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CLASH OF THE TITANS began production in 1975 during the filming of SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER as PERSIUS AND THE GORGONS HEAD.  The idea for the film actually began back as far as 1969 when screenwriter Beverly Cross was living on the Greek island Skiathos.  Cross had been working with the Harryhausen/Schneer team since 1963's JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.  This screenplay was special enough to Cross to pitch the film to more mainstream actors than had previously appeared in the Harryhausen films.  This included Beverly Cross's wife, Maggie Smith who would play Thetis, Goddess of the Sea.

Further casting included Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera, Burgess Merdith as Ammon and Ursula Andress as Aphrodite.  This would be the first Harryhausen film to feature a truly stellar cast, but this cast also drove the budget for the film up to $15 million.  Schneer took the story to Columbia for backing since they had released every Harryhausen/Schneer film since IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, except VALLEY OF GWANGI.  Columbia Pictures refused the project claiming that they still had returned a profit on SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER.  Schneer then took the project to MGM who accepted almost immediately.

Principal photography for the film finished in 1979 and now it was Harryhausen's turn to take that footage and meticulously work his stop-motion sequences into the film.  For CLASH OF THE TITANS, it would become necessary to create  244 different animation cuts requiring 202 setups-where the animated creature and miniature sets are carefully aligned to the filmed footage making the stop-motion sequence merge perfectly.  These setups would take anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days depending on the complexity of the shot.  It would take him almost a year to complete this effects work.  This time a crew was assembled to help with the model making and some of the stop-motion sequences.  One person who was brought on board to help was Jim Danforth, who had previously worked on THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO and WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH.  

Beverly Cross's screenplay utilized much of the original Greek myth while adding a few touches of his own, including the Kraken which owes it's origin to Norwegian Mythology.  The Kraken appears early in the film during the destruction of Argos sequence.  This sequence required mattes and background plates that were 4 to 5 high.  Using background this high would allow for much greater attention to detail giving the sequence a much more realistic appearance.  This sequence also involved the flooding of Argos which required shooting the miniature flood at extremely high speed so that when it is projected at 24 frames per second the scene gains volume and depth.

The featured villain in the film is Calibos, based on Shakespeare's Caliban in THE TEMPEST.  It was decided to use both a live actor and a stop-motion creature to bring Calibos to life.  The decision to use an actor for Calibos after realizing that he had so many lines of dialog which would present a particular problem for the animation.  Actor Niel McCarthy would play the live action version of Calibos while Ray's attention to detail  would allow for a continual switch between McCarthy's Calibos and his own stop-motion creature into an often seamless and undetected sequence.

Other Harryhausen creatures for the film included Pegasus, an army of Scorpions, and a giant Vulture. The script called for a flying Griffen but Ray had already animated a Griffen for THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD so he felt it would be to repetitious.  They changed the flying beast into a Vulture.  Ray received some criticism for not substituting another mythological creature claiming that there are no sequences that Vulture appears in that couldn't have been filmed with a real bird.  The same could have been said for the baboon is SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER.  Whatever Ray's reason, the Vulture works in the film.  As a creature closely associated with death, the animated Vulture moves beautifully within the realm of fantasy.

The Scorpion battle sequence is another fantastic sequence which retains the real motion of scorpions while giving them the fantasy look obtained through stop-motion photography.  Harry Hamlin does a fine job in the sequence as he wields his sword to defeat this forest army.

The Pegasus sequences are all beautifully animated.  For the film, Pegasus' origin was changed to make him the last of Zeus' personal herd of flying horses.  Pegasus's first appearances again required matching the stop-motion to Hamlin's performance including a rope.  This type of animation is a marvel to watch since it's practically impossible to see the connection between the stop-motion work and the live-action process.  Jim Danforth was involved with the animation of some of the Pegasus sequences.

The original Greek legend included Cerberus, the three-headed dog.   A Dioskilos (Greek for two-headed dog) was created for the film to ease the task of animation since two heads are much easier to animate than three.  Still animated the two heads requires meticulous patience since the animator must keep track of which head is moving in which direction as he sets up each shot.

Persius battle with the Gorgon is perhaps one of the most brilliantly animated sequences of Harryhausen's career.  Harryhausen gave her a much more fantastic appearance by turning her lower body into a serpent.  The sequence was filmed in a darkened room lit by a fire, requiring Ray to match the constantly changing light to his stop-motion work so that it would appear completely integrated into the film.  When you consider that she had to move like a serpent and had a head full of snakes for hair this sequence becomes truly amazing.  

Janet Stevens sculpted the model for Medusa, the Gorgon based on Harryhausen's design.  She had previously worked with Harryhausen on THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER.  The stop-motion figure was created by Ray, applying the foam rubber mold over his hand-crafted metal armatures.  

One of the most annoying creatures in the entire Harryhausen film collection is the robot owl, Bubo.  It's far to cute for a Harryhausen film and is completely out of place in this time setting.  The owl switches between stop-motion figure and a mechanical puppet creation of  effects technician Colin Chilvers.  Many claimed that the mechanical owl was inspired by George Lucas' R2-D2 since it communicates with clicks and squeaks with an occasional mechanical hoo-hoo occasionally thrown in.  Beverly Cross denies all the allegations since the mechanical owl was part of the original script he had created ten years before, long before the release of STAR WARS.  Bubo is worked into the story when Zeus declares that Athena must give Perseus he beloved pet owl.  Not being able to bear the loss of her pet she asks Hephastus to design a mechanical duplicate of her owl.  The real problem with the owl is that it is just to cute for this type of story and it manages to add humor to scenes that should retain their intensity.

CLASH OF THE TITANS would be the final project for Ray Harryhausen.  Although SINBAD AND THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD was announced as their next production, it never saw any more than a proposed idea.  Today, Ray's type of work seems almost antiquated having been replaced with CGI graphics.  The action in these films is often more intense and some of the CGI work is impressive but there have been no films released since CLASH OF THE TITANS that contains the magic of a Harryhausen film.  Sinbad has been demoted to series television with less-than-impressive CGI work and the entire body of that series doesn't contain one-tenth of the beauty fantasy and wonder of any of the Harryhausen Sinbad films. Occasionally a film is released with stop-motion, like NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and then the beauty of stop-motion is once again realized within a new generation of movie patrons.  But it will always be Ray Harryhausen's films who delivered the true magic of Stop-Motion and all stop-motion effects, whether hand manipulated or computer effects will be judged by Harryhausen's standards.  Those are difficult standards to meet.

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