Jason and the Argonauts Skeletons Attack Scene (1963)

From Leo AI: The skeleton sword battle is the climactic sequence in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), directed by Don Chaffey and animated by Ray Harryhausen. After King Aeëtes sows the slain Hydra's teeth into the ground, seven armed skeletons rise up and attack Jason, Phalerus, and Castor on a clifftop. The two Argonauts are killed, and Jason escapes by jumping off the cliff into the sea, with the skeletons following and "drowning."
Animation time: a record 4.5 months, with Harryhausen sometimes producing less than one second of footage per day
Technique: stop-motion "Dynamation" — each 8–10 inch skeleton model had five articulated appendages, meaning 35 animation movements per frame, synchronized to the live-action actors
The actors fought air: the live-action footage was shot months earlier in Italy, with Todd Armstrong, Andrew Faulds, and Ferdinando Poggi choreographing swordplay against invisible opponents so the skeletons' miniature swords would arrive at exactly the right spot
The final plunge: life-size plaster skeletons were actually thrown off the real cliff after a stuntman jumped — it had to be done correctly on the first take since they couldn't be retrieved. Harryhausen noted the plaster bones are still somewhere in the sea near the filming location.
Music: Bernard Herrmann's score for the sequence is titled "Scherzo Macabre"
Censored detail: in the original legend the teeth spawn rotting corpses, but skeletons were used to avoid a restrictive film rating.