And we're not talking about the hero of Jason and the Argonauts but rather associate producer and special effects guru Ray Harryhausen.

The sight of Jason and his swordsmen fighting them en masse is also a brilliant substitute for the lame battle scenes of other sword 'n' sandal epics.They keep tabs on Jason's adventures by consulting a celestial TV perhaps inherited from our old Egyptian friend Im-Ho-Tep.

Sony's Blu-ray of Jason and the Argonauts is the finest presentation of the film I've seen, and I saw it twice when new.It's possible that back in the late 60s someone at Columbia made prints with the day for night incorrect and they have never been changed.

Starring Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack, Gary Raymond, Laurence Naismith, Niall MacGinnis, Honor Blackman, Nigel Green, Michael Gwynn, Douglas Wilmer, Jack Gwillim, John Cairney, Patrick Troughton, Andrew Faulds. The performances are a bit wooden and forced (as they often are in this era) and the pacing is a little slow – again, a common fault of the era.But it's the skeleton battle from this film that is perhaps Harryhausen's pièce de résistance, which would later serve as Sam Raimi's inspiration for the legion of undead in ' Army of Darkness. There's a reason why the movie doesn't dig into the psychology behind the myths -- Jason and the Argonauts is a splendid fantasy of spectacular adventure.

Of course, the scenes combining stop-motion with live-action don't look very attractive in high-definition, although to be fair they will never be due to the techniques originally used in the film. The acting can be rigid and excessively melodramatic, but Armstrong brings energy and charisma to our main hero, and Green is probably the most entertaining as the boastful strongman -- oozing machismo and leaving a trail of manliness in his wake.

Just a week after Harryhausen turns ninety years old, Sony finally brings to Blu-ray the film Harryhausen himself considers his greatest achievement--the Greek mythological adventure 'Jason and the Argonauts. The storyboards were only rediscovered five years ago and reveal plans for a scene where one of the skeletons was going to lose their head, but the idea never made it into the final animated battle. Thanks to the special effects genius of Ray Harryhausen the screen comes alive as these mythical monsters leap into action, making Jason and the Argonauts non-stop, thrill-a-minute entertainment for the whole family.