Old-school FX: American film animator and special effects creator Ray Harryhausen manipulates a figure of a serpent-like monster for stop-motion animation, circa 1965. Courtesy Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Along with Willis O'Brien (who made the original King Kong in 1933), Ray Harryhausen has long been regarded as the granddaddy of contemporary cinematic special effects. Though much of the stop-motion animation he did for films like The Valley of Gwangi (1969), Mighty Joe Young (1949) or any of the Sinbad movies now seems quaint and dated, those special effects laid the groundwork for what we now take for granted on the big screen.
Harryhausen's CV includes a massive list of sci-fi and fantasy films, including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), in which a prehistoric creature is awakened by an atomic blast and proceeds to destroy much of Coney Island, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), in which UFOs attack Washington, D.C., and, most notably, Jason and the Argonauts (1963), a retelling of Greek mythology that features one of Harryhausen's most famous and recognizable sequences: a swordfight by seven skeletons. In 1992, Harryhausen received a special Academy Award for his contribution to the art of cinematic special effects. Directors Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson all cite him as a major influence.
Now 85 and living in London, Harryhausen recently oversaw the production of Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection, a DVD compilation of the animated work he created as a young man. The compilation includes a series of Mother Goose stories that Harryhausen brought to life in the late '40s and early '50s. Though he has not worked on animation since Clash of the Titans (1981), he returned to the art to complete one of the short films for the compilation, The Tortoise and the Hare.
Harryhausen tours extensively on the sci-fi convention circuit, and will receive the first annual lifetime achievement award at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal later this month.
Friend of the beasts: Harryhausen on set with a dinosaur figure. Photo Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Q: While putting together this DVD compilation, what struck you most about your early work?
A: I'm a little embarrassed about some of it. When you're in the business for so long, you look back and say, “What a kooky kid!” I was experimenting. Luckily, I had a bunch of that stuff in the basement. I had a flood, but I was able to save it. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid to have much of it restored, so now it's in the archives.
A: I don't have the patience anymore. As you get older, you lose that patience. It requires a lot of patience and concentration. But frankly, a lot of the stuff the front office wants to push on the public doesn't really appeal to me. You know, some of the subjects that make big money, they'll say, “Can't we do something like that?” A long time ago, they approached me about doing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but I wasn't so interested. I think Peter Jackson did a wonderful job of it.
A: Well, we were in the situation of working within very tight budgets. These films are not what you'd call a director's picture in the European sense. The films had to be done in the most inexpensive way. The special effects were my job, and money was always tight. Jason and the Argonauts is the most complete — you have to compromise so much while making a film. You either have weather problems, or you can't get the people you want.
A: I think that stimulates someone, when you're limited. If I had all the money in the world, I probably would have taken the long way around and spent it. We were really the only ones who were using stop motion [animation] and making the effects a character in itself. We always tried to give the creatures a real character. Many of them were very mysterious, but we tried to give them real characteristics. Sometimes, the characters came out of necessity. I had to animate an elephant for Valley of Gwangi because the elephant we'd hired didn't show up. When it did show up, it was only six feet high and I needed something much bigger than that.
A: A lot of people do. Unfortunately, we got caught in a studio shift. The studio was sold while we were making the film, and when we were done, the new people really didn't appreciate what it was that the previous owners had sanctioned. They opened the film with no publicity. A lot of people thought it might be another Godzilla. Gwangi is an Indian word for big lizard, but they were worried that people wouldn't understand it. How many times has anybody seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex getting roped? That was an original. People were turning to the future at the time, with sci-fi. But we were looking back. The critics attacked the film viciously, some of them.
In front of the camera, for a change: Harryhausen at the signing of his DVD in Los Angeles earlier this year. Photo Frederick M. Brown. Courtesy Getty Images.
A: Yes, absolutely. We don't even go to the movies anymore. I don't want to sit in the cinema for an hour and a half and watch someone in the process of dying. That may be considered a great thing today, but some of the subjects are just too violent. They all seem to be trying to outdo each other with the gore. We were limited in our day because of censorship. Fantasy violence is quite different, of course. Some of the fairy tales on the new DVD are actually really quite violent. Red Riding Hood has a lot of lascivious overtones, of course. I had to change a lot of the stories when we were making them, because they were being used in schools.
A: Yes, they have. But the fact that they are used so much, I think they tend to defeat themselves. I get a lot of fan mail saying that people prefer our old effects, even though some may see them as dated. Stop-motion animation has that strange quality of a dream, a dream world that you know is not real and yet it looks real. Digital effects make fantasy too real, and that brings it down to the mundane. I like to think what we did helped to stretch the imagination. The Sinbad movies, I thought, stretched the imagination.
A: No, we don't really go to movies anymore. I liked the first Star Wars movie. But you know, I prefer the past to the future, which is why I animated so many dinosaurs. The future always looks so cold, so mechanical. Everyone always seems to end up blowing everyone else out of the universe. But a picture like The Day the Earth Stood Still was fascinating. It had a message.
A: Well, there are a lot of them, and they certainly have a lot of money, so their films often look very glossy. I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark, though that was a while ago now. I am looking forward to seeing what Peter Jackson does with King Kong. I know he loves the story and original film as much as I do.
A: Yes, I love it.
A: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.
Ray Harryhausen will present the screening of Jason and the Argonauts on July 24 at Concordia University's Hall Building as part of the Fantasia Film Festival.
Matthew Hays is a Montreal writer.
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