Before computer-generated imagery (CGI) became available to film-makers, one of the techniques used to create spectacles beyond what the camera could capture on a single set was stop-motion animation, a process that was used in movies in one form or another almost from the beginnings of cinema. Using the process, a miniature model of a giant ape used 1933 classic "King Kong" would be placed against the back process of live actors on a sound-stage or, later, in outdoor location photography. "King Kong" (1933) is the best known of all films utilizing stop-motion animation. Released in America and around the world at the height of the Great Depression, it became a box-office sensation. The man behind the pains-taking effects was was Willis O'Brien (1882-1962). It was O'Brien's use of special effects that producer Merian C. Cooper and Director Edward Shoedereak utilized to position live actors (Bruce Cabot and Fay Wray, et al ) against the 'mighty' Kong, who was in reality a series of models, some only only '18 inches tall. The actors played all their "scenes" with Kong against a blank screen, to which the animated figures of Kong and various dinosaur models and such were added later.
A young man who was transfixed by watching "King Kong" as a teenager later grew up to be O'Brien's technical assistant onther films was Ray Harryhausen (1920-). His achievements in special effects starting in the late 50's set the standard for many decades. Here is a bit of his most imaginative work--Greek argonauts versus skeletons with militant tendencies in "Jason and the Argonauts". RayHarryhausen.com - Greetings
Although not as good as "Jason" by a long shot, this is one of my favorite camp films--and it also happens to have a Harryhausen connection. It's 1969's "Valley of Gwangi", a movie that pits cowboys versus dinosaurs in a remote Mexican valley. The story is very similar to "King Kong"--a egotistical promoter takes a giant creature out of its element and things go really, really wrong fast.
"Gwangi" was based on an original story and model designs by O'Brien from the 1930's as a follow-up to "kong". The producers at RKO Studios decided that a "dinosaur rodeo" movie wasn't what the public wanted, and perhaps they were right. Certainly a cold blooded and hungry dinosaur holds nothing like the sympathy a chained-up big simian with a crush on beautiful Fay Wray could. It was thus-ly shelved and was not made for thirty years. Changing tastes in movies--this was the year of "Easy Rider" and Midnight Cowboy"after all--and a lousy second-billing release slot by Warner Brothers on its initial run did not help matters.
Ray Harryhausen is a legend and, nicely, a legend still living and still reportedly at work on film projects even in to his 80's. The "Wallace and Gromit" films of Nick Park, although more sophisticated and just as painstaking, owe a great deal to men like O'Brien and Harryhausen. Aardman Animation
I have to say I think Jason and the Argonaut's is a brilliant film. I have watched it more times than I care to admit! There was the sweet doddering old man who was loved to death by the many armed goddess. If I was able to see what was going to happen why couldn't he? The battle in death valley with the skeletons was amazing. I wonder who wrote the music score for that film, I'm ashamed to say that after all my viewings I don't know.
ReplyDeleteWallace and Grommit films are excellent, what a super combination of characters.
The only film I haven't seen that you listed, is "The Valley of Gwangi".
Thank you, Doug.
Doug I loved Jason and the Argonauts, In my OU course I studied a later story of Jason, when that frightful women (and wife) Medea murdered his children. All because he went off with a Princess.
ReplyDeleteI can identify with that Doug.
ReplyDeleteExcellent films, I haven't seen Valley of Gwangi either (I thought it was in south Wales) but the other two are absolute classics, the Wallace and Gromit ad was good too, this was the first time I'd seen it.
The skeletons in 'Jason' had the clear advantage of nothing to lose from mortal combat which I always thought was a bit unfair, but given the weight advantage of the Argonauts I suppose it all evens out in the end.
Ray Harryhausen was (and is) a genius. "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" and "20,000,000 Miles To Earth" are two of my favorites - but "Jason" remains my favorite Harryhausen film.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this!
I couldn't put together even this too-brief tribute blog without including "Jason and the Argonauts", Cassandra. I half-forget the old man and the many armed goddess sequence. I wondered after learning a bit about mythology what Ovid or Hesiod would have thought of these movies?
ReplyDeleteThe composer for the film was Bernard Hermann. He added a great deal to movies in all genres, like this fantasy film and other done with Harryhausen technical wizardry, such as "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" (1958).
In addition to doing many fantasy films Hermann during this period, he also scored ten of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense films, including "Psycho", "North By Northwest" and the electronic scoring for "The Birds". His first film score was Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane"(1941); one of his last scores was for Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver"(1976).
Wallace and Gromit are wonderful little films. I also enjoyed their "Great Escape" spoof, "Chicken Run" where a gaggle of hens and roosters escape Tweedy's Chicken Pie concentration camp.
I forgot that link, Jeff: now there was a frightful story! I understand Dame Diana Rigg played Madea a few years ago on the West End and was quite effective.
ReplyDelete"Jason" is one of my favorites from that period. I was lucky to see it on the big screen once and the imagery was, of course, even more impressive.
Regarding the Kong-Fay Wray situation: "Me too, AA. Me too."
ReplyDeleteSouth Wales sounds wild! Perhaps its best to "stay on the train", so to speak, if one travels through some of SW less-developed, rougher terrain. Perhaps if "Gwangi" had been shot in England back then, it could have called "50 Miles to Cardiff!" or just "Carry On T-Rex".
"Valley of Gwangi", while not a classic film, is a sentimental favorite for me. Perhaps because it combined two yearnings--the desires of kids, at least little boys, to see a living dinosaur and the bigger the better. Also, the myth of the American Cowboy, a scattered group of men taking on a hostile wilderness with elan and bravery. In the counter-realistic Old West, of course, the railroad tycoons and the big land barons get the lion's share of their efforts of course. "Gwangi" tracks this theme with the virtual "Buffalo Bill Cody" character and his phony Wild West Show huckstering the public.
No question as to Harryhausen's genius in my book either, Astra! Before there was Lucas and Spielberg, this guy was the pathfinder of cinematic wonder. Glad he's still around, too, to enjoy and record his legacy and perhaps give us other wonders.
ReplyDeleteThose skeletons are seriously weird lol (haven't ever seen that movie before). Dinosaurs in a Western are also completely surreal hehehe.
ReplyDeleteIts really interesting how far special effects have come. Peter Jackson always had a great respect for the people who made the original King Kong movie hence his ambition since he was a child to remake it for modern audiences.
Peter Jackson's version of "King Kong" I thought was about as vibrant as any modern film-maker could have made from that scenario l, Iri Ani--and, unlike the lamentable "Kong" film of the 1970's with Jessica Lange--he was wise to choose to set the story in the 1930's, which was a homage to the original in itself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of "The Lord of the Rings" material he brought to the screen, but that was also great technical work.
I don't know about anyone else, but seeing those skeletons come to life even today is a scary little spectacle.
Also, something about a "Dinosaur Western" appeals to me, if only because "Valley of Gwangi" contains such "immortal" lines as delivered by the American horse-backed cowboy (James Franciscus), when he says to a loopy British scientist walking about in the desert as a T-Rex bears down on them : "Professor, there's a big lizard back there and its headed this way. Climb aboard!" ;-)
When you consider how much was done by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen before computers and high-tech cameras, they and their fellow artists really were imagination engineers.
An immortal line indeed lol
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, there were so many excellent scenes you need a refresher to remember them all.
ReplyDeleteAh thank you, Bernard Hermann, obviously a prolific composer. North by North West is another of my frequent viewings. The film would be flat without that exciting music. Even if I wasn't watching anything but simply listening, I'd know something exciting was going on, hahahahahaha.
Yes, I wonder what Ovid or Hesiod would have thought of the film. There may have been lots of tut tutting!
Thank you again Doug
Cassandra
Funny you should mention that Cassandra. I watched "North by Northwest" on a DVD edition last month and they had a special track that just had Hermann's score as the movie played with no dialogue. I watched some of the film this way and you can really see how much the music added to Hitchcock's atmosphere of thrills and menace that might not have been there without Hermann's musical gifts.
ReplyDeleteI always think James Mason was wonderful as the smooth villain in "NBYNW". He really is so debonair about his ruthless activities and really enjoys discomforting Cary Grant all too much ;-)
I think "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans" might have indeed brought some negative critiques from sources like Hesiod. For instance, I remember the character of Medea (played by Nancy Novack) in "Jason and the Argonauts" apparently lives happily ever after with Jason at the finale from what I recall. (Not quite of course.)
Ah yes James Mason, he has a cool sinister way of intimidation, so whoever he has set his sights on isn't quite sure if he is friend or foe. However, those of us watching the film are a much wiser lot and no matter how many times we yell, "don't let him fool you", no one appears to listen. ;-)))
ReplyDeleteI think the music composed for North by Northwest, is nothing short of brilliant!
I don't know if you noticed Doug, but there was a clever scene where for a while there wasn't any music at all, just silence and that was where Cary Grant was standing by the corn field. Then in the distance comes the sound of a plane..............amazing directing, don't you think?
We must have a happy ending for Jason, by gosh, didn't he deserve it? :-)
Thank you Doug!
Yes, I remember that! Cary Grant gets of the bus and he's just standing there--the establishing shot takes about a minute of so to run, and its just a lone man in the middle of nowhere...and then a couple cars pass, and somebody just passes by, and then the plane. One of "Hitch's" greatest sequences--menace on the wide-open fields of middle rural America.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the ending to "Jason", Cassandra--got to give those two "crazy in love and all mixed-up kids" some kind of happiness!
It was such a brillant touch, that silence. We knew from the start he shouldn't be there on that road,
ReplyDeletedidn't we? :)))
Many of the new films don't seem to have an ending, let alone a happy one!
Thank you Doug!