Context is everything. I'm 65. I saw Jack in the theater at a kiddie matinee in 1967 before I ever saw 7th Voyage. As a matter of fact when I saw the ad for a "home movie"version of 7th Voyage (8mm, one reel/silent B & W excerpt from the feature) in the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the cyclops looked kinda like Jack's Coroman. So I begged my parents to buy me that reel. It was SO AWESOME, a real mind-blower! But 7th Voyage never played on TV in the 60s. So I finally saw it at a fantasy film convention in the early 70s... this time in sound, color, full length. Mind blown again! I started experimenting with stop-motion on Super 8 and the results were pretty darn good. As an adult I became a filmmaker, and had the pleasure of interviewing Ray for a documentary I was making about his mentor Willis (King Kong/Mighty Joe Young) O'Brien. We became friends. He lived in England but whenever he came to LA, we'd get together for dinner. Ray was a real gentleman and a great raconteur.
Wow, you actually got to be a regular friend of Ray's? That's awesome. I'm 63 and would have given my left arm for that privilege. One Million Years B.C. is my Citizen Kane.
I actually really like how this movie includes an Irish leprechaun, a Scandinavian viking, and Roman ruins. All those peoples have history with real world England (where real world Cornwall is) and their inclusion makes the world feel larger and more historical than the Sinbad setting, which only drew from the Arabian Middle-East despite many different real world peoples and locations Arab sailors could have visited and interacted with
If you're talking about _7th Voyage_ alone, yeah, Sinbad's world feels smaller. But in _Eye of the Tiger,_ Sinbad fights a giant walrus in either the Arctic or Antarctic (not sure which), among other things.
@@Bacteriophagebs That’s the one movie in the trilogy I have yet to finish and now I definitely have to, but yes I was mainly following in the comparison between this film and the 7th Voyage
Agreed, to some extent they researched West country legends, such as- Witches, and Authurian (Tintagel in Cornwall) the Danish Viking thing that has ties to Ireland & the Giant's causeway, bringing these seperate elements together isnt easy, without it becoming a mess, BUT they pulled it off. I'm glad this film was made, & when you think about it it is unique to this day
I shared this video with my dad. He's a 50 year vet in stop motion/post production. This was his response: He's pretty funny. Pointed out some things I never thought of. All video versions of this are cut off on the left. It was shot super 35mm flat but titles are at academy. I have a proper 16mm copy that is framed correctly. Ironically the musical version is properly framed. I have both versions on blu-ray.
1. Has to venture through a castle to save a loved one from an evil magic user with a cape 2.uses a whip to destroy his enemies 3. final boss turns into a demonic dragon like creature holy crap, Jack is a Belmont!
Yeah, I remember seeing the trailer when I was like 8 or so- the giants and witches were pretty terrifying for me, and I was already scared of the cyclops and skeleton
@@TheRealNormanBates maybe with Darby O'gill they felt since it was a lesser known disney film, they could use elements from it without getting sued by disney.
Technically it was the title King Arthur and predecessors held, but since only his ever held the title it is also essentially as the family surname. Pendragon means holder of the Dragon Pendant
Fittingly enough, the original folktale this moive takes its name from (yeah, it's strictly an in-name-only adaptation), is explicitly stated to take place during King Arthur's day, with Jack even becoming a squire to King Arthur's son halfway through the story.
15:16: Speaking of that, the main effects Animator of this film, Lloyd L. Vaughan, was also known for working as a hand drawn animator for Chuck Jones with the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies series, as well as How the Grinch Stole Christmas
15:30 Plus evil Pendragon breaks off a (gargoyle) dragon's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil mooks emerge magically from the spot, which is totally different from when evil Aeëtes gathers the Hydra's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil skeletons emerge magically from the spot. ... wait, what do you mean Jack the Giant Killer (1962) came out *before* Jason & the Argonauts (1963)?
Yeah, I found that interesting too. Does the original hydra myth feature such teeth? If so then I guess they could just be drawing on the same inspiration and for once this movie gets to it before Harryhausen does. :)
@@originaluddite It's literally from the original myth where Jason and his who's who of Mycenaean heroes quest for the Golden Fleece. The hydra is a different beast, and had been slain by Herakles some time earlier; he's noted to have arrows dipped in the hydra's blood (a supernatural poison,) which eventually show up in the Trojan War and kill Paris.
It's probably entirely coincidental, but there are moments where the film almost feels like a precursor to Castlevania. The hero has a magic whip which he uses against armored knights, the bad guy has a winged monster form that he turns into during the big fight, and the castle full of monsters crumbles when the villain is destroyed.
Yes! Those 'witches' could have been made by the Krofft Brothers. But they work. The claymation monsters in this never scared me but I found the witches delightfully creepy. I think that might have been accentuated by the use of what I call 'spooky sopranos' in the incidental music.
Literally any movie with Dracula as the main bad guy and other horror movie dudes like Wolfman, Adam Frankenstein, and Mummy as his subordinates say hi.
Isn't that the norm in most jobs? Perform beyond expectations, and they'll increase your workload. At least in his case he got a promotion out of it (I expect Knight comes with a higher salary than Peasant Farm Boy) 😊
I always find it funny when a movie isn't known for it's director or lead performer but someone else who worked on the movie, Ray Harryhausen stole the show on pretty much every movie he worked on thanks to his great monster effects.
11:28 "It almost gives this part a trippy, psychedelic vibe." Yeah, this movie may have been released in 1961, but it definitely doesn't belong to "the Sixties," so that part really stands out...
Great to see a review of this classic - to a kid in the 1970s anyway! I can remember being terrified by the clown ogre thing and the evil princess . Sadly not quite the same experience now when I watch it and I’d forgotten how shoddy that dragon and sea monster thing was! Oh yeah also terrified by the witches 😂😂
As a kid, I liked the movie, but I also remember thinking after seeing it, how it was like watching a dark version of Gumby. The creatures were so cheaply made and dumb looking, I added them to my list of stupid looking monster. I put them right there on top with the ugliest looking turkey in "The Giant Claw" and the weird eyed crabs in "Attack of the Crab Monsters."
I think that would have been too expensive for most B-movie studios, unless they had their own animator, as this movie had. I doubt there were a lot of them around in the '50s.
I saw this as a kid when it was released. I've never forgotten it, but I couldn't honestly say I remembered all of the plot details. I saw it again on BD recently and it held up fairly well. Of course, it's not Harryhausen quality, but it could have been a lot less entertaining.
Project Unlimited did most of the make-up and special effects for the television series 'The Outer Limits'. They also did the stop motion dinosaur for the Twilight Zone episode, 'The Odyssey of Flight 33'.
Great riffs, Brandon! Thanks for doing this one. I guessed it as did probably many of us when you said you’d be doing a “Harryhausen movie without Harryhausen.” I have to confess: I love JACK THE GIANT KILLER. Maybe because I first saw it when it came out in the theater when I was 7 years old, and saw it on the theater and fell in love with it then. And I had not yet seen the Ray Harryhausen classics. So, though now I appreciate how this is like “Dollar Tree Harryhausen”, I still love it. I also love the riffs on it, both from Rifftrax, which I went to see when they did it as one of their RIFFTRAX LIVE shows Fathom Events, and from Brandon here. I have the Kino Lorber Blu-ray of it with the awesome commentary by Mario Bava scholar Tim Lucas, who always does great commentaries, especially on fantasy and horror. And loves it like I do. I also love the fact that that Blu-ray also includes the actually terrible version with the songs shoehorned in. Which begs for riff on it even more. And so I do. Thanks again for riffing on this beloved “classic” (well, at least for some of us). Rabbi Steve aka Patreon member Stephen Vale. PS: oh, and I do like the Princess better when she was evil.
2:46 Actually, it was originally named "Jack the Giant Killer" during production. Heck, there's a teaser poster that has the original logo/title set within the clouds, and it had its original release date of June 2012.
Good follow up to Sinbad. (heh-heh, I called it, too!) I saw this in a indoor theatre when I was a kid. I sat in the 3rd row (in the front). When that giant reared up it scared me! From the front of the theatre it was monstrously large. The movie kept me terrified and cowering in my seat, lol. I never forgot it.
I saw this when I was a child in the 1960s, but it wasn't shown again for so many years that I'd begun to think I had only imagined it -- until I saw a short piece on it in some film magazine. It was so nice to learn it was real.
Off to the hood? Now I'm imagining the leprechaun as the one from the movie series, and he solves Jack's problems by just murdering everyone horribly...
I didn't know there was a Musical version. Great movie from my youth despite it already being old at the time. Judi Meredith was soo cute and it feels like a Warhammer movie.
Gotta admit, when I was a kid those witches scared the shit outta me. Been wondering where I saw them from. Thanks for reopening that painful scar again, Brandon. Lol
Thanks for highlighting the good points. Sure, no Harryhausen, but it’s a pretty cool knockoff, nonetheless. (Side note, I love the theme song the Rifftrax guys do during the opening credits of their version. Fun stuff 👍🏻)
12:55 -- When I saw this movie for the first time, my first thought during this scene was that she looked like one of Jack Kirby's villainesses from the THOR or FOURTH WORLD comics.
I'm loving the fantasy tangent you're on! But I'm also love the campy horror flicks, so just keep doin' what ya do when ya wanna do it. Thank you for the great videos!
You should take a look at Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Sean Connery, Leprechauns, singing. A Scot playing an Irishman. No diaper in this one, though. I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid.
I realized if the leprechaun and the witches with the psychedelic effect were based on Darby O'Gill and the little People a movie by disney. There was a Leprechaun king named Brian and a banshee and carriage of death that used a similar effect to the monsters that attacked the ship. Maybe they thought to rip off not just Harryhausen but also Disney to further make a story that appeals to children.
Perhaps since the movie wasn't super duper popular, they felt they could rip off elements of it and not worry about the House of Mouse suing them. Plus these are bits and pieces they lifted, not whole sections of plot so it's not like Disney could sue them.
5:15 Man, seeing these shots side-by-side with Sinbad really drives home just how good Harryhausen was at compositing and matching lighting. Besides Jack's animation being cruder, the comp work is mediocre even for the time.
I can’t believe you had two Kerwin Mathews movies in a row. He was from my hometown in Wisconsin. My parents remembered him from high school in the 1940s. Whenever one of his movies came out, the local theater’s marquee had his name in big letters above the smaller title. The one I remember going to was a version of Gulliver’s Travels.
I vageuly remember watching this movie once as a kid, but all I could ever remember about it was the witches and them trying to get the princess. Made trying to figure out what movie it was impossible.
Project Unlimited (with Wah Chang) went on to do the monster designs and effects for The Outer Limits. An uncredited Chang designed the props and some of the aliens for Star Trek.
@@Tareltonlives Yes but he made better giants than these guys. Gordon even had a better dragon in the Magic Sword and with Village of the Giants, he had a better djinni with Genuis. Mostly, though, it was Small presents BIG.
@@tskmaster3837 No, not really. Uneven stop motion isn't worse than just a guy. magic Sword was decent and the dragon was great for a puppet, but the dragon still couldn't move. He was too tied into the sci fi genre, and most of those were pretty bad. I do think Magic Sword is about a good a movie as Jack the Giant Killer- uneven effects, solid fantasy story, some fun performances.
Click the link in the description box below or go to buyraycon.com/tenold to get 20% off your Raycon purchase, plus free shipping!
I'd really love to see you review more animated movies.
Have you done "The 5,000 fingers of Doctor T" yet?
RAYcon RAY Harryhausen. . .sensing a theme here.
More Godzilla!
i started watching this last night got 8 mins saw your review and totally forgot I saw this movie before
18:00 Brandon the type of guy to go "She is a red flag, but red is my favorite color ..."
The monster-girl makeup in this is the same sort of thing you see with sexy aliens in Star Trek..... some of which are evil.
I'm definitely starting to think he's got "a type".
If you look with rose coloured glasses all the red flags are flags.
tier 1 monster fucker 😆
Context is everything. I'm 65. I saw Jack in the theater at a kiddie matinee in 1967 before I ever saw 7th Voyage. As a matter of fact when I saw the ad for a "home movie"version of 7th Voyage (8mm, one reel/silent B & W excerpt from the feature) in the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the cyclops looked kinda like Jack's Coroman. So I begged my parents to buy me that reel. It was SO AWESOME, a real mind-blower! But 7th Voyage never played on TV in the 60s. So I finally saw it at a fantasy film convention in the early 70s... this time in sound, color, full length. Mind blown again! I started experimenting with stop-motion on Super 8 and the results were pretty darn good. As an adult I became a filmmaker, and had the pleasure of interviewing Ray for a documentary I was making about his mentor Willis (King Kong/Mighty Joe Young) O'Brien. We became friends. He lived in England but whenever he came to LA, we'd get together for dinner. Ray was a real gentleman and a great raconteur.
Wow, you actually got to be a regular friend of Ray's? That's awesome. I'm 63 and would have given my left arm for that privilege. One Million Years B.C. is my Citizen Kane.
Dude, you are awesome!!
When you had the Leprechaun declare he's off to the hood and then he'll be back, that got a good belly laugh out of me.
Did Arnie play the leprechaun
"Later that day-for-night." Priceless.
16:05 Dude! It's a magic whip that destroys skeletons! That's totally a Castlevania reference!
Never make a ray harryhausen movie without ray harryhausen
Harryhausen is not the only one who could make fantasy movies with stop motion monsters
@@loschrodproductions4519 true
Oh I don't know. The Giant Claw turned out pretty... oh.
@@leeboy26 there are genuinely better examples, like the Giant Behemoth, Black Scorpion, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, etc
Ray is the backbone of his movies
"I'll give you three wishes!"
"I wish Elaine was back, I wish she was no longer evil, and I wish Pendragon was dead."
Credits
"...asks chimp Peter to pretend ropes are somebody's face." lmao
The face is only their second-favorite place to bite. First is much lower down.
@@Bacteriophagebs No that's my girlfriend
I actually really like how this movie includes an Irish leprechaun, a Scandinavian viking, and Roman ruins. All those peoples have history with real world England (where real world Cornwall is) and their inclusion makes the world feel larger and more historical than the Sinbad setting, which only drew from the Arabian Middle-East despite many different real world peoples and locations Arab sailors could have visited and interacted with
I just wish the Viking actually did something. Replacing a genie with a leprechaun (or any kind of fairie) was the cleverest part IMO.
If you're talking about _7th Voyage_ alone, yeah, Sinbad's world feels smaller. But in _Eye of the Tiger,_ Sinbad fights a giant walrus in either the Arctic or Antarctic (not sure which), among other things.
@@Bacteriophagebs That’s the one movie in the trilogy I have yet to finish and now I definitely have to, but yes I was mainly following in the comparison between this film and the 7th Voyage
@@Bacteriophagebs And apparently goes to southern India in "Golden Voyage".
Agreed, to some extent they researched West country legends, such as- Witches, and Authurian (Tintagel in Cornwall) the Danish Viking thing that has ties to Ireland & the Giant's causeway, bringing these seperate elements together isnt easy, without it becoming a mess, BUT they pulled it off.
I'm glad this film was made, & when you think about it it is unique to this day
Evil Elaine's fashions from the Princess Dragon Mom collection!
20:00 To be fair, they were sometimes depicted looking something like that in Medieval Europe
Old man in retirement home on The Simpsons: "Didn't there used to be a beanstalk in this story?"
😆
"Edited for seniors" :=)
Drags old man off. “Cmon you’ve been warned!”
I shared this video with my dad. He's a 50 year vet in stop motion/post production. This was his response:
He's pretty funny. Pointed out some things I never thought of. All video versions of this are cut off on the left. It was shot super 35mm flat but titles are at academy. I have a proper 16mm copy that is framed correctly. Ironically the musical version is properly framed. I have both versions on blu-ray.
50 year as in 50 years old or 50 years in the business?
@@cookimaus1
He's 71 years old.
@@24framedavinci39 Wow, what movies has he worked on?
@@varanid9
Everything from Evil Dead 2 to Terminator 2. Everything in between. With that much history, I would be typing forever.
@@24framedavinci39That is awesome. I hope you have spent plenty of time picking his brain. No excuses not to!
One of my favourite Rifftrax episodes is their riff of this movie. The movie itself was pretty fun as a kid also
I own both the Rifftrax Live and Kino Lorber DVDs of this. It's pretty fun, but a clear step (okay, two) down from 7th Voyage.
Same for the latter
I like Brendan's humour way more than any Rifftrax I've seen so far. Their attempt at humour seems rather forced.
Golden Voyage of Sinbad has Caroline Munroe. I'd like to see the whole series done
Mmmm, Caroline Munro.
seconded. I like golden voyage.
I'd laugh so much if Caroline herself was sitting on the couch with him for that one! 😁
Does anyone do stop motion anymore? What with cgi getting so advanced.
As a resident of Cornwall I can safely say its not that sunny here anymore
I like how one of the palace monsters looks like a basking shark, which I'm told are commonly sighted off the Cornish coast.
How often do your neighbors randomly have American accents? Know any giants?
@Tareltonlives If only. The guy who works at the supermarket over the road is 6ft 9". I guess that passes for a giant round these parts.
Yes, but apart from that this film was 100% historically accurate.
@captainape6807 the lack of seagulls and feckless tourists makes it feel slightly less authentic. 🧐
1. Has to venture through a castle to save a loved one from an evil magic user with a cape
2.uses a whip to destroy his enemies
3. final boss turns into a demonic dragon like creature
holy crap, Jack is a Belmont!
The sequence where the phantoms attack the ship scared the absolute crap out of young me (I'm guessing I was around 8).
Yeah, I remember seeing the trailer when I was like 8 or so- the giants and witches were pretty terrifying for me, and I was already scared of the cyclops and skeleton
The best joke was the reference to “ what opera doc?”
I'm with ya: Evil Princess was definitely an upgrade!
I feel like a compilation of Brandon saying
“Huh, his one weakness!” Would be a great way to end a week.
The Witches look like the Banshee from Darby O'Gill and The Little People.
I did wonder if the film was using a few elements of that as well. The leprechaun in Jack was likely inspired by king Brian.
That banshee scared me as a wee child. Lol
@@leroypreston2973 boy, that producer guy was ripping off _EVERYone!_
@@TheRealNormanBates maybe with Darby O'gill they felt since it was a lesser known disney film, they could use elements from it without getting sued by disney.
My grandma had a lot of VHS tapes. This was one of them. And we watched it a lot.
3:24 🎶 What Happened?
*We thought we could do it, but we were wrong!*
*We have failed, master, we have failed!*
The Princess... Where is she? 🎶
Pendragon, huh?
That's King Arthur's family name.
Could be Mordred having survived for all we know
Technically it was the title King Arthur and predecessors held, but since only his ever held the title it is also essentially as the family surname. Pendragon means holder of the Dragon Pendant
Fittingly enough, the original folktale this moive takes its name from (yeah, it's strictly an in-name-only adaptation), is explicitly stated to take place during King Arthur's day, with Jack even becoming a squire to King Arthur's son halfway through the story.
@@OffstagePfaffa Pen is Latin for Five so the name would be FiveDragon.
Pen is "Head" in various celtic languages
@@SupremeGreatGrandmaster
15:16: Speaking of that, the main effects Animator of this film, Lloyd L. Vaughan, was also known for working as a hand drawn animator for Chuck Jones with the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies series, as well as How the Grinch Stole Christmas
15:30 Plus evil Pendragon breaks off a (gargoyle) dragon's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil mooks emerge magically from the spot, which is totally different from when evil Aeëtes gathers the Hydra's teeth, tosses them on the ground like he's sowing seeds, & a squad of evil skeletons emerge magically from the spot.
... wait, what do you mean Jack the Giant Killer (1962) came out *before* Jason & the Argonauts (1963)?
Yeah, I found that interesting too. Does the original hydra myth feature such teeth? If so then I guess they could just be drawing on the same inspiration and for once this movie gets to it before Harryhausen does. :)
You're ripping off me, huh? Ok, so I'LL RIP OFF YOU!
@@originaluddite It's literally from the original myth where Jason and his who's who of Mycenaean heroes quest for the Golden Fleece.
The hydra is a different beast, and had been slain by Herakles some time earlier; he's noted to have arrows dipped in the hydra's blood (a supernatural poison,) which eventually show up in the Trojan War and kill Paris.
"Screw Folgers, the best part of waking up is fucking giants."
"Thanks ye Jack, it's off to the hood, but I'll be back."
These effects remind me a lot of the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
No shit, I was just about to say that the witches look like the Banshee.
The glowing skull woman with the flowers freaked me out as a kid.
My sister and I grew up watching the musical version - I didn't even find out there was a non-musical version until I was in my 30's!
The witch voice-over from Army of Darkness is an instant thumbs up. But, man, the knights that look like they really have to pee was HILARIOUS 😆😆😂
I grew up watching the musical version in the mid 70s (early cable). When I rewatched it in the 90s, my first thought was, "Where are the songs?"
The princess turning evil reminds me of Legend.
I thought Rey was much hotter as a Sith.
I'd have to watch it again because I don't remember that scene
13:35 is that Ragnar our favorite Viking! Oh my!
It's probably entirely coincidental, but there are moments where the film almost feels like a precursor to Castlevania. The hero has a magic whip which he uses against armored knights, the bad guy has a winged monster form that he turns into during the big fight, and the castle full of monsters crumbles when the villain is destroyed.
Yes! Those 'witches' could have been made by the Krofft Brothers. But they work. The claymation monsters in this never scared me but I found the witches delightfully creepy. I think that might have been accentuated by the use of what I call 'spooky sopranos' in the incidental music.
Since it was asked... I liked her better evil. And super psyched this movie made it as an episode.
This is the closest thing we'll ever get to a live action Castlevania movie.
I thought the exact same thing
I always considered the ''Van Helsing'' movie, with Hugh Jackman as an unofficial Castlevania movie.
Literally any movie with Dracula as the main bad guy and other horror movie dudes like Wolfman, Adam Frankenstein, and Mummy as his subordinates say hi.
Isn't that the norm in most jobs? Perform beyond expectations, and they'll increase your workload. At least in his case he got a promotion out of it (I expect Knight comes with a higher salary than Peasant Farm Boy) 😊
Fun fact: "Cormoran" is not some random name, its the actual name of the giant Jack killed in the Cornwall legend which is the origin tale.
Is this the story with the beanstalk or am i thinking of a different Jack?
@@tuckerbowen4626 I know it's strange, but yes, there are two stories with a guy called Jack and giants
@@loschrodproductions4519 is the original story also titled "Jack the Giant Killer"?
@@loschrodproductions4519That "Simple Jack" joke was just not right 😠. It's more like "Simple Tyrese" 😊😅😂.
Thanks for making this a great Saturday morning!
I always find it funny when a movie isn't known for it's director or lead performer but someone else who worked on the movie, Ray Harryhausen stole the show on pretty much every movie he worked on thanks to his great monster effects.
The magic whip would have been perfect for a Castlevania reference.
5:18 Definitely wasn't expecting a TADC reference on this channel
I know right that’s exactly what I was thinking
Neither was I.
For all that it ain't that bad, always liked the fact it was filmed in californwall.
11:28 "It almost gives this part a trippy, psychedelic vibe."
Yeah, this movie may have been released in 1961, but it definitely doesn't belong to "the Sixties," so that part really stands out...
The 60's is when drug culture got started.
16:13 funny everyone on the live stream of rifftrax doing this movie went instantly to castlevania.
Great to see a review of this classic - to a kid in the 1970s anyway! I can remember being terrified by the clown ogre thing and the evil princess . Sadly not quite the same experience now when I watch it and I’d forgotten how shoddy that dragon and sea monster thing was! Oh yeah also terrified by the witches 😂😂
It’d be cool if the princess could alternate forms at will. The possibilities are endless.❤
As a kid, I liked the movie, but I also remember thinking after seeing it, how it was like watching a dark version of Gumby. The creatures were so cheaply made and dumb looking, I added them to my list of stupid looking monster. I put them right there on top with the ugliest looking turkey in "The Giant Claw" and the weird eyed crabs in "Attack of the Crab Monsters."
don't you mean the "flying battleship"?
Brandon: "The best part of waking up..." 🤣🤣🤣 Oh, and yes, she was way hotter when she was evil!
I remember watching the remade version of this movie that had a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in it.
Wait, is there a remake?
But wait? What about our queen, Goddess Caroline Munro and her journeys with Sinbad? 🥰
I mostly remember her damp cleavage from that movie. Mostly.
Part of me is a little surprised that there actually weren’t more movies trying to cash in on Harryhausen.
I think that would have been too expensive for most B-movie studios, unless they had their own animator, as this movie had. I doubt there were a lot of them around in the '50s.
I love Brandon Tenold's recent venture into the 1950s fantasy films. Even if it involves a movie with Ray Harryhausen.
What do you mean? Don't you like Harryhausen?
I remember finding the fight between the two headed giant and kraken on youtube and watching it over and over again
I saw this as a kid when it was released. I've never forgotten it, but I couldn't honestly say I remembered all of the plot details. I saw it again on BD recently and it held up fairly well. Of course, it's not Harryhausen quality, but it could have been a lot less entertaining.
"What could be more intimidating than a cyclops? ...I've got it! A biclops!"
Project Unlimited did most of the make-up and special effects for the television series 'The Outer Limits'. They also did the stop motion dinosaur for the Twilight Zone episode, 'The Odyssey of Flight 33'.
17:16 It’s a cardinal rule in Hollywood to never work with kids or animals if you can help it, and this movie managed to do both.
13:56 It would of been Awesome if he said "They tryin to Steal my Lucky Charms."😂👍💯
This movie has big Rankin/Bass energy
That's what I thought too! The monsters especially remind me of a Rankin/Bass special.
"Later that day for night."
That gave me a good chuckle.
@18:00 I agree with you Brandon, she was perfect 😢😂
Great riffs, Brandon! Thanks for doing this one. I guessed it as did probably many of us when you said you’d be doing a “Harryhausen movie without Harryhausen.”
I have to confess: I love JACK THE GIANT KILLER. Maybe because I first saw it when it came out in the theater when I was 7 years old, and saw it on the theater and fell in love with it then. And I had not yet seen the Ray Harryhausen classics. So, though now I appreciate how this is like “Dollar Tree Harryhausen”, I still love it. I also love the riffs on it, both from Rifftrax, which I went to see when they did it as one of their RIFFTRAX LIVE shows Fathom Events, and from Brandon here.
I have the Kino Lorber Blu-ray of it with the awesome commentary by Mario Bava scholar Tim Lucas, who always does great commentaries, especially on fantasy and horror. And loves it like I do.
I also love the fact that that Blu-ray also includes the actually terrible version with the songs shoehorned in. Which begs for riff on it even more. And so I do.
Thanks again for riffing on this beloved “classic” (well, at least for some of us). Rabbi Steve aka Patreon member Stephen Vale.
PS: oh, and I do like the Princess better when she was evil.
2:46
Actually, it was originally named "Jack the Giant Killer" during production. Heck, there's a teaser poster that has the original logo/title set within the clouds, and it had its original release date of June 2012.
I called it. All that Rifftrax watching paid off. One of two Rifftrax movies I've seen featuring Jack and a giant.
9:34 that sounds awesome!
Good follow up to Sinbad. (heh-heh, I called it, too!)
I saw this in a indoor theatre when I was a kid. I sat in the 3rd row (in the front). When that giant reared up it scared me! From the front of the theatre it was monstrously large. The movie kept me terrified and cowering in my seat, lol. I never forgot it.
I saw this when I was a child in the 1960s, but it wasn't shown again for so many years that I'd begun to think I had only imagined it -- until I saw a short piece on it in some film magazine. It was so nice to learn it was real.
Off to the hood? Now I'm imagining the leprechaun as the one from the movie series, and he solves Jack's problems by just murdering everyone horribly...
I didn't know there was a Musical version. Great movie from my youth despite it already being old at the time. Judi Meredith was soo cute and it feels like a Warhammer movie.
The Kino Lorber release has both cuts, if you feel like braving it.
Gotta admit, when I was a kid those witches scared the shit outta me. Been wondering where I saw them from. Thanks for reopening that painful scar again, Brandon. Lol
Thanks for highlighting the good points. Sure, no Harryhausen, but it’s a pretty cool knockoff, nonetheless. (Side note, I love the theme song the Rifftrax guys do during the opening credits of their version. Fun stuff 👍🏻)
"I want to see a Ray Harryhausen film!"
"We have Ray Harryhausen at home!"
I know, cheap joke, but we haven't the budget for anything more original.
🎶Jack the Giant Killer, he kills giants!🎶
Jack, or call him John if you prefer
He's not particular
@@Tareltonlives 🎶Just know that he is a killer and he mainly deals in giants.🎶
@@williamcrowe2576 ♫It's true, he has yet to kill a giant but he plans to any day! ♫
@@Tareltonlives 🎶Any day!🎶
🎶 Any moment now, Jack! This Giant’s really cutting it close!🎶
Holy fuck. A Brandon tenold and fanboy Flicks video both in the same day! Sometimes life is pretty cool.
15:16 one of the greatest TV moments of my life ! I can't be the only one. 17:59.
Thanks!
12:55 -- When I saw this movie for the first time, my first thought during this scene was that she looked like one of Jack Kirby's villainesses from the THOR or FOURTH WORLD comics.
those witches would be great as the Three Witches in a Macbeth film especially the bony one
I'm loving the fantasy tangent you're on! But I'm also love the campy horror flicks, so just keep doin' what ya do when ya wanna do it. Thank you for the great videos!
You should take a look at Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Sean Connery, Leprechauns, singing. A Scot playing an Irishman. No diaper in this one, though. I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid.
I do like the design of the two headed giant, it’s fun and interesting
11:36 Sounds like Rock and/or Roll.
Reverend Lovejoy
I realized if the leprechaun and the witches with the psychedelic effect were based on Darby O'Gill and the little People a movie by disney. There was a Leprechaun king named Brian and a banshee and carriage of death that used a similar effect to the monsters that attacked the ship.
Maybe they thought to rip off not just Harryhausen but also Disney to further make a story that appeals to children.
Perhaps since the movie wasn't super duper popular, they felt they could rip off elements of it and not worry about the House of Mouse suing them. Plus these are bits and pieces they lifted, not whole sections of plot so it's not like Disney could sue them.
That self moving toy is actually based on whe Henry the eight got a clockwork bird when he was gratulated for inheriting the crown
I thought for a moment he was reviewing the 2013 film. Thank goodness its one. Much more fun movie.
Yes, that one entity was blowing a lot of hot air🗣🗣🗣🗣
Saw this movie as a kid, thought it was brilliant. When I saw it as an adult, my Inner Brandon was in full force!
5:15 Man, seeing these shots side-by-side with Sinbad really drives home just how good Harryhausen was at compositing and matching lighting. Besides Jack's animation being cruder, the comp work is mediocre even for the time.
HELLO FROM TEXAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love this mans content, makes for a chill after work chill video. Thanks.
I can’t believe you had two Kerwin Mathews movies in a row. He was from my hometown in Wisconsin. My parents remembered him from high school in the 1940s. Whenever one of his movies came out, the local theater’s marquee had his name in big letters above the smaller title. The one I remember going to was a version of Gulliver’s Travels.
I vageuly remember watching this movie once as a kid, but all I could ever remember about it was the witches and them trying to get the princess.
Made trying to figure out what movie it was impossible.
Project Unlimited (with Wah Chang) went on to do the monster designs and effects for The Outer Limits. An uncredited Chang designed the props and some of the aliens for Star Trek.
That dragon does look cooler in poster, but I wouldn't have guessed it was supposed to be a dragon :D
I think the idea was that it was a Gargoyle, from the Castle turrets that had come to life.
"Edwards Small present a B I Gordon film."
That's the way it should have played out.
B.I.G. couldn't even afford stop motion.
@@Tareltonlives Yes but he made better giants than these guys. Gordon even had a better dragon in the Magic Sword and with Village of the Giants, he had a better djinni with Genuis.
Mostly, though, it was Small presents BIG.
@@tskmaster3837 No, not really. Uneven stop motion isn't worse than just a guy. magic Sword was decent and the dragon was great for a puppet, but the dragon still couldn't move. He was too tied into the sci fi genre, and most of those were pretty bad.
I do think Magic Sword is about a good a movie as Jack the Giant Killer- uneven effects, solid fantasy story, some fun performances.