After watching Ray Harryhausen’s three Sinbad movies (see Traveling with Sinbad and Ray Harryhausen), I wanted to rewatch Jason and the Argonauts, and this week I did just that.
Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963) remains one of the most enduring cinematic retellings of Greek mythology. Not because of narrative accuracy but because of its visionary special effects, evocative score, and mythic tone. Though the film adapts the ancient myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, it does so with considerable creative liberty, transforming the story into a fantasy epic for mid-20th-century audiences. At the heart of its enduring appeal is Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking stop-motion animation and Bernard Herrmann’s thundering orchestral score, all set against the sun-drenched ruins and coastlines of southern Italy.
The film draws from the Argonautica, by Apollonius of Rhodes, and other classical sources but condenses, modifies, and sometimes wholly invents elements of the myth. Key figures from the legend are present (Jason, Pelias, the Argonauts, Medea), but many of the events are streamlined or altered.
Some things align with the myth. Jason’s mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece to reclaim his throne from the usurper Pelias. The divine involvement of Hera, who acts as Jason’s protector and benefactor, consistent with some classical sources. The encounter with Phineas and the harpies and the passage through the Clashing Rocks are lifted directly from the Argonautica.
However, the gods are simplified, functioning more like chess players than characters within an epic cosmology. Hera and Zeus appear as a bickering couple who watch Jason’s progress from Mount Olympus, a device more aligned with modern narrative convenience than classical theology. Characters like Hercules are reduced to brief side roles and comic relief rather than the tragic, complex figures of myth. Medea’s character, crucial in myth as both a helper and later a tragic antagonist, is largely sanitized. Her betrayal of her people and the dark magic she employs in the original are omitted. In a way, she is reduced to a passive romantic interest. The climactic battle with the skeletons has no basis in the original myth but brilliantly replaces the more prosaic theft of the Fleece.
These alterations are not flaws but rather necessary cinematic inventions to fit the tone and pacing of a family-friendly mythological adventure. The film is not a literal transposition of the myth, but is mythic in spirit, compressing sprawling source material into an archetypal hero’s journey, which, for many viewers, is Greek mythology, or at least its cinematic avatar.
The special effects in Jason and the Argonauts represent the apotheosis of Ray Harryhausen’s career. Using his patented Dynamation technique, he infused life into creatures of myth in a way no live-action or early CGI could. Four sequences, in particular, stand out.
Talos, the bronze giant who guards the treasure of the gods, is rendered with a weight and presence that convey true menace. His creaking joints and inhuman movement evoke the unsettling uncanniness of ancient statuary come to life. His death, bleeding ichor from his heel as he topples into the sea, is visually and emotionally stunning.
The Harpies are terrifying in their grotesque, birdlike design and relentless torment of the blind prophet Phineas. Harryhausen manages to elicit pathos for Phineas while showing off the harpies’ chaotic and disruptive power.
The Hydra is a marvel of design, even if misplaced in this story (it was not Jason who fought the Hydra, it was Hercules who did it as part of his Twelve Labors). Although the stop-motion animation of so many moving heads is a logistical feat, Harryhausen controls the scene with elegant pacing. The monster’s defeat directly leads to the summoning of the skeletons.
The Skeleton Fight is perhaps the most famous Harryhausen sequence. This sword battle between Jason, his companions, and seven skeleton warriors raised from the Hydra’s teeth took four months to animate. It is a masterclass in timing, choreography, and spatial storytelling. The skeletons are more than visual tricks. They seem cunning and malicious, and their coordination with live actors is astonishing. Unlike most modern effects, Harryhausen’s creatures feel tactile. They occupy the world of the actors, enhanced by careful compositing and clever blocking. The monsters are the drama, not mere obstacles.
Bernard Herrmann’s score for Jason and the Argonauts is monumental, brooding, and filled with heroic grandeur. Known primarily for his work with Hitchcock (Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds), Herrmann here brings an entirely different register, one inspired by classical modes and Wagnerian brass. Talos’s theme is a percussive, ominous motif: mechanical, slow, and unrelenting, matching the statue’s unholy animation. The skeleton battle is scored with whirling strings and jarring dissonances, emphasizing the unnaturalness of the combat. The love theme for Jason and Medea is restrained, evoking Greek antiquity without slipping into Romantic cliché. Herrmann’s use of brass and percussion gives the score a ceremonial, almost religious tone, appropriate for a tale driven by gods and fate.
While set in mythic Hellas, the film was primarily shot in southern Italy. The choice lends the movie an authentic Mediterranean atmosphere unmatched by Hollywood backlots. The architecture and ruins seen throughout the film ground the fantastical story in a recognizably ancient world. The First Temple of Hera at Paestum (used in the harpy scenes) is particularly striking. Its weathered Doric columns and open spaces are both majestic and desolate, reinforcing the tragedy of Phineas’s blindness and torment. Rather than building sets, the film uses these ruins to suggest timelessness and the lingering shadow of divine presence. Palinuro and the Amalfi Coast stand in for various seascapes and island vistas. The jagged cliffs, sun-bleached rocks, and deep blue waters give the journey a convincing epic scale. The cinematography (by Wilkie Cooper) captures these locations with painterly composition, highlighting both the natural beauty and eerie grandeur of the ancient world. In this sense, the movie has more visual fidelity to Greece than most later productions filmed in studio-heavy settings.
Jason and the Argonauts is not a scholarly retelling of Greek mythology. It is a cinematic myth in its own right. With its blend of spectacle, artistry, and archetypal storytelling, it embodies the timeless spirit of heroic adventure. While scholars may balk at its liberties, and purists may miss the tragic edge of Medea’s betrayal or the complexity of Hercules’s presence, the film captures the awe and terror of encountering the unknown, the monstrous, and the divine. It is perhaps best remembered not for its plot but for its moments: Talos turning his head, the Hydra writhing in battle, the skeletons crawling from the earth. These images, combined with Herrmann’s music and the ancient stones of Paestum, transcend fidelity to myth to become a modern myth of their own.