Tuesday, September 28, 2010

drive-by cheesing.

Himself insisted my classical education was sorely lacking for not having seen The Clash of the Titans, version 1981. *throat clearing*

Burgess. Burgess. Burgess. What were you thinking? (I know: paycheck, but still.) Way to represent with the cornballery! This makes your turn in Magic look like high art. But I forgive you. It's not as though you're Harry Hamlin.

A word on Harry Hamlin-- so much of the film was focused on lovingly showing Our Harry's freshly glossed lips and bouffy 'do that they didn't have much time left over for actual clashing. Did he even get a nick or a scratch when he was wallerin' around in that swamp with Calibos? Way too clean, in my book.

[aside from Himself as Harry again has to fight Calibos, having shown mercy by just lopping off one of his appendages during their first encounter: "that wouldn't happen to your boyfriend." I replied "Of course not. Boyfriend would have kilt Calibos ded the first time he was begging for it." He's a gentleman that way - don't make someone ask you twice.]

I'll spare you the bulk of my reflections on this film, but suffice to say its Velveeta Quotient goes to 11. What I wonder is if Medusa's blood is so caustic that it melts a shield produced by a goddess, then how's come her still-oozing melon doesn't etch its way through the cape in which it's carried to the film's denouement?

Oh, silly me. What was I thinking?

Can't wait to see the update. Come to that, here's a treatment of the original with sounds from the later version. I call this a vast improvement, but the first is definitely worth seeing. Once.


7 comments:

Christina RN LMT said...

I LOVED THAT MOVIE! Of course, I saw it in theaters. When I was 11...

Barbara Bruederlin said...

One does need a good cheesy flick every now and then. When the offspring is in town we often rent very bad horror films, for the express pleasure of scoffing at them.

Old NFO said...

Meh- 1981, I think I watched that in the Azores, and drinking didn't even help...

Laura said...

don't bother with the reboot. the beauty of the original is the cheesiness. the reboot tries to hard to live up to the original.

Rabbit said...

I saw the original in the theater. I was into the Xanax before that damned mechanical owl showed up. At least it helped the time go by faster. I always suspected Olivier must have had incriminating Polaroids out there blackmailing him into doing this picture..or maybe that was Inchon, another memorable dog of a movie.

breda said...

Ray Harryhausen was a genius.

Roscoe said...

Shoulda made it a double feature with "Simian Chanted Evening", the landmark "LA Law" episode featuring Harry Hamlin in the gorilla suit crashing Susan Dey's wedding.

Great TV -- it cemented NBC's control of Thursdays for 20 years and made people forget all about "Clash of the Titans" ... at least until the remake.

(Sadly, the show isn't available legally on home video in the US.)