Skeleton Warriors

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: Jason and the Argonauts 1963

Skeletons Video Clip

After Jason fights with the Hydra and kills it, Aeetes prays to the Goddess Hecate to deliver to him the children of the hydra's teeth, soon flames come down from the sky and burn the Hydra's body. Aeetes commands his soldiers to collect the teeth of the mouth of the Hydra. They follow Jason to the top of the hill and so the children are born.

One by one they arise from the ground with sword and shield in hand (err bones) as Jason, Castor and Phalerus watch. After all of them have risen from the earth Aeetes commands them to attack them and kill them

"Destroy them!! kill, kill, kill, kill them all!!!" --King Aeetes--

They start their attack with this really strange wailing and one of the most amazing sequences in this entire film begins. After a couple of minutes of fighting with the skeletons, Castors falls victim to one of them and dies, soon after Phalerus is struck by one too. Jason seeing that both of them are now dead, he runs towards the edge of the cliff with the Skeletons after him. He soon realizes that there is no way to win against them so he jumps off the cliff and lands in the water with the skeletons after him. I guess these skeletons could not swim because they don't come out of the water and I guess die and second time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skeleton Warriors Facts

from Ray Harryhausen

• The skeletons were all jointed figures and had all the joints that a real skeletons would have.

• The skeletons were actually just the armature with sockets and joints so what Mr. Harryhausen did was use cotton dipped in latex an build in the bones.

• This sequence was very difficult to make according to him because of the number of skeletons. Once again Ferdinando Poggi (Castor) was brought on to do the sword fights, he was also the one who choreographed the fight sequence in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad against one skeleton.

• Each of the model skeletons was about 8-10 inches high, and six of the seven were newly made for the sequence. The remaining one was a veteran from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, slightly repainted to match the new members of the family.

• All of the models survive today, Some are in exhibitions and the others are in my collection. As the skeletons are one of the most popular creatures, one of the models usually has the honor to travel with Ray to lectures and conventions in a custom hand-made protective box, in the shape of a coffin.

Credit: An Animated Life

By Tony Dalton