The Giants of Thessaly actually pre-dates the famous American Greek mythology movie Jason and the Argonauts (1963) which sported the celebrated Harry Harryhausen stop-motion effects. It's worth remembering this as the default position normally assumed is that the Italian genre film industry simply ripped off all of the latest American trends. This assumption really isn't correct at all with the Italians often now rightly acknowledged as innovators a lot of the time. In this instance, we have an earlier version of the famous Homer story with Jason and the Argonauts on a quest to obtain the Golden Fleece in an attempt to appease the Gods and make them stop the volcanic eruptions around the city of Thessaly. While he is away on this dangerous mission, Jason's traitorous cousin tries to steal his empire and his wife from him.
This one was directed by Riccardo Freda who was one of the more consistent Italian genre directors. He is not as well-known as some of his peers yet he seemed to always put together a good product from what I have experienced. The Giants of Thessaly is at the very least a way above average Italian sword and sandal peplum flick. It seems to have had a reasonable budget for this sort of thing and production value is a particularly important element when it comes to these types of fantasy films. In this one we have two plot-strands playing out simultaneously – the one in Thessaly involving political manoeuvring and underhand shenanigans, while the other strand has Jason and his men encounter various dangerous obstacles on their adventure. To this end we have interesting segments involving, amongst others, an island of witches and a giant hairy Cyclops. I thought it was all rather entertaining stuff and, in keeping with the earliest peplum films such as Hercules Unchained (1959) was a cut above the vast majority that were to follow in the early 60's.
This one was directed by Riccardo Freda who was one of the more consistent Italian genre directors. He is not as well-known as some of his peers yet he seemed to always put together a good product from what I have experienced. The Giants of Thessaly is at the very least a way above average Italian sword and sandal peplum flick. It seems to have had a reasonable budget for this sort of thing and production value is a particularly important element when it comes to these types of fantasy films. In this one we have two plot-strands playing out simultaneously – the one in Thessaly involving political manoeuvring and underhand shenanigans, while the other strand has Jason and his men encounter various dangerous obstacles on their adventure. To this end we have interesting segments involving, amongst others, an island of witches and a giant hairy Cyclops. I thought it was all rather entertaining stuff and, in keeping with the earliest peplum films such as Hercules Unchained (1959) was a cut above the vast majority that were to follow in the early 60's.