meanwhile Mario, Luigi, and their last remaining Red Shirt all split up to fight their own scorpion. Luigi and the Red Shirt manage to grab swords in the confusion, but all Mario manages to muster is a flaming faggot. Hey, it's an Old English term! It means a burning piece of wood. Fine, I'll just say "torch".

The final remaining Red Shirt is played by beloved Italian stuntman Ferdinando Poggi! Poggi appeared in numerous other Harryhausen films, noteably as Castor of Sparta in Jason and the Argonauts and the Cali Statue in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Unfortunately, Poggi's character is just that of a throwaway background extra so he doesn't last long. His scorpion stings him and it's lights out for the last of the Red Shirts. Typically I thought the larger the scorpion is, that means the less-potent the sting, but the stinger was big enough to cause significant trauma so I'll let that one slide.

Luigi finally gets to do something useful and manages to kill a scorpion on his own with zero help from Mario. He then finds Mario's sword on the ground and passes it to him, just in time to have Bowser sneak in, strangle him with a whip, and then stab him in the back with his trident hand. Luigi's mushroom-eating plumbing days are over. Now armed with his super sword, Mario makes quick work of his stop motion scorpion and is able to turn his attention on Bowser. But wait a minute, there were 3 scorpions just a minute ago... and two of them are dead. What happened to the third scorpion? Also, why didn't Bowser bring any of his dozen or so cavemen along to back him up? Why??? Because, A) He's stupid, and B) to convenience the plot, of course.

Despite totally out-fighting Mario and giving him the whipping of a life-time (another Flash Gordon parallel), Bowser allows Mario to get near enough to his powerful sword to grab it and throw it perfectly at him like a throwing-knife. The shot of Bowser getting impaled with the sword and crumpling to his death is really cool, though the scale for the sword is totally off – either it shrank or Bowser got really big all of a sudden. Rather than retrieve it, Mario just leaves his sword lodged in Bowser's corpse... briefly pining over the loss of Luigi and then wandering off with Medusa's head. Hey, why aren't the gods super pissed that Mario is totally irresponsible with his gifts they generously bestowed upon him? What if he'll need it again, like to fight that other scorpion?

Mario staggers over to a river and begins to drink up. Jar-Jar (oh god, why can't he just go away???) floats down and the two discuss what to do. Mario insists that Jar-Jar fly all the way to Bowser's camp and rescue Yoshi (who is still alive and being kept in a cage for some reason). While he's at it, why not just entrust Medusa's head to Jar-Jar and just let HIM show it to the Kraken and save the day? Oh yeah, he's the hero he's gotta do at least SOME of the dirty work... I guess.

In the film's most ridiculous sequence, complete with lots of slapstick and goofiness, Jar-Jar flutters into Bowser's camp, which is still kept under guard by Bowser's main underused deputy (I wish I knew what this actor's name was because he kicks ass) and the midgets, all unaware that their boss is never coming back.

Jar-Jar manages to not only free Yoshi, but also to severely annoy the midgets and the giant vulture (which fails to just smash Jar-Jar to pieces for some reason), AND set the whole place on fire (which quickly goes up in flame even though they're in a humid swampland). Even though he's a mechanical wind-up-toy, Jar-Jar apparently breathes oxygen and coughs and wheezes in the midst of the resulting smoke... I assume because it's cute or something.

Okay, back in Joppa comes our movie's umpteenth example of random nudity. In a very tastefully (?) brief shot, we see Princess Daisy bathing naked and getting wrapped up in a sheet for presentation to her new husband, the oriental businessman Mr. Ken (first name "Krak"). Speaking of crack, we do get a generous lingering shot of hers, curious for a PG-rated movie. One of her assistants is a curious deadringer for Liv Tyler. I am not even joking, look and you'll see. Outside, everyone's solemnly parading around the square and making preparations for the big sacrifice. Hey it's not every day you see a sea monster murder some young maiden is it? She even got her hair done just for this special occasion.

Meanwhile Mario arrives in Joppa at the same theater he first appeared in, but Burgess Meredith is too busy schmoozing with the Queen in his new position of authority to be of much help now. He's totally exhausted from walking an incredible distance on foot. Mario crumples onto the ground and seemingly expires like a smoker who'd just finished a 400-yard relay.

Back on Olympus, Zeus is quite solemnly reminded by Thetis that today is Kraken Day. Zeus obediently obeys (!) and allows Poseidon to release the Kraken. What kind of chain of command is this?? Before leaving, Zeus surreptitiously takes the little lying-down statuette of Mario and props it up (somehow rejuvenating him in real life maybe?). I dunno. The camera zooms in on the statuette like it's supposed to mean something.

Princess Daisy is led to her designated sacrificial altar on some seaside rocks, complete with little shackles in case she gets it in her head to start running at the last second. A bunch of locals get up on the nearby cliffside and start blowing into a huge horn to summon the Kraken (!). Do they actually have these horns sitting around for just such an occasion? How do they know the Kraken (who is presumably underwater and in a whole other timezone for all they know) going to hear them anyway?

Meanwhile we see the exact same footage form earlier in the film when Poseidon released the Kraken. The Kraken then instantly emerges on a nearby shoal and roars a bit while everyone screams. Hey, that's what they came out to see anyway, right? What were they expecting? Bob Hope? Suddenly Jar-Jar floats in and distracts the Kraken for a little bit before getting knocked aside and into a cliff when the Kraken exhales, hopefully killing the little bastard. No such luck, he comes round and brushes the dust off himself. Unnnnggghhhh....

The Kraken then moves over to the princess and just hovers there and kills time, giving Mario (who is now suddenly riding to the rescue on Yoshi's back!!!!) ample freedom of movement to get there and save the princess. Princess Daisy gets to examine her new husband and we get a neat elevator-eyes tilting shot from the surface all the way up his body (revealing to him to have some nicely chiseled abs, complete with a belly-button, making me wonder what mother he was umbilically attached to at birth) to his grimacing face. He seems pretty hesitant to just take his bride away to her watery grave... either because A) she doesn't do much for him or B) he's spectacularly dumb and wants to give Mario a fair shot at killing him before the movie ends. Who knows? This has always bothered me that such a cool giant monster, in what is the climax of the movie, in what would be Harryhausen's crowning achievement... DOESN'T DO ANYTHING!!! Would it be too much to ask to have him just heave a random boulder and smush a small group of leering innocent bystanders rather than just hovering and roaring, waiting for the hero to kill him??

Finally Mario and Yoshi fly in, successfully distracting the Kraken while Mario digs around in the bag and fumbles the showcasing of Medusa's head. In a last-ditch attempt to give the Kraken something to do, Harryhausen animates it to knock Mario, Yoshi, and the bag into the water. Mario swims up on shore and the Kraken doesn't just reach over and kill him for some reason.

Meanwhile Jar-Jar swoops in, grabs Medusa's head, and passes it to Mario. Well here's a no-brainer. Mario holds up the head and the curiously inept Kraken gets in a good look and turns to stone. Even though all the previous human victim statues stayed together after insta-fossilization, the Kraken spectacularly breaks apart and crumbles into the water.

Triumphantly, Mario heaves the head into the sea, apparently turning several hapless fish to stone on the way to the bottom... unless the inherent buoyancy in the head caused it to wash up on shore somewhere to the doom of some poor fisherman. Yoshi simultaneously bursts forth to show that it's alright and he's okay!

The next thing we know, everyone's celebrating, assuming that this means that their city is saved and that the gods won't get super-pissed over the loss of their prized giant monster. Cut to Mario and Princess Daisy's "for real" wedding (they're actually in different clothes than the other one, nice touch!). And then to Zeus giving us a Paul Harveyish sum-up of the rest of the story while we see them asleep together in bed. Dig the mosquito net. Who wants to be repeatedly bitten whilst consummating your marriage... unless you're into that sort of thing?

So the moral of the story? Well, it's okay for thousands of people to die and the last of several endangered species to be brought to extinction... so long as two shallow 1-dimensional people can hook up.

Go ahead, steal anything you want from this page, that's between you and the vengeful wrath of your personal god...

Million Monkey Theater B-Movie Reviews!

Clash of the Titans (1981)

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