Ray Harryhausen's Valley of Gwangi

Gwangi: The star of the movie!

Made in 1969, The Valley of Gwangi is one of those movies that seems to improve with age. Its far-out “cowboys vs. dinosaur” premise has always held a certain appeal. However, repeat viewings have allowed me to truly appreciate the little touches that made special effects genius Ray Harryhausen the greatest stop-motion animator in motion picture history.

Set in Mexico at the turn of the century, Gwangi stars James Franciscus as Tuck Kirby, a hustler always eager to make a quick buck. He arrives in town to convince his former girlfriend T.J. (Gila Golan) to sell her “diving horse” to Wild Bill Hickok. Tuck thinks T.J. needs the money to save her Wild West show. However, T.J. eventually reveals that she has a new money-making attraction: a miniature horse dubbed El Diablo. The creature was found in the secret Forbidden Valley—one of those places that warrants warnings from wise old gypsy women.

Tuck befriends a paleontologist (Laurence Naismith), who reveals that El Diablo is an eohippus, a prehistoric ancestor of horses. While he and Tuck argue on El Diablo’s future, the gypsies kidnap the little horse and return him to the Forbidden Valley with T.J.’s men in pursuit. When everyone arrives in the now no-longer-secret valley, they discover a prehistoric world that has defied time. It’s “ruled” by a ferocious T-Rex dubbed Gwangi. When the carnivorous creature is injured following a cave collapse, Tuck decides to capture it. After all, Gwangi could be the biggest show attraction in the world!

A wire was used for the rope when animating the lasso.

If a connection between The Valley of Gwangi and King Kong seems obvious, that’s because the former was originally conceived by Willis O’Brien, the stop motion animator that brought Kong to life. O’Brien, who later became Harryhausen’s mentor, did a significant amount of pre-production work on the project, then titled The Valley of Mists, in the early 1940s. Unfortunately, RKO shelved the project, allegedly because its executives thought the public was no longer interested in dinosaurs. O’Brien’s premise did serve as a basis for a low-budget American-Mexican production called The Beast of Hollow Mountain in 1956, which was quickly forgotten. A decade later, when Harryhausen and his production partner Charles Schneer were exploring ideas for a new film, Ray remembered the abandoned Valley of Mists.

The Valley of Gwangi gets off to a leisurely start before transitioning to 45 minutes of almost non-stop cowboys vs. dinosaurs action. The film's highlight is the sequence where Tuck and the gang try to lasso the T-Rex. It took Harryhausen five months to animate the scene, carefully matching footage of the actors throwing ropes at a pole mounted in a jeep with the stop-motion movements of his dinosaur model. To "animate" the rope, Harryhausen used wire--again synchronizing it to match the actual lassos being thrown in the live footage.

The T-Rex takes on a Styracosaurus while cowboys watch.

For a scene where Gwangi confronts an elephant, Harryhausen originally intended to use real footage of an elephant. When the filmmakers were unable to procure a pachyderm on location (the film was shot in Spain), Harryhausen went ahead and animated the elephant, too.

While it's true that Gwangi lacks the expressive emotions that made King Kong special, one must realize that the T-Rex wasn't known for sensitivity. On the other hand, Harryhausen adds the little details that make the dinosaur seem real. My favorite is a quick shot in which Gwangi, seen in the distance, pauses to swipe at his nose with one of his little "arms."

Gila Golan and James Franciscus.

In an special effects-driven movie like Gwangi, the human actors are there to basically move the story. James Franciscus is an unlikely choice for a Western; his well-groomed looks just don't seem to fit (at least he looked scruffier in Beneath the Planet of the Apes). Still, he's a capable actor and thus pulls off the part of the hustler who eventually realizes he's taken on more than he can handle. Laurence Naismith adds some class to the film, playing the kind of British gentlemen that he specialized in. It's hard to judge Gila Golan's thespian skills as the Israeli actress was dubbed after the producers determined her accent was too strong.

The film's star, of course, is Ray Harryhausen. The Valley of Gwangi doesn't rank with his best work (e.g., Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), but it's a diverting little picture with some incredible stop-motion special effects.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

Patrick Wayne as Sinbad.

Released in 1977, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger isn't as well regarded as the other two installments in Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad trilogy. Personally, I find it as good as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), but not as magical as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).

The story begins with powerful sorceress Zenobia turning Prince Kassim, the heir to the throne of Charak, into a baboon. If he's not restored to human form before the end of seven moons, he will remain a monkey--and Zenobia's son will become the caliph. Thus, Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) and Princess Farah (Jane Seymour) set off to find the legendary Melanthius, the one person who may be able to help the prince.

Jane Seymour and the baboon.

It's a slight plot, but it provides an adequate canvas for Harryhausen's special effects. Sinbad battles demons with skeleton-like bodies and bug eyes, a giant walrus, a sabre-toothed tiger, and a giant wasp. The latter is identified as a giant mosquito by one of the characters and on the film's soundtrack, but Harryhausen calls it a wasp in his Film Fantasy Scrapbook and it certainly looks like one. There's also a bronze minotaur-like creature called the Minaton and a troglodyte that battles the big tiger. Harryhausen also animated the baboon, which looks amazingly real.

Sinbad tries to help Trog fight the sabre-toothed tiger.

Taryn Power.

Patrick Wayne, one of John's sons, seems a bit wooden in the opening scenes, but he gets better as the movie goes along. The supporting cast includes Tyrone Power's daughter, Taryn, as Melanthius's telepathic daughter. As her father, Patrick Troughton adds some class and provides an interesting Doctor Who connection. Both Troughton and Tom Baker, who played the villain in Golden Voyage, portrayed Doctor Who on British television.

 At a budget of $3.5 million, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger was Harryhausen's second-most expensive film (surpassed only by the later Clash of the Titans). Despite that, some of the routine special effects (e.g., close-ups of the actors in exotic places) look subpar. The stop-action animation doesn't disappoint, though the giant walrus may be my least-favorite Harryhausen creature (Ray considered using a Yeti in that scene--an idea that appeals to me!).

As trilogies go, the three Ray Harryhausen-Charles Schneer Sinbad films still hold their appeal as colorful, fantastical adventures. I'm sure there are cinephiles who prefer modern digital special effects, but I'll take a Harryhausen stop-motion creature over a Jurassic World  dinosaur anytime. They just have more personality!

Seven Things to Know About Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen and friend.

1. Ray Harryhausen's interest in "dimensional animation" was spurred by his viewing of King Kong at age 13. Many years later, he showed some of his own animation to Kong's creator, stop-motion pioneer Willis O'Brien. The latter was impressed enough to hire Harryhausen as his assistant on Mighty Joe Young (1949). In his delightful Film Fantasy Scrapbook, Harryhausen noted that O'Brien was "so involved in production problems that I ended up animating about 85 percent of the picture." Mighty Joe Young won an Oscar for Special Effects.

2. After World War II, Ray made several short films, including a series of five fairy tales with animated puppets: Mother Goose Stories, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Story of Rapunzel, and The Story of King Midas. His mother did the costumes and his father helped make props.  As of this date, you can view Mother Goose Stories and The Story of King Midas on Amazon Prime as part of a film anthology with the uninspired title Puppet Movies.

Bad news for Golden Gate Bridge!

3. Due to budget and time constraints, the giant octopus in It Came from Beneath the Sea only had six tentacles. Harryhausen dubbed it a "sexopus." Still, the creature was strong enough to crush the Golden Gate Bridge!

4. Ray Harryhausen's first feature-length movie as lead special effects creator was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which was based on Ray Bradbury's short story "The Fog Horn." Harryhausen and Bradbury has been friends since they were teenagers. According to Bradbury, they met in 1937 when "Ray walked into the Little Brown Room at Clifton's Cafeteria in Los Angeles for a science fiction fan-writer meeting."

Jason fighting skeletons.

5. Ray once wrote that "of the 15 fantasy features I have been connected with, I think Jason and the Argonauts pleases me the most." (Incidentally, it's the Cafe staff's favorite Harryhausen movie!) It took four and a half months to film the famous skeleton fighting sequence.The special effects wizard wrote that his one regret was that the scene didn't take place at night, noting: "Its effect would have been doubled."

6. The Valley of Gwangi (1969) was based on an idea hatched by Willis O'Brien back in the 1940s. O'Brien was keen to pit cowboys against an allosaurus. That film was never made, although it served as the basis for a low-budget 1956 picture called The Beast of Hollow Mountain. Harryhausen brought the idea to life in grand fashion with The Valley of Gwangi. Of course, several of Ray's ideas for movies never reached the silver screen. Notable ones are:  Sinbad and the Valley of the Dinosaurs; Sinbad Goes to Mars; Evolution (set during the Earth's early days); Jupiter; an adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds; and Force of the Trojans, a follow-up to Clash of the Titans which is currently being developed by Morningside Productions and the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation.

Cowboys lasso a dinosaur!

7. Ray Harryhausen married Diana Livingstone Bruce in 1963. Her great-grandfather was Dr. David Livingstone, the famous Scottish physician and missionary ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"). Ray and Diana had one child, Vanessa, who is a board member for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, which is dedicated to archiving, preserving, and restoring his father's work. We recently interviewed John Walsh, another member of the foundation's board.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

A six-armed statue come-to-life.

Fifteen years after The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles Schneer revisited their legendary hero with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. John Phillip Law (Barbarella) replaced Kerwin Matthews as Sinbad. And in lieu of Kathryn Grant's spunky princess, Caroline Munro came on board as a slave girl.

This time around, Sinbad gets involved in a new quest when one of his crew fires an arrow at a strange bird carrying part of an amulet. The Vizier of a nearby country has a second piece of the amulet and Sinbad quickly realizes that the two pieces provide directions to Lemuria, a mythical island that holds the secret to absolute power.

Tom Baker as Koura.

Unfortunately, an evil wizard named Koura (Tom Baker) sends a homunculus to spy on Sinbad and learns about Lemuria, too. It soon becomes a race to the island between Sinbad and Koura.

Naturally, Sinbad's journey is filled with amazing, fantastical creatures animated by Harryhausen. The highlights include a Centaur, a Griffin, a wooden figurehead come to life, and a six-armed statue of a goddess that fights Sinbad and his crew with a sword in each hand.

The homunculus.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is colorful and visually exciting, but lacks the pizzazz of its predecessor. The first thirty minutes are mostly build-up to the journey. Harryhausen's creatures are still jaw-dropping, but somewhat derivative. The six-armed goddess reminded me of the four-armed siren in 7th Voyage. The homunculus, which is genuinely eerie, looks a bit like the Ymir in 20 Million Miles to Earth. And the Centaur could pass as a distant relative to the Cyclops in 7th Voyage.

Caroline Munro.

John Phillip Law is an acceptable Sinbad, but the beautiful Caroline Munro has little to do. That's surprising given that Brian Clemens, who wrote the script, gave Munro one of her best roles in Hammer's vampire adventure Kronos (1974). Tom Baker hits all the right notes as the despicable Koura. He would later become one of the most popular Doctor Who's. (Fans of the British detective series George Gently won't recognize its star, Martin Shaw, as one of Sinbad's mates.)

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad performed well at the boxoffice. It even led to a theatrical re-release of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. It also convinced the producers that there was enough interest for a second sequel--which happened with the release of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger in 1977.

Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad

The cyclops on Colossa.

"Nothing quite like its contents had been seen on the screen before."

That's special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen's assessment of his own 1958 fantasy adventure The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The usually modest Harryhausen knew what he was talking about --7th Voyage shines the spotlight on his incredible stop-motion animation. And for the first time in his feature film career, it was all displayed in glorious color and with a splendid music score to match, courtesy of Bernard Herrmann.

Princess Parisa and Sinbad.

The film opens with Sinbad transporting Princess Parisa to Bagdad (sic) where he plans to marry her and seal an alliance between their countries. Along the way, Sinbad (Kerwin Matthews) and crew land on an island where they encounter a magician who has stolen a magic lamp from a cyclops. They help the magician, Sokurah, escape, but he loses the lamp in the process.

Once they reach Bagdad, Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) tries to convince Sinbad to return to the island of Colossa to retrieve the lamp. Sinbad refuses--at least until Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant) is mysteriously reduced to doll size. Sokurah claims he can restore the Princess to her normal height, but his potion requires the egg shell from a Roc...meaning that Sinbad needs to transport the magician back to Colossa. Once there, they encounter cyclopes (that's plural), a two-headed Roc, a fire-breathing dragon, and--most famously--a sword-wielding skeleton.

A cyclops and the dragon battle on the beach.

The credits for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad tout that it was filmed in Dynamation. The term was coined by producer Charles H. Schneer to describe Harryhausen's painstaking process of combining live action with his stop-motion animated creatures. At the risk of simplifying the process, it consisted of filming the actors alone and then projecting that footage one frame at a time as Harryhausen animated his creatures in front of it. Obviously, the actors' movements had to be precise, which makes Sinbad's swordfight with a skeleton the film's highlight.

Sinbad against the skeleton.

In an interview (included as a DVD extra in some boxed sets), Kerwin Matthews describes the complicated "choreography" of the duel. He and Italian Olympic fencing master Enzo Musumeci-Greco rehearsed the sequence until Matthews knew it by heart. Then, Matthews had to replicate it with precision and by memory without Musumeci-Greco. In post-production, Harryhausen animated the skeleton opponent. Matthews didn't see the finished sequence until he watched the film at a theatre in France the following year. It truly is an incredible sequence and Herrmann's music, which is synchronized with each physical movement, is the perfect complement.

Torin Thatcher as the magician.

Of course, a film with nothing but great special effects would grow tiresome eventually. Thus, it's fortunate that The 7th Voyage of Sinbad benefits from enthusiastic performances. Matthews makes an appropriately dashing hero (though maybe not the brightest...Sinbad doesn't seem to suspect Sokurah of shrinking the Princess). Torin Thatcher makes a delightfully evil villain and Kathryn Grant--the future Mrs. Bing Crosby--is charming as the plucky princess, whose resolve saves Sinbad from being a cyclops snack.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad isn't Ray's Harryhausen's most jaw-dropping fantasy adventure. That honor belongs to the excellent Jason and the Argonauts (1963), in which the hero battles an army of skeletons. However, it's a colorful, exciting fantasy adventure with enough visual marvels to make you feel the wonderment of childhood again.

Interview with Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation Trustee John Walsh

Skeleton from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

All this month at the Classic Film & TV Cafe, we will be paying tribute to the genius of special effects master Ray Harryhausen. We thought the best place to start was with the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, which Ray established in 1986 to archive, preserve, and restore his extensive collection. John Walsh, who serves on the Board of Trustees, recently agreed to participate in an exclusive interview.

Café:  How did you come to know Ray Harryhausen?

Ray Harryhausen and friend
from Clash of the Titans.

John Walsh:  By the late 1980s, I had become a student at the London Film School and was looking for a subject for my first documentary film. I thumbed through a copy of the British Telecom phone book and found a listing for an "R. Harryhausen" at Ilchester Place in West London. Did I dare give him a call? What would I say? This was to be my first pitch and I didn't even know it. As this was the time before mobile phones and the prices of calls were dictated by the time of day and the duration of the call, I had to check with my parents for permission before dialing. Once I had clearance, the call commenced. Ray answered the phone, and I explained what I wanted to do: Make a fifteen minute sixteen-millimetre documentary about his work and techniques. He invited me to his house and I was stunned to meet many of the creatures that had populated Ray's films and my imagination. A few months later, I was showing the final film to both the film school and to audiences at the newly opened Greenwich Cinema. Ray came along and was interviewed on stage by sci fi writer and broadcaster Richard Hollis. Before Ray died, I had the film scanned in high definition and fully restored. My documentary, which was narrated by Tom Baker, is now part of the Foundation’s archive and is shown at public speaking events we hold throughout the world.

Café:  When was the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation established and what are its goals?

Trog from Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

John Walsh:  If you think you know all the films and have seen the creature collection at museums and know the full story, then think again. We have over 50,000 items in the collection, making it the largest of its kind outside of the Disney Studios. Ray set up the Foundation in 1986 and he intended that future generations should enjoy his work and also learn about the craft of filmmaking. I am delighted that audiences want to visit the artifacts on display, but what many fans of Ray's work perhaps do not know is that for every film that made it to the cinema screen, there were two or three from the same period that didn't.

Café:  Who else is on the Board of Trustees with you?

John Walsh:  Ray's daughter Vanessa and the family lawyer Simon Mackintosh make up the small, but efficient, board of trustees. Our solitary, but hard working, member of staff is Connor Heaney, our Collections Manager.

Café:  What are the Foundation’s plans for #Harryhausen100, a celebration of Ray’s centenary in 2020?

John Walsh:  There will be a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland, along with screenings and some major announcements to come later in the year.

A storyboard from Mysterious Island (1961).

Café:  Of the 50,000+ objects in Ray Harryhausen’s collection, what are some of your favorites?

The Kraken from Clash
of the Titans.

John Walsh:  I am fascinated by all the creatures that are, in themselves, real movie stars: The Kraken, Medusa, and the Seven-Headed Hydra. The big stars are the ones that get the attention and the visitor numbers at the exhibitions. Perhaps the ones that I have become fonder of are those smaller intricate figures that sometimes get overlooked. The tiny human creatures that fall into the clutches of Ray's beautiful creatures are being restored. Ray only worked with one person during these delicate and precise conservations, Alan Friswell. Alan’s work has been on display around the world this year. Despite the age of the collection, we are keen for fans to see the characters from the films as they remembered them from their childhoods. Thanks to professional photographer Andy Johnson, we have an extensive catalogue of photography of each piece as a record of their various states of decay. This will inform those who work on the collection in the future.

Café:  Has there been any discussion of building a Ray Harryhausen museum to display his collection?

John Walsh:  I have talked for many years about the possibility of a Harryhausen Museum. The road to this is one paved with a significant cash investment. Last year, I announced a new deal with Morningside Productions to revive the unmade follow-up (although not a direct sequel) to Clash of the Titans entitled Force of the Trojans. We have materials from the archive which show what Ray would have created and a screenplay, which acts as a blueprint for a new screenplay I have started to write. It would take a successful film such as this to create the capital needed for a permanent Harryhausen home. I am both hopeful and confident this can be achieved.

Café:  We’re going to put you on the spot with the next two questions. First, what is your favorite Harryhausen movie and why?

John Walsh:  For me, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is the best use of the technique with a thrilling story. The use of lighting, as well as music, played a significant role in creating an atmospheric black magic approach. Technically, this has some of the best live action and model integration. The film stock used worked well and does not betray the secrets of the technique of interacting live actors with the animations.

The six-armed statue in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

Café:  What is your favorite stop-motion creature created by Ray Harryhausen?

The Homunculus in Golden Voyage.

John Walsh:  The rebirth of the Homunculus in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is one of my all-time favourite sequences. The delicate animation and interaction with Tom Baker still make this a magical sequence.

Café:  Are there any upcoming Harryhausen-related events that you’d like to share with our readers?

John Walsh:  In September of this year Titan Books will release Harryhausen: The Lost Movies, which I have spent the last two years writing. It has been a fascinating journey into the vast Harryhausen archive. In the last few years with Ray, I asked him why he hadn't recorded commentaries for most of his films. His reply was surprising and blunt. He hadn't been asked. I set about to remedy this and we made digital audio and video recordings of his commentaries in the lounge of his house. This was more comfortable than a sterile sound booth in a post-production house, and as a filmmaker, I knew that the more comfortable a subject can be the more likely we were to get a few gold nuggets from his recollections. We decided to work backwards from Clash of the Titans. We even had some special guests sit in with us, such as director John Landis, who would always take the time to visit with Ray any time he was in London. Sadly, when we got to Ray's first solo film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, he fell ill and died.  Despite his advancing years--Ray was in his early 90s by then--he thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and remembered many details that did not appear in any publications. Audio extract from these can be heard in our award-nominated podcast series, The Ray Harryhausen Podcast on both Soundcloud and iTunes. Surprisingly, up until these last few years, Ray didn't have a presence at ComicCon. I have spoken at both London and last year's San Diego ComicCon. This was filmed and cut together by Connor Heaney and can be viewed on Vimeo.

Ray Harryhausen, John Walsh, and John Landis in 2012.

For more information on The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, you can check out its website or follow it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Short Takes with Charles Laughton, Cowboys & Dinosaurs, and Neil Simon

This Land Is Mine - When the Nazis invaded France during World War II, acclaimed filmmaker Jean Renoir relocated to the United States. Renoir, son of the Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, had already completed what would become his masterpiece, 1939's Rules of the Game. Unlike fellow refugee director Fritz Lang, Renoir never found his groove in Hollywood. Still, his first English-language film, This Land Is Mind, is a heartfelt, patriotic story of a timid schoolteacher (Charles Laughton) in a small European village occupied by Nazis. Maureen O'Hara, George Sanders, and Una O'Connor lead a strong supporting cast.

The Valley of Gwangi - Ray Harryhausen's imaginative mix of Western and fantasy overcomes a leisurely first half en route to 45 minutes of almost non-stop cowboys vs. dinosaurs action. While it can't stand alongside Harryhausen classics like Jason and the Argonauts, the special effects in 1969's Gwangi are excellent--especially the climatic T-Rex rampage. The scene where the cowboys lasso the T-Rex took stop-motion animator Harryhausen five months to film. Willis O'Brien, King Kong's creator and Harryhausen's mentor, conceived Gwangi in 1942, but RKO abandoned the production.

The Goodbye Girl - Playwright Neil Simon penned this winning romantic comedy as a vehicle for his then-wife Marsha Mason. She plays the title character, a single mother recently jilted by her latest lover. To make matters worse, she learns that her NYC apartment has been subleased to Dreyfuss, a struggling actor. Simon wisely keeps sentiment to a minimum, while allowing his outwardly brash characters to reveal their inner insecurities. Mason is good, if a bit too theatrical, but Dreyfuss hits all the right notes in his Oscar-winning performance. Quinn Cummings, as Mason’s wise-beyond-her-years daughter, delivers most of Simon’s trademark zingers. She, Mason, Simon, and the film all earned Oscar nominations. David Gates, formerly of the rock group Bread, wrote and performed the memorable title tune, which peaked at #15 on the Billboard chart.

The Seven Best Ray Harryhausen Movies (because we couldn't stop at five!)

Harryhausen and some of his models.

Ray Harryhausen, cinema's undisputed master of stop-motion special effects, worked on his first feaure-length film in 1949. Under the tutelage of King Kong's special effects wiz Willis O'Brien, Harryhausen did much of the stop-motion animation for Mighty Joe Young, which won an Academy Award for its special effects. Harryhausen went on to create an amazing gallery of life-like creatures. In the 1950s, he developed a process called Dynamation which allowed rear-projection footage of live actors to be synchronized and filmed with his stop-motion creatures. The results were some of the most incredible special effects in motion picture history.

Ray Harryhausen died yesterday at the age of 92. As a tribute, here are our picks for his seven best films:

1. Jason and the Argonauts. The first 45 minutes establishes the backstory for this version of the Greek myth about the Golden Fleece. It's all quite well done, but once our heroes set foot on the island of Bronze, the movie becomes a magical experience, courtesy of Harryhausen's sensational special effects. Every fan has their favorite Harryhausen sequence, but my top two are both from Jason: the capture of the winged Harpies and Jason's dual with the "dragon's teeth"--or as I call it--the breath-taking swordfight with the skeletons.

2. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. This colorful Arabian nights' adventure has Sinbad (Kerwin Matthews) fighting a two-head roc, a dragon, a skeleton, a four-armed siren, and a cyclops. Plus, Kathryn Grant's princess gets "reduced" to palm size by Torin Thatcher's evil magician. The skeleton fight is terrific--though Harryhausen one-upped himself with the skeleton army in Jason and the Argonauts.


Battling the giant crab in Mysterious Island.

3. Mysterious Island. Union soldiers escape from a Confederate camp, steal a hot air balloon, and wind up on the title island in this adaptation of Jules Vernes' novel. On the island, they encounter a giant crab, giant bees, a giant chicken (actually a prehistoric bird), and a squid-like creature. This film also features Capatin Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus, and an erupting volcano.

4. First Men in the Moon. This entertaining tale of a Victorian space voyage to the Moon is a questionable choice on this list--if one goes strictly by the quantity of Harryhausen's special effects. There are few spectacular set pieces in this H.G. Wells fantasy, but the film is well-made and nicely acted, almost on par with Mysterious Island.

5. One Million Years B.C. Raquel Welch in a fur bikini made the movie famous, but Harryhausen's dinosaurs are what make it memorable. The battle between the Ceratosaurus and the Triceratops is a highlight, although the winged Pterosaur that snatches Raquel is almost as impressive.


The grown-up Ymir.

6. 20 Million Miles to Earth. A spaceship returning from Venus brings back a specimen, a small reptilian creature called a Ymir. Unfortunately, the Ymir starts growing...and growing...and then goes on a rampage. The climax finds the 20-foot tall Ymir in a showdown with military forces atop Rome's Colosseum.

 

7. It Came from Beneath the Sea. A giant octopus wreaks havoc, culminating in an incredible sequence where it destroys San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. In his highly-entertaining Film Fantasy Scrapbook, Harryhausen points out that the octopus is actually a sexopus. Due to budgetary constraints, it only has six tentacles!

Honorable Mentions: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers; The Golden Voyage of Sinbad; and The Valley of Gwangi.

Fighting Skeletons, Winged Harpies, and the Metallic Talos Highlight Ray Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts"

In his delightful Film Fantasy Scrapbook, Ray Harryhausen wrote: "Of the 15 fantasy features I have been connected with, Jason and the Argonauts pleases me the most." And as a long-time Harryhausen fan, I confess that it's my favorite among his incredibly imaginative works (with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad a close second).

Based on the tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece, the films opens with Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) about to launch an attack on Aristo, the king of Thessaly. On the eve of the battle, an oracle warns Pelias: "It is also foretold that although you will win the throne of Aristo, you will--when Zeus ordains--lose it to one of Aristo's children." That night, Pelias decides to take the lives of Aristo's children to prevent the prophecy. However, the baby Jason is taken to safety and Aristo's daughter Briseis seeks the protection of the goddess Hera. Despite the risk of incurring Hera's wrath, Pelias kills Briseis. A shadowy figure in the temple tells Pelias that a one-sandaled man will prove his undoing.

Todd Armstrong as Jason.

Twenty years later, while searching the countryside for Jason, Pelias falls in a river and nearly drowns. He is rescued by a young man, who emerges from the water with only one sandal. Pelias realizes immediately that Jason (Todd Armstrong) has arrived to reclaim his father's throne. However, Jason has never seen Pelias and doesn't know that he has saved--and now befriended--the man that murdered his family. Fearing Hera's wrath, Pelias knows he cannot kill Jason outright, so he suggests that the young man rally the downtrodden people of Thessaly with an inspiring act of heroism: retrieving the Golden Fleece from the edge of world.

Jason stages a competition to select the bravest, strongest (e.g., Hercules), and smartest men (e.g., Hylas) for his crew. Unfortunately, Pelias' son (Gene Raymond) joins the ranks, too, and his goal is to ensure Jason never returns. With five wishes from Hera to assist him, Jason sets sail aboard his ship the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece.

One of the two Harpies.

What I have just described is essentially a 45-minute build-up to an incredible hour of thrills and chills courtesy of Harryhausen's amazing stop-motion special effects. Jason and the Argonauts encounter the metallic god Talos, the pesky winged Harpies, Triton and the Clashing Rocks, the seven-headed hydra, and the "hydra's teeth", which sprout into an army of mean-looking skeleton warriors. Every fan has his or her favorite creature and, while the Harpies and the Hydra always amaze me, I've got to go with the skeleton warriors. Even with today's digital special effects, I cannot imagine the climactic skeleton fight looking any better.

Jason and the Argonauts was filmed in a small coastal village south of Naples. The production took two years to complete, with most of the time devoted to Harryhausen's special effects. In his Scrapbook, Harryhausen describes the skeleton sequence: "There were seven skeletons fighting three men, with each skeleton having seven appendages to move in each frame of film, this meant an unprecedented 35 animated movements had to be synchronized with three live actors' movements; so one can readily see why it took four and a half months to record the sequence for the screen."

Harryhausen notes that one of the most difficult effects to achieve was the herky-jerky movement of the giant metallic Talos. The irony is that Harryhausen spent his career trying to make his creatures move in a smooth, lifelike manner.

Aside from Harryhausen's impressive contributions, Jason and the Argonauts remains an entertaining adventure yarn. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, director Don Chaffey maintains a lively pace. Bernard Herrmann, who collaborated with Harryhausen on three other films, provides a rousing score.

As for the cast, Todd Armstrong makes a solid hero, though he's not as charismatic as Kerwin Matthews from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Niall MacGinnis (from Curse of the Demon) and Honor Blackman (Goldfinger) are fun as Zeus and Hera. The best performance, though, comes from Nigel Green, who makes a brief but memorable appearance as a very different Hercules. In contrast to Steve Reeves' portrait, Green's Hercules is a middle-aged man well aware of his celebrity, whose greed and guilt limit his involvement in Jason's quest.

Jason and the Argonauts is not "the greatest film ever made," as Tom Hanks said when awarding Ray Harryhausen a Special Oscar in 1992. But it may be the best fantasy action film and Harryhausen's marvelous creatures are a wonder to behold time and time again. In my opinion, it was the pinnacle of Harryhausen's incredible career. There were still good films to come, such as 1974's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, but nothing worthy of comparison to Jason and the Argonauts.

Best B-Movies…oops, I mean, Bee Movies

I originally wrote this post in 2009 to generate some buzz. After considering several possibilities, I seized on a honey of an idea and decided to do one on bees in the cinema (no, not bees in movie theatres, but rather bees depicted on film). Since the number of quality bee films is limited, I dipped into television, too. Here are my top five:

1. Mysterious Island (1961). Bees hit the big time, or rather they were big in this lively adaptation of the Jules Verne novel. Castaways on the title island battle giant bees, courtesy of special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. Bottom line: Harryhausen + giant bees = cool scene.

2. The Outer Limits episode “Zzzzz” (1964). An entomologist studying bees needs a new lab assistant. A queen bee who can transform herself into human form needs a new mate. The entomologist is married. We now have a conflict. This entertaining episode benefits mightily from Joanna Frank, who scores as the exotic bee queen determined to get her way.

3. The Deadly Bees (1966). OK, it’s not a great movie, but it didn't deserve to be spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was directed by famed cinematographer Freddie Francis, so it looks good. Plus, it earns its spot on this list just for including a plotline about liquidizing the “smell of fear” and for featuring great a tag line: “Hives of Horror!”

4. Ulee’s Gold (1997). Too recent to qualify as a classic film, but we’ll toss it in here as an example of a serious bee movie. Actually, the bees are strictly supporting players in this low-key tale of a beekeeper and his family in northern Florida. Still, it earned Peter Fonda his best reviews in years.

5. The Swarm (1978). Irwin Allen made other big-budget films after this one, but Swarm marked the beginning of the end for the Disaster Movie King. Still, if you’re going to have an all-star cast fight hordes of bees, you could do worse than Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Olivia de Havilland, and Fred MacMurray. Plus, it was nominated for an Oscar! For Best Costume Design (?).

Honorable Mentions: The Savage Bees, The Bees (1978), Terror Out of the Sky, and Invasion of the Bee Girls (a Roger Ebert favorite). I don’t remember bees in The Hellstrom Chronicle, but surely they were some. I omitted recent films like Bee Movie and The Secret Life of Bees.

What other bee films are there? I’m hoping someone can up with a humdinger! Or at least one that buzzworthy!