Behold the Ymir!
We continue looking at the work of the late Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013), the man
who put the “special” in “special effects.”
Harryhausen used the technique called Stop Motion Animation, where he
would articulate a puppet (usually about 12 to 18 inches tall) against a
miniature backdrop, and move them incrementally while photographing them … one
frame at a time. It was an exacting,
exhausting, isolating craft, but one that he mastered in the course of a
distinguished career.
I was lucky enough to be acquainted with Harryhausen, and
had met him or wrote to him on-and-off for the last 25 years or so. My fondest memory of him was when we were invited
to join he and his wife, Diana, for a private tour of the Smithsonian’s
dinosaur collection provided by paleontologist Michael Brett-Surman, an avowed Harryhausen fan. Harryhausen was delighted to be accorded such
an honor, and the thing I most remember is that he was as excited as a young
boy about it all, though he was then a man in his 70s. (When done, we all went out for hamburgers,
which, after dinosaurs, monsters and his wife Diana, seemed to be the great
love of his life.)
I think it was this sense of wonder that is the signature
note of Harryhausen’s work. Unlike most
grim and gritty fantasy fare today, Harryhausen showed audiences the fantastic,
and made it fun. He was also keenly
aware that stop motion animation did not have the “realism” of later
techniques, such as Computer Generated Images (CGI) used today. But Harryhausen always maintained that
special effects were a tool, and not an end to themselves.
He also thought that special effects had no obligation to
look “real.” Movies – particularly
movies about dinosaurs and aliens, Moon people and mythical gods – are
fantasies. And if a special effect seems
in some way other worldly, then all the better.
He was creating visions and illusions, not recreating life. In that, Harryhausen worked with an artist’s
touch, pursuing a personal vision until he realized it fully. One has the sense that Harryhausen would’ve
made films in his basement if he had not achieved success in Hollywood.
A genial, even-tempered and sweet man, Harryhuasen was
also something of a loner. Though he
sometimes used assistants, he most frequently worked alone. He was just so deeply involved in his vision
that I think he had difficultly articulating what he wanted, and how he wanted
it done, to fellow stop motion animation artists. He was also very protective of America’s
cinematic history, and had little taste for ironists or revisionists. I well recall someone calling the original King Kong “campy,” and Harryhausen
explaining with strained patience that acting, screenwriting and special
effects techniques do change, but
that in no way negates the quality of the work.
(I often have the feeling that, to many people, anything made without
irony is “camp” – a particularly virulent intellectual conceit that diminishes what’s
left of our critical faculty.)
Harryhausen was no mean draughtsman, and drew the
storyboards for all of his films, as well as making various drawings of
fantastic and science fiction images for his own amusement.
Harryhausen Concept Art
For those who wish to sample the best of Harryhausen,
below are your correspondent’s five favorite Harryhausen films, along with one
bonus picture. All of them are available
on DVD, at your local library, or on Netflix.
See one or all of them – you will not be disappointed.
Mighty Joe Young
(1949) was made in collaboration with Harryhausen’s mentor, the great stop
motion animator Willis O’Brien
(1886-1962), the brilliant special effects pioneer who created King Kong. Mighty Joe Young was produced by the same
team that had created Kong 16 years earlier, and there is a similar vibe to the
film, though Mighty Joe Young is a much gentler story with a happy ending. In short, a producer (played by King Kong
alum Robert Armstrong) comes to
Africa looking for attractions, only to find an enormous ape that has been
raised by a young girl (Terry Moore). He takes girl and ape back to New York, where
poor Joe performs in various seedy nightclubs.
Of course, Joe goes on a rampage, and, after the city issues an order of
extermination, the producer, girl, and their cowboy friend (Ben Johnson in his first film role -- I
kid you not), plot to get him back to Africa.
The dazzling finale has Joe rescuing children from a burning
orphanage. I know how this all sounds,
but … trust me. It is a spectacular and
remarkable moving movie.
Loosely (very loosely!) adapted from a short story by
Harryhausen’s friend, Ray Bradbury
(1920-2012), The Beast from 20,000
Fathoms (1953) was the first
live-action film to feature a giant monster awakened or brought about by an
atomic bomb detonation to attack a major city.
The Beast was a tremendous commercial success, spawning an entire genre
of giant monster films, including Gorgo
(1961), Godzilla (1954), and Them! (1954). In brief: atomic testing
awakens a long-dormant prehistoric beast frozen in the Artic Circle. The monster makes its way to New York, and is
finally killed within the framework of the rollercoaster at Coney Island. For this film, Harryhausen created his own
dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, and it is an incredible conception. At one moment, the beast knocks down a
Manhattan building and the dust rises around him. It’s a throw-away moment, but it’s a moment
filled with magic.
With 20 Million
Miles to Earth (1957), Harryhausen once again creates his own creature, the
Ymir, a denizen of Venus. When a US
spaceship on a secret mission from Venus crash lands off the coast of Italy, an
egg with an embryonic alien washes ashore.
Growing at an alarming rate, the Ymir escapes and wreaks havoc amongst
the ruins of Rome. Tremendous visuals
and great fun.
Many consider Jason
and the Argonauts (1963), where Harryhausen was associate producer as well
as the master of visual effects, to be his masterpiece. Retelling the story of Jason and the Golden
Fleece, Harryhausen pulls out all of the stops, animating giant statues,
many-headed snakes and his great achievement, a sword fight among Jason and his
comrades with an army of skeletons. I
was fortunate enough to see this in the ruins of the great picture palace,
Loew’s Jersey City, with Harryhausen in attendance. The film is a great crowd-pleaser, and I
strongly recommend you watch it with a young person to appreciate the full
effect.
Jason Concept Art
My personal favorite Harryhausen film is First Men in the Moon (1964), where he
again served as associate producer and special effects artist. This film is an adaptation of the 1901 novel
by H. G. Wells, with a screenplay by
science fiction veteran Nigel Kneale. The film opens with a breath-taking conceit:
contemporary (1960s) astronauts land on the moon, only to find evidence of a
prior visitation … made during the Victorian era! Representatives from NASA and the media
descend upon an aging, frail rascal currently residing in a nursing home, who
details in flashback how he got there first, more than 60 years earlier. For this film, Harryhausen animated the
insect like Moon men, giant caterpillar-like Moon calves, and the Great Luna –
the controlling intelligence of the planet.
The film is whimsical, thrilling, spectacular and sweetly
nostalgic. It is, in short, a masterpiece. If you only see one Harryhausen film, make it
First Men in the Moon.
One to grow on – though not a “good” film in the
traditional sense, I have a remarkable affection for The Valley of Gwangi (1969), another film he produced as well as
led the special effects effort. Gwangi
was originally planned as a vehicle for his mentor, Willis O’Brien. How to describe Gwangi? Well … cowboys in the Old West find a lost
valley, complete with the last surviving dinosaurs. They capture an Allosaurus and bring it back to
tour in a Wild West Show … in short, we have King Kong in the Old West. I find the mix of cowboys, show business and
dinosaurs to be too delicious to miss, and Gwangi ends up in my viewing queue
every couple of years. The film climaxes
with a breath-taking tussle between Gwangi and a circus elephant – and includes
some of Harryhausen’s finest work.
We are all diminished by the loss of Ray Harryhausen, but
his works remains to lighten up the dark corners of our imagination.
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