In the 300ish seat cinema in the basement of the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations, built into a corner of the Old Port of Marseille, on a hot morning in July, I watched Don Chaffey’s 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts, dubbed in French, with no subtitles, for the first time in its entirety since I was about eight or nine. I didn’t remember much about the film besides the unforgettable Harryhausen skeletons, but if somebody ever had the inclination to trace my interest in cinema back to its roots one of the key stopping points would certainly be this film. Or this image, I suppose, rather than a film, but an image only conceivable in cinema. These swashbuckling clay skeletons, painstakingly crafted, animated by hand and inserted into battle with actors fighting the air around them, left quite an impression on me, and the chance to revisit both image and film after twenty or so years was too exciting an opportunity to pass up.
Chaffey’s film, looking at it now, feels more like a sketch than an odyssey, albeit one with the action expanded in full colour. Time passes quickly with no exertion, and one bombastic set-piece follows another. There’s no space between the battles to get a sense of how far these men have traveled, or even how much these trials have hurt them. But when Harryhausen is the star of the show, does a well fleshed out plot really matter? A giant bronze statue creakily coming to life, two bloodthirsty harpies hissing and shrieking from above, a seven-headed hydra flailing chaotically in the shadows, and seven sword-wielding skeleton warriors ready for battle. All of these images have been seared into my brain for twenty years, and even though the film is little more than a means to showcase the effects work of a pioneer, watching those skeletons emerge from the soil once again has, in spite of the film’s shortcomings, been the purest joy of my time in Marseille so far.