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All of these fairy tale adaptations have flirted with terrifying images, but “The Story of King Midas” gives us a warlock that looks like Nosferatu manifesting from a loose golden coin in a puff of smoke. This creature of dark magic wouldn’t be out of place in one of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies or Jason and the Argonauts, but he’s a cracked visage of imperious and cruel fairy creatures here. It’s a minimalist knockout of Harryhausen creating mood and tension, character and ominous atmosphere through clever visual tricks and animation.
Just as great is the joy then slowly escalating terror in Midas as he realizes the truth and consequences of his greed and supernatural powers. It’s all fun and games transforming cups, torches, and flowers into golden objects, but once it turns his breakfast and sweet, young daughter, it all comes to a crashing halt. Then Midas sits alone at his table and weeps, a surprisingly tender and sympathetic portrait of a man’s hubris destroying him before the Nosferatu-lite warlock reappears and promises to undue all the damage.
“The Story of King Midas” is the strongest of the fairy tale shorts that Harryhausen directed in the late 40s/early 50s, and it was the last completed entry in the series prior to his ascendancy as a feature-length wizard of special effects and movie monsters. This wasn’t the last of the fairy tale/folklore adaptations though, one last entry, “The Tortoise and the Hare” begun in 1954 and uncompleted until 2002, remained something of an elusive subject for much of his career. Still, if this was the final one of these films, what a way to close them out.
