9 / 10
Clash of the Titans is Ray Harryhausen’s final film and his farewell to the medium he helped invent. Desmond Davis directed it. Harry Hamlin plays Perseus. Laurence Olivier plays Zeus. Judi Bowker plays Andromeda. Burgess Meredith plays Ammon. Maggie Smith plays Thetis. Ursula Andress plays Aphrodite. Claire Bloom plays Hera. Susan Fleetwood plays Athena. The film is an adaptation of the Perseus myth, featuring Medusa, the Kraken, Pegasus, Calibos, Bubo the mechanical owl, the Stygian Witches, and the giant scorpions. The film made approximately forty-one million dollars on a fifteen million dollar budget and was the most commercially successful Harryhausen production at the time of release.
The cast is one of the most heavily decorated in any fantasy film of the period. Olivier was seventy-three. Smith was forty-six and would later become the actress everyone knows from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey. Burgess Meredith was seventy-three. The film treated its Greek mythology with enough seriousness that genuinely accomplished actors signed on to play the gods. The result is a fantasy adventure with weight that subsequent imitators rarely matched.
Medusa
The Medusa sequence is the film’s centerpiece and one of the great horror sequences in any fantasy film. Perseus and a small party descend into the temple ruins where Medusa lives. The sequence is shot in firelight. Medusa crawls along the temple floor on her snake body, firing arrows from a longbow while her head’s serpents move independently around her face. The audience can hear her tail dragging on the stone before they see her.
The animation work is among the most sophisticated of Harryhausen’s career. Medusa’s snake body, her independently moving head-snakes, and her bow-and-arrow combat are each significantly more complex than typical creature animation. Harryhausen committed approximately four months to the sequence. The result is the only Medusa in cinema history that consistently frightens audiences who already know the myth.
For Writers
A mythological figure the audience already knows can still surprise them if the specific execution is fresh. Medusa is one of the most familiar creatures in Western mythology. The audience knows what she looks like and what she does. Harryhausen made her terrifying by adding specific details that are not in the myth, like the longbow and the dragging tail. The lesson is that familiarity with source material is not a reason to play the source straight. The details you invent within the established framework are where the work earns its place.
The Cast
Laurence Olivier as Zeus is one of his last major film performances. He plays the god as a regal, slightly exhausted patriarch who is genuinely fond of his half-mortal son Perseus and limited in how directly he can help him. The Mount Olympus scenes have Olivier in dialogue with Maggie Smith’s Thetis, Claire Bloom’s Hera, and Ursula Andress’s Aphrodite. The four-way dynamic among the goddesses is the film’s most underappreciated material. The gods are pursuing different agendas. The mortal plot is the mechanism through which their disputes get resolved.
Harry Hamlin’s Perseus is the film’s weakest leading performance, which is a structural problem the production never fully solves. Hamlin was a competent thirty-year-old actor in his first major film role. He looks the part. He delivers the lines. He does not have the range to match what Olivier and Smith are doing in their scenes. The film mostly compensates by giving Perseus action work rather than dialogue and by surrounding him with creatures who do most of the dramatic heavy lifting.
For Writers
A weak protagonist can be compensated for by strong supporting work. Clash of the Titans builds an ensemble around Harry Hamlin that is so strong the audience does not need much from him. The lesson is that protagonists do not always have to be the most compelling characters. Sometimes the supporting cast is doing the actual emotional work and the protagonist is the audience surrogate moving through the story. Both approaches are valid.
The Kraken
The Kraken is the film’s final creature and one of Harryhausen’s most ambitious designs. The sea monster emerges from the harbor of Joppa to claim Andromeda. The animation work involves multiple tentacles, a massive central body, and integration with crashing waves and a stone city under threat. The Kraken’s destruction by Perseus using Medusa’s severed head is the film’s climax and one of the most-quoted fantasy sequences of the 1980s. “Release the Kraken” has become a cultural touchstone disconnected from its original context.
Harryhausen designed the Kraken as a four-armed humanoid sea creature rather than as the squid-like creature of later popular imagination. The choice was deliberate. He wanted something that looked like nothing the audience had seen before. The result is one of the most distinctive monster designs in any fantasy film.
For Writers
Iconic creature designs come from specific structural choices rather than from generic creature templates. The Kraken in Clash of the Titans is humanoid with four arms. The audience remembers it because the design is specific. The lesson is to commit to particular structural choices when designing creatures. Specific weirdness is more memorable than generic menace. The Kraken’s specific structure is what makes the audience say “Release the Kraken” forty years later.
Craft Note
Desmond Davis directed. Beverley Cross wrote. Ray Harryhausen animated and co-produced with Charles H. Schneer. Laurence Rosenthal composed. Harry Hamlin as Perseus. Laurence Olivier as Zeus. Judi Bowker as Andromeda. Burgess Meredith as Ammon. Maggie Smith as Thetis. Claire Bloom as Hera. Ursula Andress as Aphrodite. Susan Fleetwood as Athena. Released June 1981. Approximately fifteen million dollar budget. Approximately forty-one million worldwide gross. Harryhausen’s final film. He died May 7, 2013 at age ninety-two.
The Verdict
9/10. Ray Harryhausen’s farewell and one of his best productions. Medusa is one of the great creature sequences of any fantasy film. The Kraken is iconic. Olivier and Smith bring real gravitas to the Olympus scenes. The 2010 remake is best forgotten. The original is the original. Watch it as the closing chapter of a career that defined fantasy cinema for forty years.
FAQ
Was it really Harryhausen’s last film?
Yes. He retired from feature animation after this production. He lived another thirty-two years, dying in 2013 at age ninety-two, but never animated another film.
Is the 2010 remake any good?
No. The Sam Worthington version replaces practical animation with CGI and removes most of what made the original distinctive. The sequel Wrath of the Titans (2012) is worse.
Why is “Release the Kraken” so famous?
Because Laurence Olivier delivers it with the specific gravity only Laurence Olivier could deliver it with. The phrase has been quoted, parodied, and referenced ever since. Most people who quote it have not seen the film.
Is the cast really that distinguished?
Yes. Olivier, Smith, Meredith, Bloom, and Andress collectively had decades of A-list credits when the film was produced. The casting elevates the production.
Who is Bubo the owl?
A mechanical owl created by Hephaestus and gifted to Perseus by Athena. The character has been compared to R2-D2 as a comic-relief mechanical companion. The comparison is mostly fair.
How does it compare to other Harryhausen films?
One of his best. Jason and the Argonauts is the masterpiece. Clash of the Titans is the second-best of his major productions.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Essential viewing in the Harryhausen filmography and one of the best fantasy films of the early 1980s.