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HARRYHAUSEN, RAY (1920– ). American special effects artist.
Special
effects, produced, and directed: How to Bridge a Gorge (1942); The
Storybook Review (1946); The Story of "Little Red Riding Hood"
(1949); The Story of "Rapunzel" (1951); The Story of "Hansel and
Gretel" (1952); The Story of King Midas (1953); The Story of
"The Tortoise and the Hare" (with Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh,
uncredited) (2002).
Special
effects and produced: The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (and story,
uncredited) (Juran 1958; Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey 1963);
First Men in the Moon (Juran 1964); The Valley of Gwangi
(James O'Connolly 1969); The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (and story) (Gordon
Hessler 1973); Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (and story) (Sam
Wanamaker 1977); Clash of the Titans (Desmond Davis 1981).
Produced:
Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection (2003); Ray
Harryhausen Presents: The Pit and the Pendulum (short) (Marc Lougee
2007).
Appeared
in: Spies Like Us (John LANDIS 1985); Mighty Joe Young (Ron
Underwood 1998); Elf (voice) (Jon Favreau 2003); numerous
documentaries.
Film
based on his work: Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier 2010).
Harryhausen initially specialized in short
films based on fairy tales, though he did assist Willis
O'BRIEN in creating the
unremarkable Mighty Joe Young; but he truly came into his own by
crafting the dinosaur of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the giant
octopus (famously with only six tentacles, to save money) of It Came from
beneath the Sea. These animals, and some dinosaurs for Irwin
ALLEN's documentary The
Animal World, were merely impressive, but the death scene of his Ymir
showed that Harryhausen's creatures could inspire sympathy as well as awe. However,
his most striking achievement of the 1950s was surely Earth versus the
Flying Saucers. While this is hardly a noteworthy film, the Harryhausen-supervised
scenes wherein the saucers attack Washington, D.C. should be required viewing
for all science fiction film critics; rarely has a city been ravaged on film
with such delightful ferocity. Indeed, the sheer exuberance of the sequence
rather undermines the contrived air of crisis that the movie otherwise
strives to convey. In his later science fiction films, he had fun with
various oversized animals in Mysterious Island (watch for the battle
with the giant chicken), the dinosaurs of One Million Years B.C. and The
Valley of Gwangi, and his insect-like Selenites for First Men in the
Moon, which seem very close to H. G.
WELLS's own descriptions.
But by this time, Harryhausen had decided
that he would rather focus on fantasy films, and along with his regular
colleague, producer Charles H. SCHNEER, he began a series of colorful fantasies
with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, later followed by The Three
Worlds of Gulliver, Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage
of Sinbad, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. All of these films
are fast-moving and entertaining, with impressive animation sequences, particularly
the battles with animate skeletons, yet one must echo the common criticism
that they are mainly a series of setpieces, crudely connected by episodic and
uninvolving stories and helmed by undistinguished leading men. Only
Harryhausen, for example, ever saw any virtues in the acting talents of
Patrick Wayne. By far the best of these films is Jason and the Argonauts,
which benefits from an unusually strong story (based on the Greek myth) and
the clever framing device of chess-playing gods who determine the hero's
fate.
In a film obviously designed to be the
climax of his career and his crowning achievement, Harryhausen followed the
pattern of Jason and the Argonauts in creating Clash of the Titans,
although the chosen myth this time was the story of Perseus. For once,
Harryhausen was blessed with a large budget, and after long accepting the
status of a second-string filmmaker, Harryhausen must have found it
gratifying indeed to have the great Laurence OLIVIER himself playing Zeus and
presiding over his fantasy world, though director Desmond Davis let him get
away with an indifferent and playful performance; able veterans like Maggie
Smith, Claire Bloom and Burgess MEREDITH strengthened the film; and a young
Harry Hamlin proved the best hero Harryhausen had ever had. But by this time,
alas, Harryhausen had emptied his bag of tricks; everything in the film had
already been seen in his previous films, and the giant sea monster of the
final scenes seemed especially derivative and woefully anticlimactic,
reinforcing the sense that his decision to retire had been wise.
Perhaps the control that Harryhausen had achieved
over his own career was infelicitous, since he might have been better
stimulated in his later years by the science fiction projects that others
would surely have brought to him, had he not been busy with his fantasy
films. Surely, I I am not the only observer who prefers his science fiction to
his fantasy; yet Harryhausen's actual achievements are sufficient to justify
the many honors that he has received in the three decades of his retirement.
He has also served as a benevolent father figure to a new generation of
special effects artists and an agreeable participant in many documentaries
celebrating the science fiction and fantasy films of himself and his
contemporaries. It is strange that the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans
—inferior to the original, despite its vastly more sophisticated special
effects—did not include any mention of Ray Harryhausen's name, but he
requires no such recognition to ensure that his work will always be
remembered.
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