No! You don’t have to travel to Scotland to see the original sculptures and models created by Ray Harryhausen. Just visit the ‘Ray Harryhausen – Titan of Cinema’ Virtual Exhibit at the National Galleries of Scotland. But tickets for the virtual tour HERE
In films spanning five decades Harryhausen breathed life into his foam latex creations through the process of stop-motion animation. He set them among living actors to create fantastical creatures that enchanted and terrified audiences worldwide. His film credits include classics such as Jason and the Argonauts, with its uncanny sword-fighting skeletons and towering living statue Talos, and Clash of the Titans featuring Medusa, one of the most frightening and iconic monsters to slither across the flickering screen.
Although the sources for Harryhausen’s monsters often came from existing material – from myths and legends (Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans and his trilogy of Sinbad films), the fantastic literature of H.G. Wells (First Men in the Moon), Jules Verne (Mysterious Island) and Jonathan Swift (Three Worlds of Gulliver), they always contain something of his own genius. Harryhausen’s creatures are special because he made them so. He endowed them with personality. They are characters in his films rather than mere special effects. The love of their maker is in them. The time and care that Ray took over his creation is right there on the screen for all to see.
Despite his undoubted skill and imagination, Harryhausen was always humble and openly acknowledged those that had gone before. This inspiration came not just from cinema but from the wider visual arts.
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away in 2013 at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away in 2013 at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Today would have been Ray Harryhausen’s 100th birthday and here are, according to We Are Movie Geeks, his ten best movies.
10. EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS
Usually considered a lesser film in the Harryhausen resume due to an absence of animated monsters or mythological creatures, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a wonderful science fiction, action thriller, shot through with the paranoia of the Fifties in America when flying saucers were almost constantly in the news and the Cold War with the Soviets was at its hottest. Hugh Marlow and his wife get buzzed by a saucer on their way to a military installation right at the beginning and then the movie never lets up. The saucers were animated in a whirling motion by Harryhausen and have a death ray that deploys from the underside of the ships. Much havoc and carnage ensue when the saucers attack anything and everything, most especially a vicious assault on the capital in Washington DC with several landmark buildings reduced to rubble. EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is the template, the granddaddy film to Independence Day and the Transformers series, The Avengers, Battleship, and virtually every apocalyptic film coming out this summer, where-in the days of man on Earth appear to be numbered. The only films of it’s era that share this view of worldwide mayhem would be War of the Worlds and the first of the Japanese kaiju eiga, Godzilla and Rodan. But EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is particularly gleeful in knocking down the symbols of American Government. So famous is this sequence many films coming after paid homage to it. In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! the Martian saucers start to knock over the Washington Monument, then think better of it and set it back upright! Independence Day’s most famous shot is of the White House exploding. Rightly or wrongly this was one of the movies that started the tradition of wholesale destruction on a staggering scale. If there ‘s a drawback to EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and Harryhausen himself admitted this, the saucers are not very interesting to animate. However the action and the overall tone of paranoia and impending doom make this one of the scariest of Harryhausen’s features. Another drawback, (maybe) is leading man Hugh Marlowe. Marlowe made a career of NOT playing the leading man, usually he was somebody’s side kick, aide, research assistant or all around flunky. Richard Carlson or Rex Reason may have been a better choice. However Marlowe is actually fine and fits in well with the Government, Military and Science stereotype characters on display here. For instance, Morris Ankrum, good, solid, dependable Morris Ankrum is here, as he should be, in the Army Officer uniform that he must have had in his personal wardrobe, he played so many high ranking officers in these films. With Morris Ankrum in charge of the military you know everything will turn out right! Had I been a dog face GI in those days I would have followed General Ankrum straight to the gates of hell, cocked, locked and ready to rock!
9. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Released in 1953 and loosely based on The Fog Horn, a short story by Ray Bradbury, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms beat Godzilla by one year to usher in the giant-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-bomb-testing sub-genre. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an endearingly uncomplicated but visually exciting monster movie, the first of the 50s science fiction pictures to feature a giant, city-attacking prehistoric creature. It introduced plot elements that would be repeated in many subsequent films, but more importantly, it showcased, for the first time, Ray Harryhausen as a major solo special effects talent. Unable to afford the complex miniatures and glass paintings used in KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, Harryhausen developed his own method of putting animated models into realistic settings, a system he used throughout his career (This process was eventually named Dynamation for the marketing campaign for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and subsequent films). The result is the Rhedosaurus, an implausible but charismatic dinosaur that invites us along for a destructive New York outing culminating in an exciting climax at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen’s outstanding stop-motion animation of the beast is effective, giving the creature a certain endearing lizard-like charm that’s impossible to resist. Capably directed by Eugene Lurie (who later helmed the similar THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO), aided by Jack Russell’s crisp black and white photography, a moody score, and earnest performances from a solid cast (Paul Christian as an eager young scientist, Paula Raymond as his pretty love interest, Kenneth Tobey as a no-nonsense colonel, and Lee Van Cleef as an expert marksman who helps save the day), THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an immensely entertaining monster romp worthy of its classic status.
8. ONE MILLIONS YEARS B.C.
Long before Spielberg made dinosaurs popular with the Jurassic series, a prehistoric creature craze hit this country in the 1960’s. Fueled both by 1950’s monster movies and new archeological discoveries, dino’s began popping up everywhere—in toys, television, and the movies. For their 100th film project, Hammer Studios in 1967 acquired the rights to remake the old 1940 Hal Roach programmer ONE MILLION B.C. This tale of the Shell people and the Rock tribe attempting to survive deadly volcanoes, dinosaurs, and each other was entertaining and visually exciting, if not historically accurate (dino’s and humans missed each other by at least several million years). Harryhausen created a large variety of creatures for this remake, which is often chided for including sequences of live animals, such as a giant iguana, at the expense of animation; however, this was actually Harryhausen’s idea in an attempt to add variety (and a lower budget) to the effects sequences. Things start slowly with the iguana and a few glimpses of a brontosaurus, then there’s a rampaging turtle! But Harryhausen makes up for these with three awesome scenes: an attack by an allosaurus, a battle between a triceratops and a ceratosaurus, and the climactic attack/fight involving a pteranodon and a pterodactyl. The movie was a huge success and spawned two sequels along with countless copycats. Harryhausen often remarked that he wasn’t sure what was the bigger attraction, the dinosaurs or Raquel Welch in her fur bikini. A relatively unknown starlet with only one (as yet unreleased) major studio credit at the time, Welch actually dominates much of the film with her beguiling looks and intelligent manner. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. not only launched her career on a sex symbol trajectory that would last for decades, but also created one of the most iconic images in film history—the strong, beautiful, prehistoric goddess defiantly ready to face any challenge.
7. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a sort of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is a major character, still living on the Nautilus, although it cannot go out to sea anymore. A group of Union soldiers making an escape from a Confederate prison during the American Civil War in a balloon find themselves way off course and stranded on an island where all sorts of, well, “mysterious” things are going on. For starters all the animals and even the insects are giant size and someone keeps helping them survive on the island by giving them everything they need. Anyone who knows the films of Ray Harryhausen will know who the benefactor is and why the animals are giant size so it won’t be a major spoiler to reveal that Captain Nemo, that sea going genius, is behind it all. All of Harryhausen’s films were ensemble projects for the actors, there is no major star in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, or any of his other films for that matter. Harryhausen and his incredible stop motion effects were the real star. In Mysterious Island we get a terrific group of players in the escaped Union Army prisoners, Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill as a Union war correspondent and Dan Jackson, and a Johnny Reb comes along for the ride as he has experience with the observation balloon, played by English actor Percey Herbert, and once the crew are established on the island a couple of female ship wreck survivors bring a hint of romance to the project in the character of Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan. Greenwood had a wonderful husky voice which was used to great effect in Barbarella supplying the voice for Anita Pallenberg’s character.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was way ahead of the curve in one aspect of the casting. Dan Jackson’s character is black, with no issues raised about that what so ever. His character is also in the Union Army and even Percy Herbert’s Confederate makes no mention of race. Jackson portrays him as just as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the other men on the Island.The real acting standout is Herbert Lom’s take on Captain Nemo. There is a sadness, a world weary air about Nemo that is heart breaking. You get the notion that this Nemo, even if the Nautilus were sea worthy would not bother taking her out again.But the real star, as always is Harryhausen’s stop motion effects and he has a lot fun in animating familiar creatures’ instead of mythological or science fictional monsters. A giant crab, bird, cephalopod and bees inhabit the island. All are the result of Nemo’s experiments. The crab and bird provide food for the castaways and the cephalopod attacks during a terrific underwater sequence using diving gear similar to Disney’s film, giant shells to hold oxygen for instance.There is also evidence the island has been visited by pirates and will be again shortly. And of course there is an active volcano which can go off at any minute.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a wonderful boys own adventure type of story with great set piece action scenes, set design, location filming, acting, a terrific score by the one and only Bernard Herrmann and best of all the stop motion artistry of Ray Harryhausen.
6. CLASH OF THE TITANS
CLASH OF THE TITANS, the 1981 account of the old mythological stories you were forced to read in junior high, featured Ray Harryhausen’s last great set piece: Perseus’ encounter with the snake-haired Medusa in a fire-lit cave. Stylized with great mood lighting, beautifully blocked and directed by Ray, the sequence is a beauty of spine-tingling, slithering menace. Seeing giant scorpions rise from the blood of Medusa’s head is visceral icing on the cake. CLASH OF THE TITANS was Ray Harryhuasen’s final film and likely the only one a generation of his fans saw in theaters when it was new. CLASH OF THE TITANS has everything previously denied Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer: A-list stars (Lawrence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis) and a budget enabling them to shoot in four major locations across Europe. The story is a bit wooden and oversimplified, but it is still the standard “hero’s journey”. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is not the heroic type – he does a fair enough job of striking poses, but he’s given some rather stuffy dialog to deliver but under the direction of Desmond Davis CLASH OF THE TITANS is the final showcase of Harryhausen’s skills in cinematic spectacle, and one of the best fantasy films of the 1980’s.
5. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4. 20,000,000 MILES TO EARTH
This classic monster movie was a notable milestone for Harryhausen in many ways—it was his last black & white feature film, his last real “monster on the loose” story, and the first movie based on his own idea. 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH(1957)begins spectacularly, as a rocket ship crash lands just off the coast of Sicily. However, this spacecraft– a U.S. manned flight to Venus–has returned with a little something extra: a dinosaur-like alien creature that continues to grow larger and larger. As the story progresses, we are treated to a suspenseful search through a barn, an attack and capture by helicopters, and one of the classic animation battles of all time, a fight between the creature and a huge bull elephant filmed against the scenic backdrop of Rome. Based on Harryhausen’s own story treatment titled THE CYCLOPS, the monster in EARTH was originally based on a giant creature in Scandinavian mythology named the “Ymir,” and, though it’s never called by that name in the film, is still popularly known as the Ymir today. Harryhausen also drew on his lifelong inspiration, KING KONG, for many of the story elements. Like Kong, the Ymir is an alien in a strange land, misunderstood and persecuted. Also similar is the ending, with a wounded Ymir hanging from a great monument of human culture before falling to it’s fate. Harryhausen also engendered even more sympathy for the Ymir by sculpting the face with an almost lovable, walrus-like quality. Experienced fantasy director Nathan Juran, familiar to 50’s and 60’s fans for not only genre TV shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE, but for also directing the ultimate cult classic ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, worked so well with Harryhausen that they did two more films together. For the leads, William Hopper (CONQUEST OF SPACE, DEADLY MANTIS) provides a familiar, solid presence as the astronaut tracking the creature, and Joan Taylor (also seen in Harryhausen’s EARTH VS. FLYING SAUCERS) plays the requisite love interest with just the right amount of moxie. But it is the eerie, plaintive howls of the Ymir struggling to understand this strange world it has awakened in that stay with the viewer long after the movie is over.
3. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Ray Harryhausen burst into feature films with this delightful kiddie matinée staple from 1949 that’s co-produced by John Ford! Listed in the opening credits as First Technician, Ray was working alongside his idol Willis O’Brien, the effects wiz that brought KING KONG to life on-screen back in 1933. Appropriately this film concerns a massive ape, maybe only a third of the size of mighty Kong. A sweet little girl living with her father deep in the jungle makes a trade with two local tribesman for an adorable baby gorilla. Twelve years later a Flo Ziegfeld/ Billy Rose-type master showman, lovable con-artist Max O’Hara, played by Robert Armstrong (yes, Kong’s original captor Carl Denham!) decides to travel to Africa and pick up animals to decorate his new jungle-themed nightclub, the Golden Safari, in Hollywood. A rodeo cowboy named Gregg played by future Oscar winner Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) comes along. The first big effects shot is when O’Hara’s cowboys attempt to lasso and capture the very-much all-grown up gorilla now named Joe by the grown-up very nicely Jill played by future Howard Hughes paramour Terry Moore! The cowboys versus creature sequence would be revisited by Ray in 20 years for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI with a T-Rex replacing the ape. O”Hara signs her up and soon everybody’s back in LA for the grand opening including future “Beverly Hillbillies” icon Irene Ryan as a daffy barfly. The effects sequences dazzle as Jill plays the haunting “Beautiful Dreamer” at a piano on a podium hoisted aloft by Joe. Then there’s a very funny scene with Jill coaching Joe in a tug-of-war with ten famous strongmen that ends with boxing champ Primo Carnera planting a few on Joe’s chin to no effect! Unfortunately things worsen when Jill and Joe are forced to perform a humiliating “organ grinder” skit with the audience tossing oversize coins at poor Joe’s noggin. Later that night a trio of drunken louts, including one played by Nestor Pavia (Captain Lucas from the first two “Creature from the Black Lagoon” films), taunt Joe in his basement cell. When Joe retaliates, he’s sentenced to death by the courts. But O’Hara’s got a few tricks up his sleeve! It looks like a clean escape until Joe, Jill, and Gregg encounter a orphanege engulfed in flames! Only a miracle can save the little ones trapped on the top floor: a miracle named Joe! The 1998 remake starring Charlize Theron (she’s really from Africa!) has some fun moments including a cameo from Harryhasen and Ms. Moore along with fine work from Rick Baker, but it doesn’t match the wit and charm of the original! fun-filled fantasy! That is one great ape!
2. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away in 2013 at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Today marks the seventh anniversary of Ray Harryhausen’s passing and here are, according to We Are Movie Geeks, his ten best movies.
10. EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS
Usually considered a lesser film in the Harryhausen resume due to an absence of animated monsters or mythological creatures, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a wonderful science fiction, action thriller, shot through with the paranoia of the Fifties in America when flying saucers were almost constantly in the news and the Cold War with the Soviets was at its hottest. Hugh Marlow and his wife get buzzed by a saucer on their way to a military installation right at the beginning and then the movie never lets up. The saucers were animated in a whirling motion by Harryhausen and have a death ray that deploys from the underside of the ships. Much havoc and carnage ensue when the saucers attack anything and everything, most especially a vicious assault on the capital in Washington DC with several landmark buildings reduced to rubble. EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is the template, the granddaddy film to Independence Day and the Transformers series, The Avengers, Battleship, and virtually every apocalyptic film coming out this summer, where-in the days of man on Earth appear to be numbered. The only films of it’s era that share this view of worldwide mayhem would be War of the Worlds and the first of the Japanese kaiju eiga, Godzilla and Rodan. But EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is particularly gleeful in knocking down the symbols of American Government. So famous is this sequence many films coming after paid homage to it. In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! the Martian saucers start to knock over the Washington Monument, then think better of it and set it back upright! Independence Day’s most famous shot is of the White House exploding. Rightly or wrongly this was one of the movies that started the tradition of wholesale destruction on a staggering scale. If there ‘s a drawback to EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and Harryhausen himself admitted this, the saucers are not very interesting to animate. However the action and the overall tone of paranoia and impending doom make this one of the scariest of Harryhausen’s features. Another drawback, (maybe) is leading man Hugh Marlowe. Marlowe made a career of NOT playing the leading man, usually he was somebody’s side kick, aide, research assistant or all around flunky. Richard Carlson or Rex Reason may have been a better choice. However Marlowe is actually fine and fits in well with the Government, Military and Science stereotype characters on display here. For instance, Morris Ankrum, good, solid, dependable Morris Ankrum is here, as he should be, in the Army Officer uniform that he must have had in his personal wardrobe, he played so many high ranking officers in these films. With Morris Ankrum in charge of the military you know everything will turn out right! Had I been a dog face GI in those days I would have followed General Ankrum straight to the gates of hell, cocked, locked and ready to rock!
9. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Released in 1953 and loosely based on The Fog Horn, a short story by Ray Bradbury, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms beat Godzilla by one year to usher in the giant-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-bomb-testing sub-genre. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an endearingly uncomplicated but visually exciting monster movie, the first of the 50s science fiction pictures to feature a giant, city-attacking prehistoric creature. It introduced plot elements that would be repeated in many subsequent films, but more importantly, it showcased, for the first time, Ray Harryhausen as a major solo special effects talent. Unable to afford the complex miniatures and glass paintings used in KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, Harryhausen developed his own method of putting animated models into realistic settings, a system he used throughout his career (This process was eventually named Dynamation for the marketing campaign for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and subsequent films). The result is the Rhedosaurus, an implausible but charismatic dinosaur that invites us along for a destructive New York outing culminating in an exciting climax at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen’s outstanding stop-motion animation of the beast is effective, giving the creature a certain endearing lizard-like charm that’s impossible to resist. Capably directed by Eugene Lurie (who later helmed the similar THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO), aided by Jack Russell’s crisp black and white photography, a moody score, and earnest performances from a solid cast (Paul Christian as an eager young scientist, Paula Raymond as his pretty love interest, Kenneth Tobey as a no-nonsense colonel, and Lee Van Cleef as an expert marksman who helps save the day), THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an immensely entertaining monster romp worthy of its classic status.
8. ONE MILLIONS YEARS B.C.
Long before Spielberg made dinosaurs popular with the Jurassic series, a prehistoric creature craze hit this country in the 1960’s. Fueled both by 1950’s monster movies and new archeological discoveries, dino’s began popping up everywhere—in toys, television, and the movies. For their 100th film project, Hammer Studios in 1967 acquired the rights to remake the old 1940 Hal Roach programmer ONE MILLION B.C. This tale of the Shell people and the Rock tribe attempting to survive deadly volcanoes, dinosaurs, and each other was entertaining and visually exciting, if not historically accurate (dino’s and humans missed each other by at least several million years). Harryhausen created a large variety of creatures for this remake, which is often chided for including sequences of live animals, such as a giant iguana, at the expense of animation; however, this was actually Harryhausen’s idea in an attempt to add variety (and a lower budget) to the effects sequences. Things start slowly with the iguana and a few glimpses of a brontosaurus, then there’s a rampaging turtle! But Harryhausen makes up for these with three awesome scenes: an attack by an allosaurus, a battle between a triceratops and a ceratosaurus, and the climactic attack/fight involving a pteranodon and a pterodactyl. The movie was a huge success and spawned two sequels along with countless copycats. Harryhausen often remarked that he wasn’t sure what was the bigger attraction, the dinosaurs or Raquel Welch in her fur bikini. A relatively unknown starlet with only one (as yet unreleased) major studio credit at the time, Welch actually dominates much of the film with her beguiling looks and intelligent manner. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. not only launched her career on a sex symbol trajectory that would last for decades, but also created one of the most iconic images in film history—the strong, beautiful, prehistoric goddess defiantly ready to face any challenge.
7. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a sort of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is a major character, still living on the Nautilus, although it cannot go out to sea anymore. A group of Union soldiers making an escape from a Confederate prison during the American Civil War in a balloon find themselves way off course and stranded on an island where all sorts of, well, “mysterious” things are going on. For starters all the animals and even the insects are giant size and someone keeps helping them survive on the island by giving them everything they need. Anyone who knows the films of Ray Harryhausen will know who the benefactor is and why the animals are giant size so it won’t be a major spoiler to reveal that Captain Nemo, that sea going genius, is behind it all. All of Harryhausen’s films were ensemble projects for the actors, there is no major star in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, or any of his other films for that matter. Harryhausen and his incredible stop motion effects were the real star. In Mysterious Island we get a terrific group of players in the escaped Union Army prisoners, Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill as a Union war correspondent and Dan Jackson, and a Johnny Reb comes along for the ride as he has experience with the observation balloon, played by English actor Percey Herbert, and once the crew are established on the island a couple of female ship wreck survivors bring a hint of romance to the project in the character of Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan. Greenwood had a wonderful husky voice which was used to great effect in Barbarella supplying the voice for Anita Pallenberg’s character.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was way ahead of the curve in one aspect of the casting. Dan Jackson’s character is black, with no issues raised about that what so ever. His character is also in the Union Army and even Percy Herbert’s Confederate makes no mention of race. Jackson portrays him as just as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the other men on the Island.The real acting standout is Herbert Lom’s take on Captain Nemo. There is a sadness, a world weary air about Nemo that is heart breaking. You get the notion that this Nemo, even if the Nautilus were sea worthy would not bother taking her out again.But the real star, as always is Harryhausen’s stop motion effects and he has a lot fun in animating familiar creatures’ instead of mythological or science fictional monsters. A giant crab, bird, cephalopod and bees inhabit the island. All are the result of Nemo’s experiments. The crab and bird provide food for the castaways and the cephalopod attacks during a terrific underwater sequence using diving gear similar to Disney’s film, giant shells to hold oxygen for instance.There is also evidence the island has been visited by pirates and will be again shortly. And of course there is an active volcano which can go off at any minute.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a wonderful boys own adventure type of story with great set piece action scenes, set design, location filming, acting, a terrific score by the one and only Bernard Herrmann and best of all the stop motion artistry of Ray Harryhausen.
6. CLASH OF THE TITANS
CLASH OF THE TITANS, the 1981 account of the old mythological stories you were forced to read in junior high, featured Ray Harryhausen’s last great set piece: Perseus’ encounter with the snake-haired Medusa in a fire-lit cave. Stylized with great mood lighting, beautifully blocked and directed by Ray, the sequence is a beauty of spine-tingling, slithering menace. Seeing giant scorpions rise from the blood of Medusa’s head is visceral icing on the cake. CLASH OF THE TITANS was Ray Harryhuasen’s final film and likely the only one a generation of his fans saw in theaters when it was new. CLASH OF THE TITANS has everything previously denied Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer: A-list stars (Lawrence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis) and a budget enabling them to shoot in four major locations across Europe. The story is a bit wooden and oversimplified, but it is still the standard “hero’s journey”. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is not the heroic type – he does a fair enough job of striking poses, but he’s given some rather stuffy dialog to deliver but under the direction of Desmond Davis CLASH OF THE TITANS is the final showcase of Harryhausen’s skills in cinematic spectacle, and one of the best fantasy films of the 1980’s.
5. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4. 20,000,000 MILES TO EARTH
This classic monster movie was a notable milestone for Harryhausen in many ways—it was his last black & white feature film, his last real “monster on the loose” story, and the first movie based on his own idea. 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH(1957)begins spectacularly, as a rocket ship crash lands just off the coast of Sicily. However, this spacecraft– a U.S. manned flight to Venus–has returned with a little something extra: a dinosaur-like alien creature that continues to grow larger and larger. As the story progresses, we are treated to a suspenseful search through a barn, an attack and capture by helicopters, and one of the classic animation battles of all time, a fight between the creature and a huge bull elephant filmed against the scenic backdrop of Rome. Based on Harryhausen’s own story treatment titled THE CYCLOPS, the monster in EARTH was originally based on a giant creature in Scandinavian mythology named the “Ymir,” and, though it’s never called by that name in the film, is still popularly known as the Ymir today. Harryhausen also drew on his lifelong inspiration, KING KONG, for many of the story elements. Like Kong, the Ymir is an alien in a strange land, misunderstood and persecuted. Also similar is the ending, with a wounded Ymir hanging from a great monument of human culture before falling to it’s fate. Harryhausen also engendered even more sympathy for the Ymir by sculpting the face with an almost lovable, walrus-like quality. Experienced fantasy director Nathan Juran, familiar to 50’s and 60’s fans for not only genre TV shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE, but for also directing the ultimate cult classic ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, worked so well with Harryhausen that they did two more films together. For the leads, William Hopper (CONQUEST OF SPACE, DEADLY MANTIS) provides a familiar, solid presence as the astronaut tracking the creature, and Joan Taylor (also seen in Harryhausen’s EARTH VS. FLYING SAUCERS) plays the requisite love interest with just the right amount of moxie. But it is the eerie, plaintive howls of the Ymir struggling to understand this strange world it has awakened in that stay with the viewer long after the movie is over.
3. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Ray Harryhausen burst into feature films with this delightful kiddie matinée staple from 1949 that’s co-produced by John Ford! Listed in the opening credits as First Technician, Ray was working alongside his idol Willis O’Brien, the effects wiz that brought KING KONG to life on-screen back in 1933. Appropriately this film concerns a massive ape, maybe only a third of the size of mighty Kong. A sweet little girl living with her father deep in the jungle makes a trade with two local tribesman for an adorable baby gorilla. Twelve years later a Flo Ziegfeld/ Billy Rose-type master showman, lovable con-artist Max O’Hara, played by Robert Armstrong (yes, Kong’s original captor Carl Denham!) decides to travel to Africa and pick up animals to decorate his new jungle-themed nightclub, the Golden Safari, in Hollywood. A rodeo cowboy named Gregg played by future Oscar winner Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) comes along. The first big effects shot is when O’Hara’s cowboys attempt to lasso and capture the very-much all-grown up gorilla now named Joe by the grown-up very nicely Jill played by future Howard Hughes paramour Terry Moore! The cowboys versus creature sequence would be revisited by Ray in 20 years for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI with a T-Rex replacing the ape. O”Hara signs her up and soon everybody’s back in LA for the grand opening including future “Beverly Hillbillies” icon Irene Ryan as a daffy barfly. The effects sequences dazzle as Jill plays the haunting “Beautiful Dreamer” at a piano on a podium hoisted aloft by Joe. Then there’s a very funny scene with Jill coaching Joe in a tug-of-war with ten famous strongmen that ends with boxing champ Primo Carnera planting a few on Joe’s chin to no effect! Unfortunately things worsen when Jill and Joe are forced to perform a humiliating “organ grinder” skit with the audience tossing oversize coins at poor Joe’s noggin. Later that night a trio of drunken louts, including one played by Nestor Pavia (Captain Lucas from the first two “Creature from the Black Lagoon” films), taunt Joe in his basement cell. When Joe retaliates, he’s sentenced to death by the courts. But O’Hara’s got a few tricks up his sleeve! It looks like a clean escape until Joe, Jill, and Gregg encounter a orphanege engulfed in flames! Only a miracle can save the little ones trapped on the top floor: a miracle named Joe! The 1998 remake starring Charlize Theron (she’s really from Africa!) has some fun moments including a cameo from Harryhasen and Ms. Moore along with fine work from Rick Baker, but it doesn’t match the wit and charm of the original! fun-filled fantasy! That is one great ape!
2. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away in 2013 at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Today would have been Ray Harryhausen’s 99th birthday and here are, according to We Are Movie Geeks, his ten best movies.
10. EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS
Usually considered a lesser film in the Harryhausen resume due to an absence of animated monsters or mythological creatures, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a wonderful science fiction, action thriller, shot through with the paranoia of the Fifties in America when flying saucers were almost constantly in the news and the Cold War with the Soviets was at its hottest. Hugh Marlow and his wife get buzzed by a saucer on their way to a military installation right at the beginning and then the movie never lets up. The saucers were animated in a whirling motion by Harryhausen and have a death ray that deploys from the underside of the ships. Much havoc and carnage ensue when the saucers attack anything and everything, most especially a vicious assault on the capital in Washington DC with several landmark buildings reduced to rubble. EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is the template, the granddaddy film to Independence Day and the Transformers series, The Avengers, Battleship, and virtually every apocalyptic film coming out this summer, where-in the days of man on Earth appear to be numbered. The only films of it’s era that share this view of worldwide mayhem would be War of the Worlds and the first of the Japanese kaiju eiga, Godzilla and Rodan. But EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is particularly gleeful in knocking down the symbols of American Government. So famous is this sequence many films coming after paid homage to it. In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! the Martian saucers start to knock over the Washington Monument, then think better of it and set it back upright! Independence Day’s most famous shot is of the White House exploding. Rightly or wrongly this was one of the movies that started the tradition of wholesale destruction on a staggering scale. If there ‘s a drawback to EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and Harryhausen himself admitted this, the saucers are not very interesting to animate. However the action and the overall tone of paranoia and impending doom make this one of the scariest of Harryhausen’s features. Another drawback, (maybe) is leading man Hugh Marlowe. Marlowe made a career of NOT playing the leading man, usually he was somebody’s side kick, aide, research assistant or all around flunky. Richard Carlson or Rex Reason may have been a better choice. However Marlowe is actually fine and fits in well with the Government, Military and Science stereotype characters on display here. For instance, Morris Ankrum, good, solid, dependable Morris Ankrum is here, as he should be, in the Army Officer uniform that he must have had in his personal wardrobe, he played so many high ranking officers in these films. With Morris Ankrum in charge of the military you know everything will turn out right! Had I been a dog face GI in those days I would have followed General Ankrum straight to the gates of hell, cocked, locked and ready to rock!
9. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Released in 1953 and loosely based on The Fog Horn, a short story by Ray Bradbury, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms beat Godzilla by one year to usher in the giant-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-bomb-testing sub-genre. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an endearingly uncomplicated but visually exciting monster movie, the first of the 50s science fiction pictures to feature a giant, city-attacking prehistoric creature. It introduced plot elements that would be repeated in many subsequent films, but more importantly, it showcased, for the first time, Ray Harryhausen as a major solo special effects talent. Unable to afford the complex miniatures and glass paintings used in KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, Harryhausen developed his own method of putting animated models into realistic settings, a system he used throughout his career (This process was eventually named Dynamation for the marketing campaign for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and subsequent films). The result is the Rhedosaurus, an implausible but charismatic dinosaur that invites us along for a destructive New York outing culminating in an exciting climax at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen’s outstanding stop-motion animation of the beast is effective, giving the creature a certain endearing lizard-like charm that’s impossible to resist. Capably directed by Eugene Lurie (who later helmed the similar THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO), aided by Jack Russell’s crisp black and white photography, a moody score, and earnest performances from a solid cast (Paul Christian as an eager young scientist, Paula Raymond as his pretty love interest, Kenneth Tobey as a no-nonsense colonel, and Lee Van Cleef as an expert marksman who helps save the day), THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an immensely entertaining monster romp worthy of its classic status.
8. ONE MILLIONS YEARS B.C.
Long before Spielberg made dinosaurs popular with the Jurassic series, a prehistoric creature craze hit this country in the 1960’s. Fueled both by 1950’s monster movies and new archeological discoveries, dino’s began popping up everywhere—in toys, television, and the movies. For their 100th film project, Hammer Studios in 1967 acquired the rights to remake the old 1940 Hal Roach programmer ONE MILLION B.C. This tale of the Shell people and the Rock tribe attempting to survive deadly volcanoes, dinosaurs, and each other was entertaining and visually exciting, if not historically accurate (dino’s and humans missed each other by at least several million years). Harryhausen created a large variety of creatures for this remake, which is often chided for including sequences of live animals, such as a giant iguana, at the expense of animation; however, this was actually Harryhausen’s idea in an attempt to add variety (and a lower budget) to the effects sequences. Things start slowly with the iguana and a few glimpses of a brontosaurus, then there’s a rampaging turtle! But Harryhausen makes up for these with three awesome scenes: an attack by an allosaurus, a battle between a triceratops and a ceratosaurus, and the climactic attack/fight involving a pteranodon and a pterodactyl. The movie was a huge success and spawned two sequels along with countless copycats. Harryhausen often remarked that he wasn’t sure what was the bigger attraction, the dinosaurs or Raquel Welch in her fur bikini. A relatively unknown starlet with only one (as yet unreleased) major studio credit at the time, Welch actually dominates much of the film with her beguiling looks and intelligent manner. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. not only launched her career on a sex symbol trajectory that would last for decades, but also created one of the most iconic images in film history—the strong, beautiful, prehistoric goddess defiantly ready to face any challenge.
7. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a sort of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is a major character, still living on the Nautilus, although it cannot go out to sea anymore. A group of Union soldiers making an escape from a Confederate prison during the American Civil War in a balloon find themselves way off course and stranded on an island where all sorts of, well, “mysterious” things are going on. For starters all the animals and even the insects are giant size and someone keeps helping them survive on the island by giving them everything they need. Anyone who knows the films of Ray Harryhausen will know who the benefactor is and why the animals are giant size so it won’t be a major spoiler to reveal that Captain Nemo, that sea going genius, is behind it all. All of Harryhausen’s films were ensemble projects for the actors, there is no major star in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, or any of his other films for that matter. Harryhausen and his incredible stop motion effects were the real star. In Mysterious Island we get a terrific group of players in the escaped Union Army prisoners, Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill as a Union war correspondent and Dan Jackson, and a Johnny Reb comes along for the ride as he has experience with the observation balloon, played by English actor Percey Herbert, and once the crew are established on the island a couple of female ship wreck survivors bring a hint of romance to the project in the character of Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan. Greenwood had a wonderful husky voice which was used to great effect in Barbarella supplying the voice for Anita Pallenberg’s character.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was way ahead of the curve in one aspect of the casting. Dan Jackson’s character is black, with no issues raised about that what so ever. His character is also in the Union Army and even Percy Herbert’s Confederate makes no mention of race. Jackson portrays him as just as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the other men on the Island.The real acting standout is Herbert Lom’s take on Captain Nemo. There is a sadness, a world weary air about Nemo that is heart breaking. You get the notion that this Nemo, even if the Nautilus were sea worthy would not bother taking her out again.But the real star, as always is Harryhausen’s stop motion effects and he has a lot fun in animating familiar creatures’ instead of mythological or science fictional monsters. A giant crab, bird, cephalopod and bees inhabit the island. All are the result of Nemo’s experiments. The crab and bird provide food for the castaways and the cephalopod attacks during a terrific underwater sequence using diving gear similar to Disney’s film, giant shells to hold oxygen for instance.There is also evidence the island has been visited by pirates and will be again shortly. And of course there is an active volcano which can go off at any minute.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a wonderful boys own adventure type of story with great set piece action scenes, set design, location filming, acting, a terrific score by the one and only Bernard Herrmann and best of all the stop motion artistry of Ray Harryhausen.
6. CLASH OF THE TITANS
CLASH OF THE TITANS, the 1981 account of the old mythological stories you were forced to read in junior high, featured Ray Harryhausen’s last great set piece: Perseus’ encounter with the snake-haired Medusa in a fire-lit cave. Stylized with great mood lighting, beautifully blocked and directed by Ray, the sequence is a beauty of spine-tingling, slithering menace. Seeing giant scorpions rise from the blood of Medusa’s head is visceral icing on the cake. CLASH OF THE TITANS was Ray Harryhuasen’s final film and likely the only one a generation of his fans saw in theaters when it was new. CLASH OF THE TITANS has everything previously denied Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer: A-list stars (Lawrence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis) and a budget enabling them to shoot in four major locations across Europe. The story is a bit wooden and oversimplified, but it is still the standard “hero’s journey”. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is not the heroic type – he does a fair enough job of striking poses, but he’s given some rather stuffy dialog to deliver but under the direction of Desmond Davis CLASH OF THE TITANS is the final showcase of Harryhausen’s skills in cinematic spectacle, and one of the best fantasy films of the 1980’s.
5. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4. 20,000,000 MILES TO EARTH
This classic monster movie was a notable milestone for Harryhausen in many ways—it was his last black & white feature film, his last real “monster on the loose” story, and the first movie based on his own idea. 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH(1957)begins spectacularly, as a rocket ship crash lands just off the coast of Sicily. However, this spacecraft– a U.S. manned flight to Venus–has returned with a little something extra: a dinosaur-like alien creature that continues to grow larger and larger. As the story progresses, we are treated to a suspenseful search through a barn, an attack and capture by helicopters, and one of the classic animation battles of all time, a fight between the creature and a huge bull elephant filmed against the scenic backdrop of Rome. Based on Harryhausen’s own story treatment titled THE CYCLOPS, the monster in EARTH was originally based on a giant creature in Scandinavian mythology named the “Ymir,” and, though it’s never called by that name in the film, is still popularly known as the Ymir today. Harryhausen also drew on his lifelong inspiration, KING KONG, for many of the story elements. Like Kong, the Ymir is an alien in a strange land, misunderstood and persecuted. Also similar is the ending, with a wounded Ymir hanging from a great monument of human culture before falling to it’s fate. Harryhausen also engendered even more sympathy for the Ymir by sculpting the face with an almost lovable, walrus-like quality. Experienced fantasy director Nathan Juran, familiar to 50’s and 60’s fans for not only genre TV shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE, but for also directing the ultimate cult classic ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, worked so well with Harryhausen that they did two more films together. For the leads, William Hopper (CONQUEST OF SPACE, DEADLY MANTIS) provides a familiar, solid presence as the astronaut tracking the creature, and Joan Taylor (also seen in Harryhausen’s EARTH VS. FLYING SAUCERS) plays the requisite love interest with just the right amount of moxie. But it is the eerie, plaintive howls of the Ymir struggling to understand this strange world it has awakened in that stay with the viewer long after the movie is over.
3. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Ray Harryhausen burst into feature films with this delightful kiddie matinée staple from 1949 that’s co-produced by John Ford! Listed in the opening credits as First Technician, Ray was working alongside his idol Willis O’Brien, the effects wiz that brought KING KONG to life on-screen back in 1933. Appropriately this film concerns a massive ape, maybe only a third of the size of mighty Kong. A sweet little girl living with her father deep in the jungle makes a trade with two local tribesman for an adorable baby gorilla. Twelve years later a Flo Ziegfeld/ Billy Rose-type master showman, lovable con-artist Max O’Hara, played by Robert Armstrong (yes, Kong’s original captor Carl Denham!) decides to travel to Africa and pick up animals to decorate his new jungle-themed nightclub, the Golden Safari, in Hollywood. A rodeo cowboy named Gregg played by future Oscar winner Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) comes along. The first big effects shot is when O’Hara’s cowboys attempt to lasso and capture the very-much all-grown up gorilla now named Joe by the grown-up very nicely Jill played by future Howard Hughes paramour Terry Moore! The cowboys versus creature sequence would be revisited by Ray in 20 years for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI with a T-Rex replacing the ape. O”Hara signs her up and soon everybody’s back in LA for the grand opening including future “Beverly Hillbillies” icon Irene Ryan as a daffy barfly. The effects sequences dazzle as Jill plays the haunting “Beautiful Dreamer” at a piano on a podium hoisted aloft by Joe. Then there’s a very funny scene with Jill coaching Joe in a tug-of-war with ten famous strongmen that ends with boxing champ Primo Carnera planting a few on Joe’s chin to no effect! Unfortunately things worsen when Jill and Joe are forced to perform a humiliating “organ grinder” skit with the audience tossing oversize coins at poor Joe’s noggin. Later that night a trio of drunken louts, including one played by Nestor Pavia (Captain Lucas from the first two “Creature from the Black Lagoon” films), taunt Joe in his basement cell. When Joe retaliates, he’s sentenced to death by the courts. But O’Hara’s got a few tricks up his sleeve! It looks like a clean escape until Joe, Jill, and Gregg encounter a orphanege engulfed in flames! Only a miracle can save the little ones trapped on the top floor: a miracle named Joe! The 1998 remake starring Charlize Theron (she’s really from Africa!) has some fun moments including a cameo from Harryhasen and Ms. Moore along with fine work from Rick Baker, but it doesn’t match the wit and charm of the original! fun-filled fantasy! That is one great ape!
2. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
“The gods of Greece are cruel! In time, all men shall learn to live without them.” Sunday, May 7 marks the 4th anniversary of the legendary visual effects guru Ray Harryhausen’s death. Read what We Are Movie Geeks thinks are Harryhausen’s top ten films HERE
To celebrate this master of illusion, Comet TV (www.COMETtv.com) is running a Ray Harryhausen Marathon of movies on Sunday, May 7 beginning at 11:30am EST/8:30am PST. The complete marathon will run as follows: 11:30am EST / 10:30am CT / 8:30am PST – The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1:30pm EST / 12:30pm CT / 10:30am PST – The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4:00pm EST / 3:00pm CT / 1:00pm PST – The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
This live action adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s 18th century novel — featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen — is an enjoyably innocuous children’s fantasy with just enough subtle satirical humor to appeal to adults. With that said, Harryhausen fans expecting to see ample use of stop-motion animation will be disappointed, given that there are only two short sequences involving his famed technique; instead, the primary visual appeal of the film lies in the remarkably effective scaled cinematography, which allows Gulliver to appear either over-sized or minuscule in comparison with his island neighbors. While the intricacies of Swift’s highly specific satire of British government are inevitably lost (particularly since the last two sections of the novel are left out altogether), screenwriters Arthur Ross and Jack Sher manage to poke more generic fun at both the petty nature of wars (the kings of Lilliput and Blefescu are locked in mortal combat over the correct way to crack eggs!) and the frighteningly absurd motivations behind witch hunts (which were often simply a convenient way to get rid of enemies). Bernard Herrmann wrote the score, which isn’t quite as distinctive as one might expect — but evidence of his musical genius comes through in certain sections, and adds an appropriately jaunty backdrop to Gulliver’s escapades.
6:00pm EST / 5:00pm CT / 3pm PST – Jason and the Argonauts
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
The Ray Harryhausen Marathon will air on COMET TV (click here for stations), as well as on the new COMET TV App on Roku and Apple TV and online at www.COMETtv.com. Comet TV is a partnership between Sinclair and MGM, is the first-ever 24/7 science fiction digital broadcast network and features more than 1,500 hours of premium MGM content. Currently the network is carried in over 100 markets, reaching over 80 million homes.
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away in 2013 at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Today would have been Ray Harryhausen’s 96th birthday and here are, according to We Are Movie Geeks, his ten best movies.
10. EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS
Usually considered a lesser film in the Harryhausen resume due to an absence of animated monsters or mythological creatures, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a wonderful science fiction, action thriller, shot through with the paranoia of the Fifties in America when flying saucers were almost constantly in the news and the Cold War with the Soviets was at its hottest. Hugh Marlow and his wife get buzzed by a saucer on their way to a military installation right at the beginning and then the movie never lets up. The saucers were animated in a whirling motion by Harryhausen and have a death ray that deploys from the underside of the ships. Much havoc and carnage ensue when the saucers attack anything and everything, most especially a vicious assault on the capital in Washington DC with several landmark buildings reduced to rubble. EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is the template, the granddaddy film to Independence Day and the Transformers series, The Avengers, Battleship, and virtually every apocalyptic film coming out this summer, where-in the days of man on Earth appear to be numbered. The only films of it’s era that share this view of worldwide mayhem would be War of the Worlds and the first of the Japanese kaiju eiga, Godzilla and Rodan. But EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is particularly gleeful in knocking down the symbols of American Government. So famous is this sequence many films coming after paid homage to it. In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! the Martian saucers start to knock over the Washington Monument, then think better of it and set it back upright! Independence Day’s most famous shot is of the White House exploding. Rightly or wrongly this was one of the movies that started the tradition of wholesale destruction on a staggering scale. If there ‘s a drawback to EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and Harryhausen himself admitted this, the saucers are not very interesting to animate. However the action and the overall tone of paranoia and impending doom make this one of the scariest of Harryhausen’s features. Another drawback, (maybe) is leading man Hugh Marlowe. Marlowe made a career of NOT playing the leading man, usually he was somebody’s side kick, aide, research assistant or all around flunky. Richard Carlson or Rex Reason may have been a better choice. However Marlowe is actually fine and fits in well with the Government, Military and Science stereotype characters on display here. For instance, Morris Ankrum, good, solid, dependable Morris Ankrum is here, as he should be, in the Army Officer uniform that he must have had in his personal wardrobe, he played so many high ranking officers in these films. With Morris Ankrum in charge of the military you know everything will turn out right! Had I been a dog face GI in those days I would have followed General Ankrum straight to the gates of hell, cocked, locked and ready to rock!
9. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Released in 1953 and loosely based on The Fog Horn, a short story by Ray Bradbury, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms beat Godzilla by one year to usher in the giant-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-bomb-testing sub-genre. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an endearingly uncomplicated but visually exciting monster movie, the first of the 50s science fiction pictures to feature a giant, city-attacking prehistoric creature. It introduced plot elements that would be repeated in many subsequent films, but more importantly, it showcased, for the first time, Ray Harryhausen as a major solo special effects talent. Unable to afford the complex miniatures and glass paintings used in KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, Harryhausen developed his own method of putting animated models into realistic settings, a system he used throughout his career (This process was eventually named Dynamation for the marketing campaign for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and subsequent films). The result is the Rhedosaurus, an implausible but charismatic dinosaur that invites us along for a destructive New York outing culminating in an exciting climax at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen’s outstanding stop-motion animation of the beast is effective, giving the creature a certain endearing lizard-like charm that’s impossible to resist. Capably directed by Eugene Lurie (who later helmed the similar THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO), aided by Jack Russell’s crisp black and white photography, a moody score, and earnest performances from a solid cast (Paul Christian as an eager young scientist, Paula Raymond as his pretty love interest, Kenneth Tobey as a no-nonsense colonel, and Lee Van Cleef as an expert marksman who helps save the day), THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an immensely entertaining monster romp worthy of its classic status.
8. ONE MILLIONS YEARS B.C.
Long before Spielberg made dinosaurs popular with the Jurassic series, a prehistoric creature craze hit this country in the 1960’s. Fueled both by 1950’s monster movies and new archeological discoveries, dino’s began popping up everywhere—in toys, television, and the movies. For their 100th film project, Hammer Studios in 1967 acquired the rights to remake the old 1940 Hal Roach programmer ONE MILLION B.C. This tale of the Shell people and the Rock tribe attempting to survive deadly volcanoes, dinosaurs, and each other was entertaining and visually exciting, if not historically accurate (dino’s and humans missed each other by at least several million years). Harryhausen created a large variety of creatures for this remake, which is often chided for including sequences of live animals, such as a giant iguana, at the expense of animation; however, this was actually Harryhausen’s idea in an attempt to add variety (and a lower budget) to the effects sequences. Things start slowly with the iguana and a few glimpses of a brontosaurus, then there’s a rampaging turtle! But Harryhausen makes up for these with three awesome scenes: an attack by an allosaurus, a battle between a triceratops and a ceratosaurus, and the climactic attack/fight involving a pteranodon and a pterodactyl. The movie was a huge success and spawned two sequels along with countless copycats. Harryhausen often remarked that he wasn’t sure what was the bigger attraction, the dinosaurs or Raquel Welch in her fur bikini. A relatively unknown starlet with only one (as yet unreleased) major studio credit at the time, Welch actually dominates much of the film with her beguiling looks and intelligent manner. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. not only launched her career on a sex symbol trajectory that would last for decades, but also created one of the most iconic images in film history—the strong, beautiful, prehistoric goddess defiantly ready to face any challenge.
7. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a sort of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is a major character, still living on the Nautilus, although it cannot go out to sea anymore. A group of Union soldiers making an escape from a Confederate prison during the American Civil War in a balloon find themselves way off course and stranded on an island where all sorts of, well, “mysterious” things are going on. For starters all the animals and even the insects are giant size and someone keeps helping them survive on the island by giving them everything they need. Anyone who knows the films of Ray Harryhausen will know who the benefactor is and why the animals are giant size so it won’t be a major spoiler to reveal that Captain Nemo, that sea going genius, is behind it all. All of Harryhausen’s films were ensemble projects for the actors, there is no major star in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, or any of his other films for that matter. Harryhausen and his incredible stop motion effects were the real star. In Mysterious Island we get a terrific group of players in the escaped Union Army prisoners, Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill as a Union war correspondent and Dan Jackson, and a Johnny Reb comes along for the ride as he has experience with the observation balloon, played by English actor Percey Herbert, and once the crew are established on the island a couple of female ship wreck survivors bring a hint of romance to the project in the character of Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan. Greenwood had a wonderful husky voice which was used to great effect in Barbarella supplying the voice for Anita Pallenberg’s character.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was way ahead of the curve in one aspect of the casting. Dan Jackson’s character is black, with no issues raised about that what so ever. His character is also in the Union Army and even Percy Herbert’s Confederate makes no mention of race. Jackson portrays him as just as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the other men on the Island.The real acting standout is Herbert Lom’s take on Captain Nemo. There is a sadness, a world weary air about Nemo that is heart breaking. You get the notion that this Nemo, even if the Nautilus were sea worthy would not bother taking her out again.But the real star, as always is Harryhausen’s stop motion effects and he has a lot fun in animating familiar creatures’ instead of mythological or science fictional monsters. A giant crab, bird, cephalopod and bees inhabit the island. All are the result of Nemo’s experiments. The crab and bird provide food for the castaways and the cephalopod attacks during a terrific underwater sequence using diving gear similar to Disney’s film, giant shells to hold oxygen for instance.There is also evidence the island has been visited by pirates and will be again shortly. And of course there is an active volcano which can go off at any minute.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a wonderful boys own adventure type of story with great set piece action scenes, set design, location filming, acting, a terrific score by the one and only Bernard Herrmann and best of all the stop motion artistry of Ray Harryhausen.
6. CLASH OF THE TITANS
CLASH OF THE TITANS, the 1981 account of the old mythological stories you were forced to read in junior high, featured Ray Harryhausen’s last great set piece: Perseus’ encounter with the snake-haired Medusa in a fire-lit cave. Stylized with great mood lighting, beautifully blocked and directed by Ray, the sequence is a beauty of spine-tingling, slithering menace. Seeing giant scorpions rise from the blood of Medusa’s head is visceral icing on the cake. CLASH OF THE TITANS was Ray Harryhuasen’s final film and likely the only one a generation of his fans saw in theaters when it was new. CLASH OF THE TITANS has everything previously denied Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer: A-list stars (Lawrence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis) and a budget enabling them to shoot in four major locations across Europe. The story is a bit wooden and oversimplified, but it is still the standard “hero’s journey”. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is not the heroic type – he does a fair enough job of striking poses, but he’s given some rather stuffy dialog to deliver but under the direction of Desmond Davis CLASH OF THE TITANS is the final showcase of Harryhausen’s skills in cinematic spectacle, and one of the best fantasy films of the 1980’s.
5. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4. 20,000,000 MILES TO EARTH
This classic monster movie was a notable milestone for Harryhausen in many ways—it was his last black & white feature film, his last real “monster on the loose” story, and the first movie based on his own idea. 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH(1957)begins spectacularly, as a rocket ship crash lands just off the coast of Sicily. However, this spacecraft– a U.S. manned flight to Venus–has returned with a little something extra: a dinosaur-like alien creature that continues to grow larger and larger. As the story progresses, we are treated to a suspenseful search through a barn, an attack and capture by helicopters, and one of the classic animation battles of all time, a fight between the creature and a huge bull elephant filmed against the scenic backdrop of Rome. Based on Harryhausen’s own story treatment titled THE CYCLOPS, the monster in EARTH was originally based on a giant creature in Scandinavian mythology named the “Ymir,” and, though it’s never called by that name in the film, is still popularly known as the Ymir today. Harryhausen also drew on his lifelong inspiration, KING KONG, for many of the story elements. Like Kong, the Ymir is an alien in a strange land, misunderstood and persecuted. Also similar is the ending, with a wounded Ymir hanging from a great monument of human culture before falling to it’s fate. Harryhausen also engendered even more sympathy for the Ymir by sculpting the face with an almost lovable, walrus-like quality. Experienced fantasy director Nathan Juran, familiar to 50’s and 60’s fans for not only genre TV shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE, but for also directing the ultimate cult classic ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, worked so well with Harryhausen that they did two more films together. For the leads, William Hopper (CONQUEST OF SPACE, DEADLY MANTIS) provides a familiar, solid presence as the astronaut tracking the creature, and Joan Taylor (also seen in Harryhausen’s EARTH VS. FLYING SAUCERS) plays the requisite love interest with just the right amount of moxie. But it is the eerie, plaintive howls of the Ymir struggling to understand this strange world it has awakened in that stay with the viewer long after the movie is over.
3. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Ray Harryhausen burst into feature films with this delightful kiddie matinée staple from 1949 that’s co-produced by John Ford! Listed in the opening credits as First Technician, Ray was working alongside his idol Willis O’Brien, the effects wiz that brought KING KONG to life on-screen back in 1933. Appropriately this film concerns a massive ape, maybe only a third of the size of mighty Kong. A sweet little girl living with her father deep in the jungle makes a trade with two local tribesman for an adorable baby gorilla. Twelve years later a Flo Ziegfeld/ Billy Rose-type master showman, lovable con-artist Max O’Hara, played by Robert Armstrong (yes, Kong’s original captor Carl Denham!) decides to travel to Africa and pick up animals to decorate his new jungle-themed nightclub, the Golden Safari, in Hollywood. A rodeo cowboy named Gregg played by future Oscar winner Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) comes along. The first big effects shot is when O’Hara’s cowboys attempt to lasso and capture the very-much all-grown up gorilla now named Joe by the grown-up very nicely Jill played by future Howard Hughes paramour Terry Moore! The cowboys versus creature sequence would be revisited by Ray in 20 years for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI with a T-Rex replacing the ape. O”Hara signs her up and soon everybody’s back in LA for the grand opening including future “Beverly Hillbillies” icon Irene Ryan as a daffy barfly. The effects sequences dazzle as Jill plays the haunting “Beautiful Dreamer” at a piano on a podium hoisted aloft by Joe. Then there’s a very funny scene with Jill coaching Joe in a tug-of-war with ten famous strongmen that ends with boxing champ Primo Carnera planting a few on Joe’s chin to no effect! Unfortunately things worsen when Jill and Joe are forced to perform a humiliating “organ grinder” skit with the audience tossing oversize coins at poor Joe’s noggin. Later that night a trio of drunken louts, including one played by Nestor Pavia (Captain Lucas from the first two “Creature from the Black Lagoon” films), taunt Joe in his basement cell. When Joe retaliates, he’s sentenced to death by the courts. But O’Hara’s got a few tricks up his sleeve! It looks like a clean escape until Joe, Jill, and Gregg encounter a orphanege engulfed in flames! Only a miracle can save the little ones trapped on the top floor: a miracle named Joe! The 1998 remake starring Charlize Theron (she’s really from Africa!) has some fun moments including a cameo from Harryhasen and Ms. Moore along with fine work from Rick Baker, but it doesn’t match the wit and charm of the original! fun-filled fantasy! That is one great ape!
2. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it’s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it’s the year that the headline is from. It’s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 27th successful year! Steve and I collaborated in 2011 on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and I have been writing a regular monthly movie-related column since. Our working alliance is simple: Steve tells me a year and I pick a movie from that year and write about it. Last month Steve threw me the year 1963. Since I was hosting a Ray Harryhausen tribute event at the St. Louis International Film Festival and was eager to write about the special effects wizard who died this past May, I chose JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS as my subject for this month. The Globe-Democrat is a St. Louis paper and we try to have as many local ties to stories as possible. I was aware that the star of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, Todd Armstrong who played Jason, was originally from our town. I decided to do asome research on him and his background. It wasn’t easy since he had almost no career beyond JASON, but I did discover that his father Harris Armstrong was a famous and highly-regarded architect here and had designed many buildings that I have admired over the years. My article morphed from a story about one of my favorite movies into one about a father and son, one who had a lifetime of wealth and success while the other had but a brief shining moment. But while Harris Armstrong may have been the ‘dean’ of modern architects, he never battled an army of sword-wielding skeletons.
Harris Armstrong, the dean of St. Louis modernist architects, has a new masterpiece to be proud of. It’s his son, John Harris Armstrong, who has landed the starring role in the new fantasy film JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. 26-year old John, who has changed his name to Todd Armstrong, plays Jason, the ancient Greek mythological hero famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. The new movie is a thrilling adventure, highlighted by Jason’s battles with a succession of fantastic monsters culminating in a battle with seven sword fighting skeletons that has to be seen to be believed. For sheer old-fashioned, childhood-rekindling adventure, it doesn’t get any better than JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, and it’s wonderful to see a home-town boy in the title role.
Harris Armstrong, born here in 1899, is a well-read and largely self-taught modern architect who is revered in St. Louis for his masterful designs of colorful, innovative, and spacious structures. After serving in WWI, Armstrong studied architecture at Washington University, though he never graduated. After working in the Boston office of Raymond Hood in the 1930s, Armstrong returned to St. Louis, settling in Kirkwood with his wife Louise McClelland Armstrong, and has designed many local civic landmarks. Many of Harris Armstrong’s designs are inspired by the Asian style of economic resourcefulness of material and elegant simplicity of form. One of his first triumphs was The Shanley Building at 7800 Maryland Avenue in Clayton, commissioned by orthodontist Dr. Leo M. Shanley. Its design won Armstrong a silver medal at the Paris Exposition of 1937, and is a building admired by many architects. Another Armstrong jewel is the Magic Chef building on South Kingshighway. Designed in 1946 for The American Stove Company as their national headquarters, the building featured the first glass block curtain wall in St. Louis. Just last year, Armstrong designed the Ethical Society, a striking, spacious building on Clayton Road. Armstrong composed the skyward thrust of the building’s pointed roof to symbolize the Ethical Society’s aims to bring out the best in the human spirit.
Harris and Todd Armstrong in a photo taken in 1946
Harris and Louise Armstrong’s son John was born in 1937 and grew up in Kirkwood with his two older sisters Joan and Jeffrey. The family spent much of their summers at a cabin in Jefferson County that Harris had designed and named “The Rockpile”. John graduated from Ladue High School in 1956 where one of his classmates was Auggie Busch, the great-grandson of Anheuser-Busch brewery founder Adolphus Busch. John moved to California to study acting, enrolling in the Pasadena Playhouse where he changed his first name to Todd. He graduated from the prestigious acting school in 1958 with classmates including Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. Todd’s wealthy parents set him up with a trust fund but after a couple of frustrating years with no success landing acting roles, he took part time work as a landscaper. One of his clients was actress Gloria Henry. Ms Henry had played Charles Bronson’s doomed wife in the 1958 gangland thriller GANG WAR and in 1961 was in her second year playing Alice Mitchell, the mother of the title character on the hit CBS TV series Dennis the Menace. She was impressed enough with Todd’s good looks to arrange for him to get a screen test at Columbia Pictures, where she was under contract. Todd landed a recurring role in the third season of the popular TV show Manhunt, which starred Victor Jory as a hard-nosed policeman with the San Diego, California Police Department. Armstrong played Det. Carl Spencer in 13 episodes in the 1961 season. In 1962 Armstrong briefly changed his name again to Todd Anderson and made his big-screen debut with a small role in director Edward Dmytryk’s drama WALK ON THE WILD SIDE starring Laurence Harvey and Jane Fonda. Todd changed his name back to Armstrong for his second film, the Daniel Mann-directed drama FIVE FINGER EXERCISE starring Rosalind Russell last year.
Todd Armstrong has landed his first lead role with JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. The new film is derived from the Greek legend of Jason and his voyage at the helm of the ship Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. The $3 million film has been directed resourcefully and spiritedly by Don Chaffey, under whose leadership a colorful cast, led by Todd Armstrong, performs with gusto. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is exhilarating stuff, and successful in that it takes its fantasy so seriously, treating the Gods of Ancient Greece as living, breathing beings who may be haughty and cruel when it suits them, yet are aware their days are numbered when they can be bettered by brave mortals such as Jason. Bernard Herrmann’s majestic score does a tremendous job of fleshing out the characters and setting the mood and pace. Todd Armstrong makes for a solid action hero as Jason, but his voice has been dubbed by British actor Tim Turner best known for providing the voice of the title character in the TV series The Invisible Man (1958–59). Todd has a fine voice, but since most of the rest of the cast were Brits, the producers thought his Yank accent would be inappropriately distracting. American actress Nancy Kovak, who plays Medea in the film, is also dubbed.
Special effects artist ray Harryhausen and friend.
The real star of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is special effects artist Ray Harryhausen and his stop-motion animation creatures. Stop-motion uses a small model of, say, a skeleton where one single film frame is photographed, then the model is moved slightly and another frame is photographed. When the film is run through the projector, the skeleton will appear to move. Harryhausen’s work has been showcased in previous films such as THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS and 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. Among the spectacular creatures brought to life through this process in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS are the colossal bronze god Talos, fluttery bat-winged Harpies, a menacing seven-headed Hydra, and a squadron of menacing skeletons who materialize out of the Hydra’s teeth. Armstrong and the rest of the cast travelled to the Italian town of Palinuto to film the exteriors. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is terrific entertainment and transcends the other sword and sandal product that has flooded theaters since HERCULES proved such an international success five years ago. It’s a great first starring role for St. Louisan Todd Armstrong who should have a long and successful career ahead of him.
Stardom was to elude Todd Armstrong and his career fizzled after JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. Columbia Picture’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish it in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. Armstrong co-starred with George Segal and Tom Courtenay in the 1965 WWII drama KING RAT but after that, movie and TV roles for the actor were few and far between. Little has been written about his later years, though it’s known that he married a pianist and settled down in the Virgin Islands. Armstrong shot himself in 1990. He was 55 years old.
Harris Armstrong was one of five finalists, and the only St. Louisan, in the design competition for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. He received an honorable mention while Finnish architect Eero Saarinen won the competition with his design of the Gateway Arch. Harris Armstrong retired in 1969 and died in 1973 but his beautifully-designed St. Louis structures remain. His Magic Chef building is now a U-Haul storage facility.
Though JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS was initially a box-office disappointment, it is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. When they take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 19922, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.”
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, Sam Moffitt, and Tom Stockman
Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films such as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD passed away last month at age 92. In 1933, the then-13-year-old Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG at a Hollywood theater and was inspired – not only by Kong, who was clearly not just a man in a gorilla suit, but also by the dinosaurs. He came out of the theatre “stunned and haunted. They looked absolutely lifelike … I wanted to know how it was done.” It was done by using stop-motion animation: jointed models filmed one frame at a time to simulate movement. Harryhausen was to become the prime exponent of the technique and its combination with live action. The influence of Harryhausen on film luminaries like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron is immeasurable and his work continues to inspire animators and VFX artists around the world.
Here are, according to We Are Movie Geeks, the ten best Ray Harryhausen movies.
10. EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS
Usually considered a lesser film in the Harryhausen resume due to an absence of animated monsters or mythological creatures, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a wonderful science fiction, action thriller, shot through with the paranoia of the Fifties in America when flying saucers were almost constantly in the news and the Cold War with the Soviets was at its hottest. Hugh Marlow and his wife get buzzed by a saucer on their way to a military installation right at the beginning and then the movie never lets up. The saucers were animated in a whirling motion by Harryhausen and have a death ray that deploys from the underside of the ships. Much havoc and carnage ensue when the saucers attack anything and everything, most especially a vicious assault on the capital in Washington DC with several landmark buildings reduced to rubble. EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is the template, the granddaddy film to Independence Day and the Transformers series, The Avengers, Battleship, and virtually every apocalyptic film coming out this summer, where-in the days of man on Earth appear to be numbered. The only films of it’s era that share this view of worldwide mayhem would be War of the Worlds and the first of the Japanese kaiju eiga, Godzilla and Rodan. But EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is particularly gleeful in knocking down the symbols of American Government. So famous is this sequence many films coming after paid homage to it. In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! the Martian saucers start to knock over the Washington Monument, then think better of it and set it back upright! Independence Day’s most famous shot is of the White House exploding. Rightly or wrongly this was one of the movies that started the tradition of wholesale destruction on a staggering scale. If there ‘s a drawback to EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and Harryhausen himself admitted this, the saucers are not very interesting to animate. However the action and the overall tone of paranoia and impending doom make this one of the scariest of Harryhausen’s features. Another drawback, (maybe) is leading man Hugh Marlowe. Marlowe made a career of NOT playing the leading man, usually he was somebody’s side kick, aide, research assistant or all around flunky. Richard Carlson or Rex Reason may have been a better choice. However Marlowe is actually fine and fits in well with the Government, Military and Science stereotype characters on display here. For instance, Morris Ankrum, good, solid, dependable Morris Ankrum is here, as he should be, in the Army Officer uniform that he must have had in his personal wardrobe, he played so many high ranking officers in these films. With Morris Ankrum in charge of the military you know everything will turn out right! Had I been a dog face GI in those days I would have followed General Ankrum straight to the gates of hell, cocked, locked and ready to rock!
9. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS
Released in 1953 and loosely based on The Fog Horn, a short story by Ray Bradbury, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms beat Godzilla by one year to usher in the giant-monster-awakened-by-nuclear-bomb-testing sub-genre. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an endearingly uncomplicated but visually exciting monster movie, the first of the 50s science fiction pictures to feature a giant, city-attacking prehistoric creature. It introduced plot elements that would be repeated in many subsequent films, but more importantly, it showcased, for the first time, Ray Harryhausen as a major solo special effects talent. Unable to afford the complex miniatures and glass paintings used in KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, Harryhausen developed his own method of putting animated models into realistic settings, a system he used throughout his career (This process was eventually named Dynamation for the marketing campaign for The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and subsequent films). The result is the Rhedosaurus, an implausible but charismatic dinosaur that invites us along for a destructive New York outing culminating in an exciting climax at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen’s outstanding stop-motion animation of the beast is effective, giving the creature a certain endearing lizard-like charm that’s impossible to resist. Capably directed by Eugene Lurie (who later helmed the similar THE GIANT BEHEMOTH and GORGO), aided by Jack Russell’s crisp black and white photography, a moody score, and earnest performances from a solid cast (Paul Christian as an eager young scientist, Paula Raymond as his pretty love interest, Kenneth Tobey as a no-nonsense colonel, and Lee Van Cleef as an expert marksman who helps save the day), THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is an immensely entertaining monster romp worthy of its classic status.
8. ONE MILLIONS YEARS B.C.
Long before Spielberg made dinosaurs popular with the Jurassic series, a prehistoric creature craze hit this country in the 1960’s. Fueled both by 1950’s monster movies and new archeological discoveries, dino’s began popping up everywhere—in toys, television, and the movies. For their 100th film project, Hammer Studios in 1967 acquired the rights to remake the old 1940 Hal Roach programmer ONE MILLION B.C. This tale of the Shell people and the Rock tribe attempting to survive deadly volcanoes, dinosaurs, and each other was entertaining and visually exciting, if not historically accurate (dino’s and humans missed each other by at least several million years). Harryhausen created a large variety of creatures for this remake, which is often chided for including sequences of live animals, such as a giant iguana, at the expense of animation; however, this was actually Harryhausen’s idea in an attempt to add variety (and a lower budget) to the effects sequences. Things start slowly with the iguana and a few glimpses of a brontosaurus, then there’s a rampaging turtle! But Harryhausen makes up for these with three awesome scenes: an attack by an allosaurus, a battle between a triceratops and a ceratosaurus, and the climactic attack/fight involving a pteranodon and a pterodactyl. The movie was a huge success and spawned two sequels along with countless copycats. Harryhausen often remarked that he wasn’t sure what was the bigger attraction, the dinosaurs or Raquel Welch in her fur bikini. A relatively unknown starlet with only one (as yet unreleased) major studio credit at the time, Welch actually dominates much of the film with her beguiling looks and intelligent manner. ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. not only launched her career on a sex symbol trajectory that would last for decades, but also created one of the most iconic images in film history—the strong, beautiful, prehistoric goddess defiantly ready to face any challenge.
7. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a sort of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo is a major character, still living on the Nautilus, although it cannot go out to sea anymore. A group of Union soldiers making an escape from a Confederate prison during the American Civil War in a balloon find themselves way off course and stranded on an island where all sorts of, well, “mysterious” things are going on. For starters all the animals and even the insects are giant size and someone keeps helping them survive on the island by giving them everything they need. Anyone who knows the films of Ray Harryhausen will know who the benefactor is and why the animals are giant size so it won’t be a major spoiler to reveal that Captain Nemo, that sea going genius, is behind it all. All of Harryhausen’s films were ensemble projects for the actors, there is no major star in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, or any of his other films for that matter. Harryhausen and his incredible stop motion effects were the real star. In Mysterious Island we get a terrific group of players in the escaped Union Army prisoners, Michael Craig, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill as a Union war correspondent and Dan Jackson, and a Johnny Reb comes along for the ride as he has experience with the observation balloon, played by English actor Percey Herbert, and once the crew are established on the island a couple of female ship wreck survivors bring a hint of romance to the project in the character of Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan. Greenwood had a wonderful husky voice which was used to great effect in Barbarella supplying the voice for Anita Pallenberg’s character.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND was way ahead of the curve in one aspect of the casting. Dan Jackson’s character is black, with no issues raised about that what so ever. His character is also in the Union Army and even Percy Herbert’s Confederate makes no mention of race. Jackson portrays him as just as intelligent, resourceful and capable as the other men on the Island.The real acting standout is Herbert Lom’s take on Captain Nemo. There is a sadness, a world weary air about Nemo that is heart breaking. You get the notion that this Nemo, even if the Nautilus were sea worthy would not bother taking her out again.But the real star, as always is Harryhausen’s stop motion effects and he has a lot fun in animating familiar creatures’ instead of mythological or science fictional monsters. A giant crab, bird, cephalopod and bees inhabit the island. All are the result of Nemo’s experiments. The crab and bird provide food for the castaways and the cephalopod attacks during a terrific underwater sequence using diving gear similar to Disney’s film, giant shells to hold oxygen for instance.There is also evidence the island has been visited by pirates and will be again shortly. And of course there is an active volcano which can go off at any minute.MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a wonderful boys own adventure type of story with great set piece action scenes, set design, location filming, acting, a terrific score by the one and only Bernard Herrmann and best of all the stop motion artistry of Ray Harryhausen.
6. CLASH OF THE TITANS
CLASH OF THE TITANS, the 1981 account of the old mythological stories you were forced to read in junior high, featured Ray Harryhausen’s last great set piece: Perseus’ encounter with the snake-haired Medusa in a fire-lit cave. Stylized with great mood lighting, beautifully blocked and directed by Ray, the sequence is a beauty of spine-tingling, slithering menace. Seeing giant scorpions rise from the blood of Medusa’s head is visceral icing on the cake. CLASH OF THE TITANS was Ray Harryhuasen’s final film and likely the only one a generation of his fans saw in theaters when it was new. CLASH OF THE TITANS has everything previously denied Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer: A-list stars (Lawrence Olivier as Zeus, Maggie Smith as Thetis) and a budget enabling them to shoot in four major locations across Europe. The story is a bit wooden and oversimplified, but it is still the standard “hero’s journey”. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is not the heroic type – he does a fair enough job of striking poses, but he’s given some rather stuffy dialog to deliver but under the direction of Desmond Davis CLASH OF THE TITANS is the final showcase of Harryhausen’s skills in cinematic spectacle, and one of the best fantasy films of the 1980’s.
5. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD
After almost decade of animating dinosaurs for films such as ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, Ray Harryhausen returned to the realm of myth and legend for this 1973 follow-up to his 1958 fantasy classic. Ray had a top-notch cast re-acting to his movie magic. John Phillip Law (the blind winged alien/angel in BARBARELLA and the lead in DANGER: DIABOLIK) sporting a goatee and an ever-present turban brought an exotic Middle-Eastern air to the famous sailor (as opposed to the all-American Kerwin Matthews previously). Also very exotic, and sultry, was Hammer scream queen and future Bond girl (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) Caroline Munro as Margiana, whose harem outfits must have strained that G-rating. But what’s a hero without a great villain? Former Rasputin (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and future TV hero “Dr. Who” Tom Baker was the evil sorcerer Koura whose spells provided Harryhausen with some of his most memorable creations. There’s the homunculus, a foot-long winged gargoyle-like spy for the wizard. The towering wooden masthead of Sinbad’s ship is brought to life in order to steal a map (her lumbering steps are reminiscent of the titanic Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS). To impress the green-skinned island natives, he brings a statue of the six-armed Kali to life who performs a spirited dance. Later sharp swords spring from all six hands and she engages Sinbad and his men in a deadly duel to the death (interesting that the two statues brought to life are female!). For the big finale’ Harryhausen gave us a twist on his great giant cyclops from the 58′ film with a massive cyclops/centaur. Instead of battling with a dragon, this monster took on a huge gryphon (a lion/hawk) in a true clash of the titans! The film was a modest hit inspiring a theatrical re-issue of THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and was adapted into a Marvel Comics mini-series. But in those pre-STAR WARS days there was little merchandising. Can you imagine the action figures and model kits that kids would snap up on the way home from the theatre? Perhaps the film’s success laid the groundwork for the fantasy epics that would fill the multiplexes in just a few years. But this gem had them all beat! This flick was presented in the wondrous miracle of “Dynarama”!
4. 20,000,000 MILES TO EARTH
This classic monster movie was a notable milestone for Harryhausen in many ways—it was his last black & white feature film, his last real “monster on the loose” story, and the first movie based on his own idea. 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH(1957)begins spectacularly, as a rocket ship crash lands just off the coast of Sicily. However, this spacecraft– a U.S. manned flight to Venus–has returned with a little something extra: a dinosaur-like alien creature that continues to grow larger and larger. As the story progresses, we are treated to a suspenseful search through a barn, an attack and capture by helicopters, and one of the classic animation battles of all time, a fight between the creature and a huge bull elephant filmed against the scenic backdrop of Rome. Based on Harryhausen’s own story treatment titled THE CYCLOPS, the monster in EARTH was originally based on a giant creature in Scandinavian mythology named the “Ymir,” and, though it’s never called by that name in the film, is still popularly known as the Ymir today. Harryhausen also drew on his lifelong inspiration, KING KONG, for many of the story elements. Like Kong, the Ymir is an alien in a strange land, misunderstood and persecuted. Also similar is the ending, with a wounded Ymir hanging from a great monument of human culture before falling to it’s fate. Harryhausen also engendered even more sympathy for the Ymir by sculpting the face with an almost lovable, walrus-like quality. Experienced fantasy director Nathan Juran, familiar to 50’s and 60’s fans for not only genre TV shows like LAND OF THE GIANTS and LOST IN SPACE, but for also directing the ultimate cult classic ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, worked so well with Harryhausen that they did two more films together. For the leads, William Hopper (CONQUEST OF SPACE, DEADLY MANTIS) provides a familiar, solid presence as the astronaut tracking the creature, and Joan Taylor (also seen in Harryhausen’s EARTH VS. FLYING SAUCERS) plays the requisite love interest with just the right amount of moxie. But it is the eerie, plaintive howls of the Ymir struggling to understand this strange world it has awakened in that stay with the viewer long after the movie is over.
3. MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
Ray Harryhausen burst into feature films with this delightful kiddie matinée staple from 1949 that’s co-produced by John Ford! Listed in the opening credits as First Technician, Ray was working alongside his idol Willis O’Brien, the effects wiz that brought KING KONG to life on-screen back in 1933. Appropriately this film concerns a massive ape, maybe only a third of the size of mighty Kong. A sweet little girl living with her father deep in the jungle makes a trade with two local tribesman for an adorable baby gorilla. Twelve years later a Flo Ziegfeld/ Billy Rose-type master showman, lovable con-artist Max O’Hara, played by Robert Armstrong (yes, Kong’s original captor Carl Denham!) decides to travel to Africa and pick up animals to decorate his new jungle-themed nightclub, the Golden Safari, in Hollywood. A rodeo cowboy named Gregg played by future Oscar winner Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) comes along. The first big effects shot is when O’Hara’s cowboys attempt to lasso and capture the very-much all-grown up gorilla now named Joe by the grown-up very nicely Jill played by future Howard Hughes paramour Terry Moore! The cowboys versus creature sequence would be revisited by Ray in 20 years for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI with a T-Rex replacing the ape. O”Hara signs her up and soon everybody’s back in LA for the grand opening including future “Beverly Hillbillies” icon Irene Ryan as a daffy barfly. The effects sequences dazzle as Jill plays the haunting “Beautiful Dreamer” at a piano on a podium hoisted aloft by Joe. Then there’s a very funny scene with Jill coaching Joe in a tug-of-war with ten famous strongmen that ends with boxing champ Primo Carnera planting a few on Joe’s chin to no effect! Unfortunately things worsen when Jill and Joe are forced to perform a humiliating “organ grinder” skit with the audience tossing oversize coins at poor Joe’s noggin. Later that night a trio of drunken louts, including one played by Nestor Pavia (Captain Lucas from the first two “Creature from the Black Lagoon” films), taunt Joe in his basement cell. When Joe retaliates, he’s sentenced to death by the courts. But O’Hara’s got a few tricks up his sleeve! It looks like a clean escape until Joe, Jill, and Gregg encounter a orphanege engulfed in flames! Only a miracle can save the little ones trapped on the top floor: a miracle named Joe! The 1998 remake starring Charlize Theron (she’s really from Africa!) has some fun moments including a cameo from Harryhasen and Ms. Moore along with fine work from Rick Baker, but it doesn’t match the wit and charm of the original! fun-filled fantasy! That is one great ape!
2. THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD
In many ways the ultimate combination of stop motion animation, adventure, and overall production quality, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is still one of Harryhausen’s most popular works. It was also a turning point for Harryhausen, establishing the framework for not only his other Sinbad films, but all animated adventure films in general—the brave hero and his (mostly expendable) crew battling scary and exotic creatures in a series of awe-inspiring set pieces, with a beautiful love interest and a villainous sorcerer to help propel the plot. (This formula worked so well, in fact, that VOYAGE director Nathan Juran made essentially the same film a few years later with much of the same cast in JACK THE GIANT KILLER, though the animation was supplied by Jim Danforth and not Harryhausen.) Also with VOYAGE, Harryhausen got the involvement of a major studio—Columbia Pictures—but he would have to film in color for the first time. Harryhausen had shied away from color because of the difficulties in matching effects shots with live action; however, his fears were groundless as he gave us a giant Cyclops, a giant roc, and another of his trademark battles between creatures (this time a dragon and a Cyclops), plus one of the greatest animation scenes ever filmed, Sinbad’s swordfight with a skeleton. Though he added more skeletons to a similar sequence in JASON & THE ARGONAUTS some years later, for sheer intensity and bravado, the original fight in VOYAGE cannot be topped. Though only four minutes long, the sequence took three months to choreograph and film, with Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score eerily evoking Sinbad’s skeletal adversary with xylophone and timpani. Finally, in order to differentiate his films from cartoon animation, Harryhausen and Schneer came up with a marketing term that would soon become synonymous with exciting adventure movies, “Dynamation.” Though that phrase was used for the first time in this movie’s ads, another term is more overused today that would truly describe 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD—a true classic.
1. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
When Tom Hanks awarded Ray Harryhausen a special Oscar in 1992, he remarked, “Some people say CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE. I say JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is the greatest film ever made.” JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is usually cited as the high-water mark of Ray Harryhausen’s career and there is so much to justify that call. The climactic skeleton battle is the most celebrated sequence, but for sheer awe, there’s nothing like the encounter with the 200-foot-tall bronze colossus Talos. After landing on the island of Bronze, the goddess Hera, in masthead form, instructs Jason (played by St. Louis native Todd Armstrong) to have his men collect food and water and nothing else. Naturally, when Hercules and Hylas take one souvenir from a giant trove of gold treasures, they wake the colossal bronze statue who’s been perched on his pedestal for thousands of years guarding it. From the dramatic moment it slowly turns to look down at Hercules to Jason’s discovery of its literal Achilles’ heel, the battle with the titan Talos is one of Harryhausen’s finest moments. His facial expression barely changes but his cold blank stare is chilling and he walks with a rusty, arthritic gait that highlights Harryhausen’s amazing ability to instill in all his animated creations a sense of personality that is lacking in much of today’s computer-generated sludge. Clearly inspired by the legendary ‘Colossus of Rhodes’, Talos truly feels like one of the Seven Wonders of the World come to life. Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is closest to his personal interests. He found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters, and wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms. Unfortunately Columbia’s publicity machine couldn’t distinguish Jason in the movie marketplace from the plethora of Italian Hercules-inspired fantasy product in 1963, and the film failed initially to find an audience. One of those rare films with real appeal for viewers of all ages,JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a thrilling adventure ride that rarely slackens its pace. It rewards repeat viewing and those fearsome skeletons will thrill you again and again.
We’ve watched the marching bands and giants balloon characters parade by on TV, we’ve watched college football, we’ve had our fill of turkey and all the trimmings… now, what better than to cuddle up with our loved ones and watch some good, wholesome family favorites on Thanksgiving Day? After all, we need our rest so we can rise and shine before the sun comes up on Black Friday to catch all the sales. So, in honor of the holiday and as a way to give you a jump on your holiday viewing schedule, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite family-friendly movies to watch on Thanksgiving Day.
WIZARD OF OZ
For many years this 1939 masterpiece was truly event television. Before home video and cable TV, the only way to see this (outside of revival movie theatres and colleges), was once a year (usually on CBS). Families would gather around the tube for a chance to visit that magical enchanted land (just think of seeing it on color TV for the first time!). Now that it’s easily available, get the kids away from the electronics and internet and share this film fable full of bright, bouncy songs, funny lovable heroes, and horrible hiss-able villains (those winged monkeys are still creepy, just ask Captain America!). “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” exists this legendary achievement that’s an everlasting entertainment jewel from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
SUPERMAN THE MOVIE (1978)
After a summer cinema season filled to the brim with costumed characters, it’s a great time to introduce your little ones to the original, first superhero (hey, they got that phrase from him!) in 1978’s epic. Sure he had been depicted in live action before (Kirk Alyn in two low-budget movie serials and George Reeves on TV), but here, forty years after his four-color debut, the last son of Krypton finally got the deluxe big screen treatment. And how smart were the producers to go with a relatively unknown actor in the lead? There have been many terrific actors playing comic heroes, but Christopher Reeve is the gold standard. The ads touted, “You’ll believe a man can fly!” The much missed Mr. Reeve made us believe that man of steel had a very human heart.
THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979)
For the current 30-40 something generation, there were few things we looked forward to more than The Muppet Show. So, naturally, when we found out about the first film to feature The Muppets on the big screen, well… we likely had a genuine Beaker moment. THE MUPPET MOVIE was not just a landmark achievement of puppetry, sorry… Muppetry… but it solidified itself forever in the minds of children from that era. THE MUPPET MOVIE is both a literal road movie and also a nostalgic trip down memory lane. If for no other reason, Kermit and Miss Piggy’s duet of “Rainbow Connection” is both timeless and perfect, easily one of the best onscreen musical numbers ever filmed. When you finish devouring the turkey, loosen your belt and kick back with the whole Muppet gang and relish the good ole days.
MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949) was a wonderful family adventure movie that is kind of a childlike version of KING KONG but with a happy ending. And that was not a bad thing, as it really is a touching and charming classic with enough action to propel the story forward and enough drama to keep it interesting. The Golden Safari nightclub, where much of the action takes place, is marvelously designed with lions roaming in a glass cage behind the bar, the orchestra playing from a tree hut, a foliage-encased staircase at the entrance, native dancers it’s a fantastic tribute to Hollywood kitsch and brazen showmanship.The special effects by wizard Willis O’Brien, with Ray Harryhausen by his side, are actually superior to KONG’s.
PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
Neal (Steve Martin) is just trying to make it home for Thanksgiving with his family. Instead, he ends up on a wild, chaotic ride with Del (John Candy). Once the two meet, their worlds are turned upside down by a series of wild events. This is one of the best pairings in a film that I have ever seen. Martin and Candy are incredible together. If you haven’t seen this film, you need to add it to the top of your list!
INCREDIBLE MR LIMPET
See wimpy Barney Fife get his revenge as a Nazi-hating carp! THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET (1964) was a part-animation, part live-action but mostly silly fantasy directed by Arthur Lubin that followed the World War II underwater adventures of a meek clerk (Don Knotts) who, after falling into the ocean and turning into a cartoon fish, helps the Navy clear the Atlantic of Nazi subs. THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET gave the public in the mid-60’s a little escapism, a lot of laughs and a reason to watch animation outside of Disney and it still holds up today as perhaps the most fondly remembered of the Don Knotts features.
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
“No man is a failure who has friends.” Before you consider yourself a failure, think long and hard on what would have happened to the people in your life if you weren’t around. That’s the simple but heartfelt conceit around which this holiday favorite, and it makes for some frothy but well-earned schmaltz.
TOY STORY
After all the sequels, tech advances, and follow-up features from other studios, the original computer animated full-length film from all the way back in 1995, has lost none of its considerable charm and heart. The little tykes will love getting to know Woody and Buzz while their parents and grandparents will get nostalgic revisiting old buddies from their childhood like Mr. Potato Head and Slinky Dog. Surprisingly, the first time I saw this in a theatre the adults were laughing more than the kids! This movie spawned two equally wonderful sequels which you can enjoy throughout that long Thanksgiving weekend. This started Pixar’s reign as the family film box offices king and the folks from Emoryville, CA show no signs of stopping.
E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL
Wow, it’s been 30 years since the world fell in love with the waddling alien with the Einstein eyes. This was Steven Spielberg’s biggest box office hit. Perhaps it’s his greatest screen fantasy that is also one of his most personal films. The tots will enjoy the magic of the title hero (the first five minutes of his abandonment on Earth are dialogue free), but the older kids and adults will appreciate the story of Elliott having to deal with his parents’ divorce and yearning for a friend. Everyone will delight in John Williams’s soaring music score (one of his very best!) and the adorable Drew Barrymore as kid sister Gertie (a new member of a celebrated acting dynasty). Look for another fantastic film alien during the big Halloween trick-or-treating scene!
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
A superb Greek Mythology adventure with Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures taking center stage, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is a masterpiece by any definition of the term. Neglected at the time of release by those who dismissed it as yet another sword and sandal spectacular (a genre popular at the time) JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS has increased in reputation over the years and is now regarded as a bona fide classic. This is because Harryhausen’s creations are filled with personality. When Talos, the bronze titan first turns his head, you can tell that he’s royally ticked off. When the skeletons first rise, there’s this moment when they look at each other as if to say, “Check it out dude, we’re a bunch of badass skeletons”. The effects are more than just effects, they’re characters. That sense of personality was Harryhausen’s gift, and it’s on full display throughout JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, the animator’s finest achievement.
GOONIES
In our opinion, there is never a bad time to watch GOONIES. Mikey and his friends are spending their last weekend together in the “Goon Docks” hunting for a legendary treasure. This movie is filled with booby traps, pirates, and slick shoes. Oh, and if you remember anything this holiday season (especially when the family gets a little crazy), remember “Goonies Never Say Die!”
THE NEW WORLD
Sure, maybe it’s not so much a family film, but it could be given a responsible amount of parental guidance. Instead, let’s call this a valuable entry into the adults’ consideration for Thanksgiving viewing. Terrence Malick’s epic film recounts the basic story of Pocahontas and Captain Smith (Colin Farrell) in a light much closer to reality than that of Disney’s rendition. What’s better than a good love story? How about one that also tackles the more historically accurate back-story of a time and place that led to what we now call Thanksgiving. Oh, its such a downer to think about that on the holiday, you say? Well, suck it up buttercup… that’s the way the world works, but it doesn’t mean we still can’t appreciate and enjoy this fine film, and in turn… be that much more thankful for what we have now. Trust me, they didn’t have it so good back then.
BATMAN (1966)
“Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.” It’s hard not to love the 1960s slant on Batman, it’s so fun and colorful. The Batman TV series was one of those rare moments when all the elements combined perfectly – casting, writing, set design, music, acting, etc. – and the BATMAN movie, shot between the first two seasons, contained all the same wild nonsense, glorious imagination and sheer appeal of the show. The Batboat, Batcopter, and Batcycle were all created on the budget of this movie, (the Batcycle was completed early and used in several episodes of the first season). While it’s all fine and good to make “darker and more gothic” translations of our comic book icons, the kid in me sometimes just wants to see colorful heroes with silly weapons vying against wacky villains. This is the very essence of the old-school comic book, and while I certainly wouldn’t want all comic adaptations to be this gleefully silly, BATMAN did a picture-perfect job of capturing these heroes in their campy mid-60’s heyday.
DUTCH
“Love and marr-iage… love and marr-age… go to-geth-er like a…” Oh, sorry. Wrong show, but you know where we’re going with that. From 1987 through 1997, actor Ed O’Neill became a household icon for his portrayal of Ed Bundy, the Chicago-suburb dwelling, working class everyman. While it took O’Neill some time to shake off a lot of that persona in the public’s eye, we were fortunate to be blessed with a 1991 feature film called DUTCH. One part PROBLEM CHILD and one part UNCLE BUCK, DUTCH utilizes O’Neill’s sarcastic, average Joe demeanor to make the film yet another popular John Hughes production. Directed by Peter Faiman, DUTCH follows a man’s attempt to befriend his girlfriend’s son when he picks him up from prep school, but he quickly realizes he may have bitten off more than he could chew. You’ve heard of “the battle of the sexes,” well… this one’s the “battle of the ages.” Hilarious, sometimes painful, both characters are flawed, but when they discover how to like each other, few moments in film could be more fitting for Thanksgiving viewing.
SCROOGE (1970)
“Father Christmas,” “Thank You Very Much,” and “I Like Life” were all songs heard in the 1970 musical version of the Charles Dickens classic holiday tale, with Albert Finney starring in the title role as Ebenezer Scrooge. While this version may not be widely appreciated, mostly due to it being infused with 11 songs, it’s still a lovely version you can watch with the whole family. The film also features Alec Guiness, Edith Evans and Kenneth More as the 3 Christmas Ghosts of Past, Present and Future. Nominated for four Academy Awards, Finney rightly won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. However, Guinness didn’t get a kick out of doing this movie. It actually required much more time than he expected – with the need of wires and a harness for his floating character – he ended up with a double-hernia that required surgery to repair.
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
Let’s play a little game. Two thing that don’t typically go together… and, go: Thanksgiving and Woody Allen. Good job! But, wait… there’s always an exception. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) puts Woody Allen on the Thanksgiving map, exposing the holiday to his trademark style of adult-oriented sex and death obsessed neurotic humor. The story takes place between two Thanksgivings, where Hannah’s (Mia Farrow) hubby falls head over heels for her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey) while her ex-husband finds renewed love with her sister Holly (Dianne Wiest). As usual, tempers flare and nothing works out like a storybook romance, but we have so much fun in the process. The talented ensemble cast also includes Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, Lewis Black and Carrie Fisher.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Over-brimming with maddeningly catchy songs that deal with all manner of sugary nonsense, this perennial family classic is probably the lightest movie ever to involve Nazis. In its time, it unseated GONE WITH THE WIND as the highest-grossing film ever, although it was loathed by the critics. Pauline Kael said that, “we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs.”
GRUMPY OLD MEN
GRUMPY OLD MEN… need we say more? I mean, old people fighting is funny, right? If that doesn’t sell the movie, than putting Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau back on the big screen together should do the trick. Not only was this a monumental comedic milestone, but it was a marvelously jaded and bitter good time. One could say this is what Statler and Waldorf are like when not heckling The Muppets, instead heckling each other. John (Jack Lemon) and Max (Walter Matthau) are two elderly men who have been life-long rivaling neighbors since childhood, which means we get to watch two old farts make each others’ lives Hell for an hour and 40 minutes. Who says a good grudge can’t be entertaining?
CURLY SUE
CURLY SUE not only stole to help keep her stomach full, she stole the hearts of audiences around the globe in 1991 as the lead character in the last film of John Hughes directing career. James Belushi aides in the laughter as Bill, Curly Sues caretaker. This heartwarming tale reminds us to be thankful for what we have, and also that not every John Hughes movie follows the same formula.
ALICE’S RESTAURANT
Perhaps the most unconventional choice for Thanksgiving… we’ll make this one short and sweet: ALICE’S RESTAURANT, directed by Arthur Penn, is folk icon Arlo Guthrie’s classic story song adapted into a feature-length film. If we need say more, then — given the theme of this list — you surely know what to do.
