Jason and the Argonauts

• Cat.no: CDR 90037
• Cert: U
• Running time: 100 minutes
• Year: 1963
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 28 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0 (Mono)
• Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Subtitles: 20 different languages available
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 5
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Filmographies, Ray Harryhausen interview, The Harryhausen Chronicles

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Director:

Don Chaffey

Producer:

(Clash of the Titans, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, It Came From Beneath The Sea, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, 20 Million Miles To Earth)

Associate Producer:

(Clash of the Titans, One Million Years B.C., The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, It Came From Beneath The Sea, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, 20 Million Miles To Earth)

Screenplay:

Cast:

Jason: Todd Armstrong
Medea: Nancy Kovack

Jason and the Argonauts is a film that few people will not have heard of. If you didn’t study Greek mythology in school, then settle down for a history lesson – of sorts. After sailing round the world exploring for 20 years, Jason (Todd Armstrong) returns home to claim his rightful place on the throne at the kingdom of Thessaly. However, he has just one more task to perform before he does this – to retrieve the magical Golden Fleece.

In order to do that, he needs to overcome a number of obstacles including a 100-foot bronze giant statue, a venomous seven-headed Hydra and battle an army of skeletons. Yes, it’s time to crack open the carton of LSD tablets and experience the same trip that the film’s creators were on (surely ?)

Nowadays, all the hard work would be done by computer graphics, telling it where to start and where to finish and letting the processor fill in the gaps inbetween. However, nearly 40 years ago things were a little different and the process of stop-frame animation was used. So, something that might take an afternoon on a Cray super-computer, may well have taken a couple of months or more by moving a small figure a step forward, taking a photo, moving it again slightly, taking another photo… and so on.

In addition to Nancy Kovack as Medea, there aren’t many well-known faces in there, apart from the late Patrick Troughton as Phineas and Honor Blackman as Hera, Queen of the Gods.

The picture avoid artifact problems, but given the age of the film, there is a fair amount of grain on the picture. This is to be expected, but it would have been interesting had a grain-free remastered print been available. Unlike the Encore PAL laserdisc box-set which was priced at a penny short of £50, while that had a fullscreen 4:3 picture, the picture here is presented in a matted 1.85 ratio and is enhanced for 16:9 widescreen televisions – thus allowing for 33% higher resolution – and the average bitrate is a fine 5.85 Mb/s, peaking occasionally at close to 10Mb/s.

The soundtrack is in mono, something else you’d expect, but shouldn’t be criticised for that as it comes across quite effectively.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer : There are 28 chapters, like most Columbia releases, covering the 100 minutes and the original theatrical trailer is included.

Languages/Subtitles : Five languages of dialogue are available: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, all in glorious mono.

As for subtitles, like one or two other Columbia titles, they come in a record TWENTY languages : English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish and Italian.

Filmographies : No actors this time round – just a list of films that Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer have put their name to.

Other extras : – Ray Harryhausen interview: a 1995 12-minute interview with the thoughts of the special effects maestro and Blues Brothers-director John Landis prompting the questions.
– The Harryhausen Chronicles: A 58-minute look at his work and what has influenced him over his lifetime, narrated by Star Trek‘s Leonard Nimoy. Subtitles are available for these extras, but, bizarrely, only in German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian (!)

Menu : The menu is static and silent with a picture partly-mirroring that of the front cover, but well-drawn.

Fans of this film will no doubt snap it up already. While it’s not brimming with extras, it does give a good insight into the work of Ray Harryhausen. For those who haven’t seen it, rent first before buying, although it’s one of those films that’s on TV every so often so it’s never far away. All you’re missing, in comparison to the American release, is an open-matte 4:3 fullscreen version – so you’re missing nothing worthwhile.

FILM : **½ PICTURE QUALITY: *** SOUND QUALITY: ** EXTRAS: *** ——————————- OVERALL: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.