Gli Argonauti

Hero Jason leads a team of intrepid adventurers in a perilous quest for the legendary Golden Fleece which has amazing healing powers. Jason sails on the Argo-ship to the land of Colchis seeking for the golden fleece in this mythological romp . This is one of the best sword and sandals film from the history , retelling the legend of Jason in search of the famous fleece for uncharted sea . The film deals with the myth Jason (Todd Armstrong), son of king of Thesaly , the young prince has had his heritage usurped by his nasty uncle Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) who has taken the throne . He travels in search for the fabled Golden fleece located in the Colchis where is guarded by seven-headed hydra . It's based on a poem of Greek poet named Apolonio of Rodas titled ¨The Argonautika¨ (250 B.C) . In order to achieve his throne, Jason must retrieve the magical calf housed from distant land of Colchis and bring it toward city of Iolco . Jason assembles a motley , brave crew formed by a valiant band as Hercules (Nigel Green) , Polydeuces (Crawford) , the traitor Acastus (Gary Raymond) ,Castor and others ; meanwhile , evil Pelias has usurped the kingdom and taken his throne . Jason successfully leads his crew of would-be heroes throughout a series of outstanding adventures . The Argo crew are under the protection of Hera (Honor Blackman) , queen of the gods . They're confronted by a heinous giant bronze named Talos at an island and many other dangers . Jason saves Medea (Nancy Kovack) , priestess of Hecate (who later to be revenged Jason , killing their sons) from waters and both of them go to Colchis . They sail unharmed along sea storm , suffering thirsty , famine and incredible adventures , encountering giant monsters , multitudes of mythological monsters and weird creatures .

This exciting picture contains lots of action, magic , fast-moving , thrills , impressive fights against monsters and lots of fun . It is an exciting fantasy-adventure full of special effects created by means of stop-motion technique by the magician Ray Harryhausen , the Dynamation man . The previous Ray Harryhausen films were generally shown as part of a double feature in "B" theatres , Columbia and the producer Charles H Schneer were able to book this film as a single feature in many "A" theatres in the United States. This time the large list of monsters result to be the following : a huge moving sculpture of Talos , as they battle against harpies , a venomous creature as hydra, and an animated terrifying skeleton army, all brought to life by the special effects masterfully created by the maestro wizardry Ray Harryhausen who regards this as his best film. In the ¨7th voyage of Sinbad¨ , Ray designed a sword-battling skeleton , here we see a whole army of them for Jason and his crew to fight at the ending of the film . It took Ray Harryhausen four months to produce the skeleton scene, a massive amount of time for a scene which lasts, at the most, three minutes . The runtime is adequate with various incidents and sub-plots . Harryhausen works his animation magic around a passable-developed screenplay and engaging acting by the entire performers . The cast is enjoyable with effective but unknown main actors , though important secondary Brit actors as Laurence Naismith (Argo), Niall McGinnis (Zeus) , Honor Blackman (Hera) , Michael Gwinn (Hermes) , Jack Gwillin (Aetes) . As usual in Sword and Sandal films here appears the choreographic girls dancing and lots of action with several adventures including spectacular fights , storms , witchery, and some good effects .

This elaborate recounting was well directed by Don Chaffey although with little relation with the poem by Apolonio of Rodas . The film contains an evocative and powerful musical score by Bernard Herrmann conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . Colorful and spectacular cinematography by the great Wilkie Cooper . Fun for the whole family though it tends toward the ponderous at times but for the most part , it's a marvelous and entertaining movie . Other adaptations about this classic story are the following : ¨Giant of Tessaly¨ by Riccardo Freda with Ronald Carey and Massimo Giroti , ¨Hercules¨ by Pietro Francisci with Steve Reeves , Sylva Koscina and for TV ¨Jason and the Argonauts¨(2000) by Nick Willing with Jason London , Frank Langella and Olivia Williams .

I decided to contribute my comments when I read another commentator who mentioned that the leads were dubbed... this fact dealt a crushing blow to "Todd Armstrong" from which he sort of never really recovered.

As I was told, he showed up at the gala premiere and nobody had told him he had been dubbed over. What a horrible shock, in public, on one's 'night of glory'!

He had a highish voice, but one that was extremely expressive - a fine instrument. The dubbed voice is very low and flat. I can't tell you how I'd love to see the film with his voice restored!

Making movies, like any creativity, is full of compromises, some of them beyond one's control. "Todd" still loved the movie - it was filmed in southern Italy - he had a great time doing it. He was always a very, very handsome and strong man, and his physical presence shines through still.

It is really a memorable, powerful film! After seeing it I dreamt my favorite kitten had been slaughtered by the other kittens in the litter, who had become sword-wielding skeleton kittens!

I hope you all enjoy it and don't get too worked up about inaccuracies with the original story (as someone here has).

Because its overall professionalism and the magnificent special effects, this movie will live on despite being technologically outdated.

Can anybody speak to the possibility of finding the original actor's voice track? What's to be done? Thanks!

As entertainment this movie is perfect. The movie is a fun adventurous one, with lots of spectacular moments and fights. From a technical point of view this movie is even a masterpiece. The stop-motion scene's created by special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen is simply brilliant and makes this movie one of the most influential and important one's, when it comes to special effects. But also the movie uses clever camera tricks and some well made miniatures. Yes, of course the effects all look out dated now but they still surprisingly, look convincing enough and at times they are even still simply breathtaking and spectacular to look at. Especially of course the legendary, fantastic end fight against the skeleton warriors.

The story is like good entertainment should be; Adventurous, exciting and simple to follow. The movie truly is none stop fun entertainment to watch with lots of spectacular moments with the legendary skeleton fight as the ultimate highlight. You don't have to be a fan of 'classic' movies in order to enjoy this movie, everyone should be able to appreciate this movie and be entertained by it, especially when you are a fan of ancient Greek tales.

Something that is not praised enough of this movie is the musical score by Bernard Herrmann.

The movie is not exactly filled with impressive and memorable actors. As many movies as I have seen in my life, I don't think I have ever seen any actors from this movie in any other movie, with the exception of course of Honor Blackman who will always be remembered for playing the Bond girl Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger". But this movie clearly isn't a character-adventure movie, it's a special effect adventure movie. The special effects are really the most important element of the movie. So for the fans of special effects this is especially most definitely a must see.

A movie that should be fun and enjoyable to everyone, of all ages.

8/10

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Jason and The Argonauts is a great film to watch and escape reality. This is one of those movies that you know is not real but you just enjoy it and have fun watching it. I think this film is underrated because it was not given one Oscar nomination. I think this film should have been nominated for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration, Cinematography, Bernard Herrmann's Original Score and Film Editing. When I first saw this movie on Turner Classic Movies one night, I was only excited to see the Skeleton Fight at the end which took Ray Harryhausen and special effects crew three months to create that entire sequence. This is a Great movie and I encourage all of "The Lord of The Rings" fans to watch this and see a great masterpiece of classic fantasy and old fashioned special effects. **** out of ****!

It's really rather hard to believe that this picture received mediocre reviews when it first came out.It appears that most now regard it as a classic,and in certain circles,it has achieved cult status.True,Armstrong's Jason is a rather bland character,and could use some foibles and quirks to become more realistic and human,but this could be lodged against the writers.Kovacks as Medea certainly does look marvelous,but shows none of the inner torment of the character of classic mythology.(On the other hand,this movie was made for kids,and we don't need to introduce them to Eurypides' virago just yet.)An outstanding cast of well-trained British actors provides sterling support.Naismith personifies loyalty and good-natured common sense;Troughton is remarkable as a tortured sinner who is brave and hasn't lost his sense of humor;Green is probably the most realistic Hercules ever developed;And Gwilliam is the personification of outraged hospitality and necromantic malevolence.Wilmer has a good time doing a Rathbonesque villain.The special effects are first rate,given the state of the art at the time,and Blackman and MacGinnis develop wonderful portraits of the deities.They have a genuine relationship,and appear to be a man and wife.The plot has more depth than most films of this genre,and is lots of fun,besides.