119-518: Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for Mighty Joe Young (1949) with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien (for which the latter won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects ); his first color film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958); and Jason and
238-711: A 4K screening of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad . In a podcast interview with BritFlicks , Walsh discussed his plans to further develop lost Ray Harryhausen film projects, which includes the follow-up to 1981's "Clash of the Titans", entitled "Force of the Trojans". An exhibition opened showing items from the Harryhausen collection at the Valence House Museum on March 14, 2018. The exhibition was inspired by local man Alan Friswell, who worked with Ray Harryhausen on
357-659: A bar patron in Beverly Hills Cop III , and as a doctor in the John Landis film Spies Like Us . In 2010, Harryhausen had a brief cameo in Burke & Hare , a British film directed by Landis. In 1986, Harryhausen formed the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, a registered charity in the U.K. and U.S. that preserves his collection and promotes the art of stop-motion animation and Harryhausen's contributions to
476-530: A big budget film with name actors and an expanded effects budget. The film started out smaller, but then MGM increased the budget to hire stars such as Laurence Olivier . It became the last feature film to showcase his effects work, Clash of the Titans (1981), for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects. For this film, he hired protégé model animators Steve Archer and two-time Oscar-nominated Jim Danforth to assist with major animation sequences. Harryhausen fans will readily discern that
595-414: A black space. Then the film was rewound, and everything except the foreground element matted out so that the foreground element would now photograph in the previously blacked-out area. This created the effect that the animated model was "sandwiched" in between the two live-action elements, right into the final live action scene. In most of Harryhausen's films, model animated characters interact with, and are
714-465: A creature that, in Earth's atmosphere, rapidly grows to gigantic size and terrifies the citizens of Rome. Harryhausen refined and improved his already-considerable ability at establishing emotional characterizations in the face of his Venusian Ymir model, creating yet another international box office hit. Schneer was eager to graduate to full-color films. Reluctant at first, Harryhausen managed to develop
833-473: A deal with Warner Brothers instead. It was a personal project to Harryhausen, which he had wanted to do for many years, as it was storyboarded by his original mentor, Willis O'Brien for a 1939 film, Gwangi , that was never completed. Set in Mexico, The Valley of Gwangi is a parallel Kong story—cowboys capture a living Allosaurus and bring him to the nearest Mexican town for exhibition. Sabotage releases
952-660: A fruitful partnership with producer Charles H. Schneer , who was working with the Sam Katzman B-picture unit of Columbia Pictures . Their first tandem project was It Came from Beneath the Sea (a.k.a. Monster from Beneath the Sea , 1955), about a giant octopus attacking San Francisco. It was a box-office success, quickly followed by Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), set in Washington D.C. – one of
1071-484: A hole with a bazooka in the beast's throat, which drives it back into the sea. Unfortunately, it bleeds all over the streets of New York, unleashing a horrible, virulent prehistoric contagion, which begins to infect the populace, causing even more fatalities. The infection precludes blowing up the Rhedosaurus or even setting it ablaze, lest the contagion spread further. It is decided to shoot a radioactive isotope into
1190-529: A horse in Sheffield on 24 August 1891 at age twenty-seven. His interment was in West Brompton near the same plot as Surrounded. Fifty-nine-year-old Oglala Sioux, Long Wolf, died during the tour due to pneumonia on 13 June 1892. His interment was in West Brompton. Two months later, a two-year-old girl named White Star Ghost Dog died when she fell from her mother's arms during horseback. Her remains shared
1309-499: A large advertising campaign for its June 1953 release. Sources differ on the exact day it was distributed that month, though Harrison's Reports and the official websites of the AFI and Warner Bros suggest it was the 13th. However, many contemporaneous American newspapers from June 1953 reported the opening date as the 17th. Boxoffice listed the film's distribution date as 27th. The 1954 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures cited
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#17327945364621428-408: A lighthouse. A similar sequence appeared in the draft script of The Monster from Beneath the Sea . During production, Bradbury visited his friend Harryhausen at the studio and was invited to read the script. When Bradbury pointed out to the producers similarities to his short story, they quickly bought the rights to his story. When Warner Bros. bought The Monster from Beneath the Sea from Mutual over
1547-555: A list of those present-day filmmakers who claim to have been inspired by Harryhausen, including Steven Spielberg , Peter Jackson , Joe Dante , Tim Burton , Nick Park , James Cameron , and Guillermo del Toro . Others influenced by him include George Lucas , John Lasseter , John Landis , Henry Selick , J. J. Abrams , Wes Anderson , Robert Rodriguez , special effects supervisors Phil Tippett , and Dennis Muren , and video game creator David Jaffe . Harryhausen left his collection, which includes all of his film-related artifacts, to
1666-493: A man whom Harryhausen claimed as an inspiration. The dinosaur skeleton featured in the museum sequence is artificial; it was obtained from RKO Pictures ' prop storage where it had been constructed for its classic comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938). An original music score was composed by Michel Michelet , but when Warner Bros. purchased the film, it had a new score written by David Buttolph . Ray Harryhausen had been hoping that his film music hero Max Steiner , under contract at
1785-581: A mixed-raced heritage with parents both American, of German and English ancestry for her father and of African-American background for her mother. Their son, Archie , who was born in London on 6 May 2019, has had dual British and American citizenship since birth. Sheila Ferguson , a former member of The Three Degrees , was born in and grew up in Philadelphia and has permanently settled in England since
1904-458: A monster movie in response to the successful 1952 re-release of King Kong (1933). While Lou Morheim and Fred Freiberger were solely credited for screenwriting, many contributed to writing the film, including Dietz, Harryhausen, and Lourié. On an estimated $ 210,000–285,000 budget, principal photography occurred in New York from July to August 1952, under the title The Monster from Beneath
2023-471: A new generation of film makers sorted itself out, Harryhausen became a free agent. Harryhausen was then hired by Hammer Films to animate the dinosaurs for One Million Years B.C. (1966). It was a success at the box office, helped in part by the presence of Raquel Welch in her second film. Harryhausen next went on to make another dinosaur film, The Valley of Gwangi with Schneer. The project had been developed for Columbia, who declined. Schneer then made
2142-403: A part of, the live action world, with the idea that they will cease to call attention to themselves as only "animation." Most of the effects shots in his earliest films were created via Harryhausen's careful frame-by-frame control of the lighting of both the set and the projector. This dramatically reduced much of degradation common in the use of back-projection or the creation of dupe negatives via
2261-399: A production budget of around $ 200,000. Lourié asserted that the budget was $ 210,000 ; Chester said it was US$ 240,000 ; and Variety reported $ 285,000 was spent on the film. The film was first announced in the trades on July 30, 1951, as The Monster from Beneath the Sea , one of 16 titles the newly formed Mutual Films Corporation were readying for production. This appeared exactly
2380-409: A series of fairy tale -based shorts, which he called his "teething-rings". In 1947, Harryhausen was hired as an assistant animator (credited as "First technician, Special Effects") on what turned out to be his first major film, Mighty Joe Young (1949). The first film with Ray Harryhausen in full charge of technical effects was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) which began development under
2499-668: A skirmish in 1586. He had his baptism at Saint Mary the Virgin's Church in March 1588. He died from influenza in Grenville's house on 2 April 1589. His interment was at that same church five days later. Raleigh was the first Native American to have a Christian conversion and an English resting place. Chief Powhatan 's daughter, Pocahontas spent some of her life in London two years after she married English colonist John Rolfe . At age twenty-one, Pocahontas died due to an unknown disease. She
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#17327945364622618-672: A special effects Oscar. Harryhausen himself says the reason was that he worked in Europe, but this oversight by the AMPAS visual-effects committee also occurred throughout the 1950s when Harryhausen lived in Los Angeles. In spite of the very successful box office returns of Clash of the Titans , more sophisticated computer-assisted technology developed by ILM and others began to eclipse Harryhausen's production techniques, and so MGM and other studios passed on funding his planned sequel, Force of
2737-487: A suburb of London until Schneer moved full-time to the U.S. (a few years later, in early 2009, Schneer died at 88 in Boca Raton, Florida ); and with model animation protégé, Jim Danforth , still living in the Los Angeles area. Harryhausen and Terry Moore appeared in small comedic cameo roles in the 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young , and he provided the voice of a polar bear cub in the film Elf . He also appears as
2856-682: A taxidermist, assisted Harryhausen with the creation of furred creatures. Another associate, Willis Cook, built some of Harryhausen's miniature sets. Other than that, Harryhausen worked generally alone to produce almost all of the animation for his films. The same year that Beast was released, 1953, fledgling film producer Irwin Allen released a live action documentary about life in the oceans titled The Sea Around Us , which won an Oscar for best documentary feature film of that year. Allen's and Harryhausen's paths would cross three years later, on Allen's sequel to this film. Harryhausen soon met and began
2975-675: A vessel, whether slave, indentured servant, or free, was recorded, along with the details of enslavement, escape, and military service, in a document called the Book of Negroes . Between 400 and 1,000 African Americans emigrated to London and were later given the title of Black Loyalist for their service in the British Armed forces and formed the core of the early Black British community. African-American guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix started to get his big break in London as part of his band The Jimi Hendrix Experience . He first entered
3094-579: A week after Ray Bradbury had his short story " The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms " published in The Saturday Evening Post , which was later anthologized under the title "The Fog Horn". During preproduction, in the spring of 1952, according to Ray Harryhausen , Dietz showed him an illustration of the monster from the Ray Bradbury story published the previous year. This story was about a marine-based prehistoric dinosaur that destroys
3213-435: A year later, they changed the film's title to match the story's title. Bradbury's name was used extensively in their promotional campaign. It also had an on-screen credit that read "Suggested by The Saturday Evening Post story by Ray Bradbury". Eugène Lourié , Harryhausen, and Robert Smith contributed to the screenplay, adapting it from producer Jack Dietz 's initial draft. None of them were credited in this position within
3332-690: Is Wilnelia Merced , the widow of the late entertainer, Sir Bruce Forsyth . Martin Frobisher returned from a voyage to discover the Northwest Passage in 1576, bringing with him a native Inuit that he had seized. The man died days after reaching London and was buried in the churchyard at St. Olave's. Sir Richard Grenville captured the Roanoke Island Native American Raleigh (named for Sir Walter Raleigh ) and brought him to Bideford following
3451-704: Is a US-born British actress of Jewish-Ukrainian ancestry, Louis Theroux is the son of American writer Paul Theroux , whilst Mika has a Lebanese mother and an American father born in Jerusalem. Boris Johnson , former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019-22, was born in New York City . Until 2016, he held dual citizenship of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He relinquished his US citizenship to prove his allegiance to
3570-462: Is believed to have been a sleeper hit . The film was distributed by Daiei Film in Japan on October 17, 1954. According to Turner Classic Movies (TCM), The Beast was met with a mixed critical reception, but garnered unanimous praise for its special effects. In July 1953, Boxoffice analyzed that contemporary critical reviews were generally positive. Famous Monsters of Filmland described
3689-512: Is considered by film historians and fans as Harryhausen's masterwork, Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Among the film's several celebrated animation sequences is an extended fight between three actors and seven living skeletons, a considerable advance on the single-skeleton fight scene in Sinbad . This stop-motion sequence took over four months to complete. Harryhausen next made First Men in
Ray Harryhausen - Misplaced Pages Continue
3808-634: Is considered the British edition of a Godzilla movie or rip-off thereof. Daiei Film later yielded the Gamera franchise. The original 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster depicted the titular monster that was awoken by a nuclear explosion in the Arctic and later destroys a lighthouse . Before this, Daiei Film distributed the re-released edition of RKO's King Kong in Japan in 1952, making it
3927-488: Is swallowed by the beast, which eventually comes ashore in Manhattan. It devours a police officer shooting at it, totals cars, knocks over buildings, and generally causes a panicking frenzy. A later newspaper report of its rampage lists "180 known dead, 1500 injured, damage estimates $ 300 million". Meanwhile, military troops led by Colonel Jack Evans attempt to stop the Rhedosaurus with an electrified barricade, then blast
4046-726: Is the only surviving witness to the beast's awakening and later is dismissed out-of-hand as being delirious at the time of his sighting. Despite the skepticism, he persists, knowing what he saw. The dinosaur begins making its way down the east coast of North America, sinking a fishing ketch off the Grand Banks , destroying another near Marquette, Canada, wrecking a lighthouse in Maine, and destroying buildings in Massachusetts. Nesbitt eventually gains allies in paleontologist Thurgood Elson and his young assistant Lee Hunter after one of
4165-558: The Brontosaurus -type creature of the short story. It is instead a kind of Tyrannosaurus -type prehistoric predator, though quadrupedal in stature. The monster was unlike any real carnivorous dinosaur and more closely resembled a rauisuchian . A drawing of the creature was published along with the story in The Saturday Evening Post . According to author A. T. McKenna, at one point, there were plans to have
4284-752: The Barbican Centre 's 'Into the Unknown' exhibition from June 3 to September 1, 2017. To mark his 97th birthday on July 29, 2017, the Barbican posted a guest blog by Heaney, highlighting Harryhausen's lasting influence on science fiction. On June 5, 2017, it was announced that a major exhibition of Harryhausen's models, "Ray Harryhausen—Mythical Menagerie", would take place at the Science Museum Oklahoma . The exhibition opened on July 29. USA Today called it "one of best museum exhibits in
4403-691: The Directors Guild of America 's rules prevented Harryhausen from being credited as the director of his films, resulting in the more modest credits he had in most of his films. Throughout most of his career, Harryhausen's work was a sort of family affair. His father did the machining of the metal armatures (based on his son's designs) that were the skeletons for the models and allowed them to keep their position, while his mother assisted with some miniature costumes. After Harryhausen's father died in 1973, Harryhausen contracted his armature work out to another machinist. An occasional assistant, George Lofgren ,
4522-641: The London Film School and made the documentary Ray Harryhausen: Movement Into Life , narrated by Doctor Who actor Tom Baker . The foundation's website charts progress on the restoration of the collection and plans for Harryhausen's legacy. In 2013, the RH foundation and Arrow Films released a feature-length biography of Harryhausen and his films, Ray Harryhausen – Special Effects Titan , on Blu-Ray. Featuring photos, artifacts, and film clips culled directly from Harryhausen's estate and never before seen by
4641-641: The Normandy invasion was launched. Troop numbers gradually came down after that. The 2001 UK Census recorded 158,434 people born in the United States. According to the 2011 UK Census , there were 173,470 US-born residents in England, 3,715 in Wales, 15,919 in Scotland , and 4,251 in Northern Ireland . The Office for National Statistics estimates that 197,000 US-born immigrants were resident in
4760-432: The U.S. Army 's Special Services Division under Colonel Frank Capra , as a loader, clapper boy, gofer and later camera assistant, whilst working at home animating short films about the use and development of military equipment. During this time, he also worked with composer Dimitri Tiomkin and Ted Geisel (" Dr. Seuss "). Following the war, he salvaged several rolls of discarded 16 mm surplus film from which he made
4879-718: The Visual Effects Society , Walsh said that "We’re restoring pieces as we go, trying to get things back as close to how people remember them as possible". It was also announced that Vanessa Harryhausen was writing a book to mark her father's centenary, to accompany the exhibition in Edinburgh. Also entitled Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema , the book looks back on his personal and professional life through Vanessa's 100 favourite objects from his collection, and contains contributions from John Landis , Rick Baker , Phil Tippett , Jim Danforth and others. In 2021, it
Ray Harryhausen - Misplaced Pages Continue
4998-430: The highest-grossing films of 1953 . It pioneered the "atomic monster" genre and is credited with launching the giant monster and kaiju movie trend that ensured its initial release. Godzilla (1954) is often cited as having taken inspiration from the film. In recent years, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has acquired a cult following and has been listed among the greatest science fiction , horror , and B movies of
5117-548: The 1950s . Far north of the Arctic Circle, a nuclear bomb test, dubbed "Operation Experiment", is conducted. Prophetically, right after the blast, physicist Thomas Nesbitt muses "What the cumulative effects of all these atomic explosions and tests will be, only time will tell". The explosion awakens a 200-foot (61 m) long carnivorous dinosaur known as a Rhedosaurus , thawing it out of the ice where it had been held in suspended animation for millions of years. Nesbitt
5236-618: The 1980s where she is still famous with her own solo career. Covert Affairs star Sendhil Ramamurthy resides in London, and is of Indian descent. English musician Dhani Harrison is the son of George Harrison of The Beatles and Mexican-American Olivia Trinidad Arias (who also now lives in the UK). In 2001 , 306 Puerto Rican-born people alone were residing in the United Kingdom (the nineteenth-most common birthplace amongst Latin American states). The most notable Puerto Rican-Briton
5355-479: The 24th, which Variety stated was its New York premiere. The film had one of the widest and fastest releases of the time, planning to have most of its bookings in its first two months, opening in 1,422 theaters nationwide within the first week. Original prints of Beast were sepia toned . The film earned roughly $ 2.25 million at the North American box office and more than $ 5 million worldwide. It
5474-441: The Argonauts (1963), which featured a sword fight with seven skeleton warriors . His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981), after which he retired from filmmaking. In 1960, Harryhausen moved to the United Kingdom and became a dual American-British citizen. He lived in London until his death in 2013. During his life, his innovative style of special effects in films inspired numerous filmmakers. Raymond Frederick Harryhausen
5593-658: The Beast snort flames, but this idea was dropped before production began due to budget restrictions. The concept was later used for the film's poster and allegedly became an inspiration for Godzilla 's atomic breath. The climactic roller coaster live-action scenes were filmed on location at the Pike in Long Beach, California, and featured the Cyclone Racer entrance ramp, ticket booth, loading platform and beach views of
5712-533: The British immigration authorities to enable him to find work. Williams ended up as an elephant keeper at the Belle Vue Zoo . He died on 28 July 1929 from pneumonia at age fifty-two. His interment was in Gorton's cemetery. More recently, notable British people of Native American descent include actress Hayley Atwell , who has dual UK-US citizenship due to her part-Native American father. American schools in
5831-672: The British were known as Black Patriots (modern day African Americans in the US), but rather if they were fighting for the Crown or American Independence both were mostly doing it in return for promises of freedom from enslavement or indentured servitude. The British-American Commission identified the Black people who had joined the British before the surrender, and issued "certificates of freedom" signed by General Birch or General Musgrave. Those who chose to emigrate were evacuated by ship. The fallout of
5950-567: The Moon (1964), his only film made in the 2.35:1 widescreen (a.k.a. " CinemaScope ") format, based on the novel by H. G. Wells . Jason and First Men in the Moon were box office disappointments at the time of their original theatrical release. That, plus changes of management at Columbia Pictures, resulted in his contract with Columbia Picture not being renewed. Also, as the 1960s counter-culture came to influence more and more and younger filmmakers, and failing studios struggled to find material that
6069-470: The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, which he set up in 1986 to look after his extensive collection, to protect his name and to further the art of model stop-motion animation. The trustees are his daughter Vanessa Harryhausen, Simon Mackintosh, actress Caroline Munro , who appeared in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and film maker John Walsh , who first met Harryhausen in 1988 as a student at
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#17327945364626188-642: The Revolution resulted in an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 Black Americans scattering across the Atlantic world, profoundly affecting the development of Nova Scotia , the Bahamas , Jamaica , and the African nation of Sierra Leone as prominent leaders in the emerging freed black communities. To make sure no one attempted to leave who did not have a certificate of freedom, the name of any Black person on board
6307-500: The Sea . Harryhausen and Willis Cook created the special effects over roughly six months. In 1953, Warner Bros. bought the film for $ 400,000–800,000 , retitled it, and hired David Buttolph to replace Michel Michelet 's original score. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released throughout the United States in June 1953, to widespread critical praise for its special effects. The film grossed over $ 5 million worldwide, making it one of
6426-754: The Sinbad character, resulting in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad , often remembered for the sword fight involving a statue of the six-armed Hindu goddess Kali. It was first released in Los Angeles in the Christmas season of 1973, but garnered its main audience in the spring and summer of 1974. It was followed by Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), which disappointed some fans because of its tongue-in-cheek approach. Both films were, however, box office successes. Schneer and Harryhausen finally were allowed by MGM to produce
6545-533: The Trojans , causing Harryhausen and Schneer to retire from active filmmaking. In the early 1970s, Harryhausen had also concentrated his efforts on authoring a book, Film Fantasy Scrapbook (produced in three editions as his last three films were released) and supervising the restoration and release of (eventually all) his films to VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and currently Blu-ray. A second book followed, Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life , written with author and friend Tony Dalton, which details his techniques and history. This
6664-457: The U.S. this fall". In 2018 the exhibition was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Award for "Best Live Event". An exhibition at Tate Britain from June 26 to November 19, 2017, features work from the Harryhausen collection and short film made by John Walsh on the restoration of a painting owned by Harryhausen which influenced his work. In September 2018, Titan Books published Harryhausen – The Movie Posters by author Richard Holliss , focusing on
6783-649: The UK began as early as the late-eighteenth century after American slaves failed in their attempt to defend the British Crown in the American Revolution . The Revolution began in the thirteen American colonies and United States in the late-1770s. The British promised freedom to any slave or rebel who fought the Americans on their behalf. African Americans made up over 20% of the American population at
6902-632: The UK during World War II. Nancy Astor , Britain's second Member of Parliament , was born in Virginia and married into the wealthy Anglo-American Astor family . Henry James , considered one of the greatest novelists in the English language, was born to a Boston Brahmin family and moved to London in 1869. Aside from brief periods spent on the Continent and two short trips back to the US, James spent
7021-405: The UK in 2013. In a 2020 House of Commons research briefing on immigrants working in the National Health Service out of 1.28 million members of staff, 1,380 declared that they were American. The largest single local cluster of Americans in the UK recorded by the 2001 UK Census was in Mildenhall in North-West Suffolk —the site of RAF Mildenhall and nearby RAF Lakenheath . This is because of
7140-442: The UK on 24 September 1966 at London Airport (now Heathrow Airport ). The African-American singer Edwin Starr , moved to the UK in the 1970s, and lived there until his death in 2003. The British politician and former Labour MP Oona King , is the daughter of the African-American civil rights academic Preston King . Meghan Markle , the Duchess of Sussex since her marriage to Prince Harry , kept her American citizenship and has
7259-476: The United Kingdom or American Britons are emigrants from the United States who are residents or citizens of the United Kingdom . Between the late 19th century and World War II , many so called " dollar princesses " married British aristocrats. They were mostly the daughters of newly rich American men, who married the men with aristocratic titles to improve the social standing of their family in America. In return, these American heiress brought their wealth in
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#17327945364627378-432: The United Kingdom. Andrew Tate is an American-British former professional kickboxer and social media influencer , was born in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. , then moved to United Kingdom . YouTuber Evan Edinger who does vlogs about the comparisons between the UK and the United States since moving to the UK in 2012, gained British citizenship in June 2021. African-American immigration to
7497-428: The United Kingdom: International School of Aberdeen was formerly the American School in Aberdeen. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American independent monster film directed by Eugène Lourié , with stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen . It is partly based on Ray Bradbury 's 1951 short story of the same name, which was later reprinted as " The Fog Horn ". In
7616-540: The armed-and-finned Kraken (a name borrowed from medieval Scandinavian folklore) he invented for Clash of the Titans has similar facial qualities to the Venusian Ymir he created 25 years earlier for 20 Million Miles to Earth . Perhaps because of his hermetic production style and the fact that he produced half of his films outside of Hollywood (living in London since 1960), reducing his day-to-day kinship with other more traditional, but still influential Hollywood effects artists, none of Harryhausen's films were nominated for
7735-402: The arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we're standing on the shoulders of a giant. If not for Ray's contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn't be who we are." John Walsh , author of Harryhausen: The Lost Movies , calls Harryhausen "the most influential stop-motion animator and special-effects wizard in cinema history." In November 2016 the BFI compiled
7854-417: The background and foreground of pre-shot live action footage into two separate images into which he would animate a model or models, seemingly integrating the live-action with the models. The background would be used as a miniature rear-screen with his models animated in front of it, re-photographed with an animation-capable camera to combine those two elements together, the foreground element matted out to leave
7973-402: The beast's neck wound with hopes of burning it from the inside, while at the same time neutralizing the contagion. When the Rhedosaurus comes ashore and reaches the Coney Island amusement park, military sharpshooter Corporal Stone takes a rifle grenade loaded with a potent radioactive isotope and along with Nesbitt climbs on board the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster. Riding the coaster to
8092-510: The best of the alien invasion films of the 1950s, and also a box office hit. In 1954, Irwin Allen had started work on a second feature-length documentary film, this one about animal life on land called The Animal World (completed in 1956). Needing an opening sequence about dinosaurs , Allen hired premier model animator Willis O'Brien to animate the dinosaurs, but then gave him a practically impossibly short production schedule. O'Brien again hired Harryhausen to help with animation to complete
8211-479: The box office, according to Harryhausen, who stated in the DVD and Blu-ray featurette about the making of Mysterious Island : " Mysterious Island was one of the most successful films that we made and I am glad people are still enjoying it today". And Gulliver "made its profits" as Ray is quoted in Jeff Rovin 's bio-book From The Land Beyond Beyond: The Making of the Movie Monsters You've Known and Loved – The Films of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen . His next film
8330-574: The color-balance-shift problems. Ray's producer/partner Charles H. Schneer coined the word Dynamation as a "merchandising term" (modifying it to "SuperDynaMation" and then "Dynarama" for some subsequent films). Harryhausen was always heavily involved in the pre-production conceptualizing of each film's story, script development, art-direction, design, storyboards, and general tone of his films, as much as any auteur director would have on any other film, which any "director" of Harryhausen's films had to understand and agree to work under. The complexities of
8449-603: The colorization of three films, two of them in partial tribute to their producer Merian C. Cooper , who had supervised King Kong , the film that inspired him as a young man: The Most Dangerous Game (1932), She (1935), and the non-Cooper film Things to Come (1936). Harryhausen married Diana Livingstone Bruce in October, 1962. The couple had a daughter, Vanessa. The family announced Harryhausen's death on Twitter and Facebook on May 7, 2013. Diana survived her husband by five months. The Daily Mirror quoted Harryhausen's website, saying his "influence on today's film makers
8568-401: The creature, and it wreaks havoc on the town. The film features a roping scene reminiscent of 1949's Mighty Joe Young (which was itself recycled from the old Gwangi storyboards), and a spectacular fire and animation sequence inside a cathedral toward the end of the film, combining multiple special effects. After a few lean years, Harryhausen and Schneer talked Columbia Pictures into reviving
8687-536: The creatures' restorations. It was funded by Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council . In July 2018, it was announced that the largest ever exhibition of Harryhausen's models and artwork would take place at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh , to mark the centenary of his birth. The exhibition is running for a year, from October 2020 until September 2021. Ultimately,
8806-558: The eight-minute sequence. It was Harryhausen's and O'Brien's first and only professional full-color work. ( Animal World is available on the DVD release of O'Brien's 1957 film The Black Scorpion .) Harryhausen then returned to Columbia and Charles Schneer to make 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), about an American spaceship returning from the planet Venus . The spaceship crashes into the sea near Sicily , releasing an on-board alien egg specimen which washes up on shore. The egg soon hatches
8925-621: The end of the Cold War, the highest proportion of Americans resident in the United Kingdom per head of population was centred on the Scottish seaside town of Dunoon , Argyll and Bute , the former site of the Holy Loch US Navy base. At its height in the early 1990s, around one quarter of Dunoon's population was American. In the 2000s, some Americans in the UK were older, ex-servicemen who returned to Britain after being based in
9044-518: The exhibition was extended to end in February 2022. The exhibition was the subject of a BBC iPlayer documentary entitled Culture in Quarantine , which featured interviews with Vanessa Harryhausen, Caroline Munro and Martine Beswick , as well as footage from Ray Harryhausen: Movement into Life . Many of Harryhausen's original latex models were repaired for this exhibition: in an interview with
9163-547: The film itself. A retrospective source indicated that Lourié had once said that a blacklisted screenwriter also worked on the film. It theorized that Robert Smith was that individual's pseudonym , and this is why Smith was only credited in the script. However, a screenwriter with that name is listed in the AFI catalog with credits dating back to 1945, two years before the Hollywood blacklist . According to historian Bill Warren ,
9282-474: The film, the Rhedosaurus , a giant dinosaur is released from its frozen state in the Arctic by an atomic bomb test. Paul Christian stars as Thomas Nesbitt, the foremost surviving witness of the creature before it causes havoc while traveling toward New York. Paula Raymond , Cecil Kellaway , and Kenneth Tobey are featured in supporting roles. Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester arranged the production of
9401-581: The film. The film was featured in the TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Sci-Fi Adventures DVD box set along with Them! , World Without End , and Satellite in the Sky (both 1956). It was also released on standalone DVD and Blu-ray. Since its release, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has been assessed as one of the greatest monster, science fiction, and horror films of the 1950s. It
9520-429: The first post-war release of monster movies in Japan, and these distributions presumably influenced productions of the first films of Godzilla and Gamera franchises. The film Cloverfield (2008), which also involves a giant monster terrorizing New York City, inserts a frame from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (along with frames from King Kong and Them! ) into the hand-held camera footage used throughout
9639-685: The form of dowries to the homes of the British aristocracy. The trend only slowed when the women of newly rich families, who had been shunned by the American high society, began to be accepted by them. During the Second World War, the first influx of American troops arrived in Britain on January 26, 1942 in Belfast , Northern Ireland . More than 1,600,000 American servicemen and servicewomen were in Great Britain by June 6, 1944, when
9758-427: The genre. TidalWave Productions ' Ray Harryhausen Signature Series produced authorized comic-book adaptions of some of Harryhausen's unrealized projects from 2007 on. In 2009, he released self-colorized versions on Blu-Ray video of three of his classic black-and-white Columbia films: 20 Million Miles to Earth , Earth vs. the Flying Saucers , and It Came from Beneath the Sea . He also personally supervised
9877-445: The giant monster film genre of the 1950s. It is considered the first live-action film to feature a giant monster unleashed by an atomic bomb. According to numerous retrospective sources, Ishirō Honda 's Godzilla (1954) was heavily inspired by the film and this concept. Its initial proposal was allegedly titled The Giant Monster from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ( 海底二万哩から来た大怪獣 , Kaitei ni man-mairu kara kita Daikaijū ) , and
9996-495: The giant monster genre "tiresome". In 1958, the Rhedosaurus model was reused by Harryhausen to portray the dragon in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad . Likewise, Lourié later directed two productions featuring fictitious giant dinosaurs. The Giant Behemoth (1958) was a British-American co-production panned by critics for its close resemblance to The Beast ; Lourié accused himself of plagiarizing from it when scripting. Gorgo (1961)
10115-492: The initial critical response as "respectable". Harrison's Reports described the film as a "fantastic horror-melodrama", adding that it is a "highly exciting thriller of its type". Hy Hollinger of Variety lauded Harryhausen's effects, Lourié 's direction, and the acting of Christian and Kellaway; he also felt the script and cinematography were documentary-like. Hollinger directed criticism towards Raymond's performance citing it as "too still" and "unconvincing". TCM said
10234-464: The last act. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has been analyzed as reflecting distress of the outcome of nuclear testing during the Atomic Age . Some believe that it is the first film to directly address this subject. Writers have also ofted noted how upon the bomb's detonation in the movie, one of the charcaters states: "Every time one of these things goes off, I feel as if we were helping to write
10353-555: The legacy of the Cold War and NATO cooperation. 17.28% of Mildenhall's population were born in the United States. In London, the majority of Americans are businesspeople and their families which ties in with the strong economic relations between the City of London and New York City or Washington, D.C. Chelsea (where 6.53% of residents were born in the US in 2001) and Kensington (5.81%) have large American communities. Prior to
10472-665: The newly formed School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California , where he would later serve as a lecturer. Meanwhile, he became friends with an aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury , with similar enthusiasms. Bradbury and Harryhausen joined the Los Angeles chapter of the Science Fiction League (now the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society ), Bradbury in 1937, Harryhausen in 1939, where they met Forrest J Ackerman ; and
10591-412: The original story by Shigeru Kayama featuring Godzilla destroying a lighthouse. However, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka claimed to have been ignorant of The Beast 's existence. Authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski noted how Japanese critics compared the two films but felt that Godzilla lacks direct resemblance to it. During his late life, Harryhausen expressed his belief that the original Godzilla film
10710-599: The period. The scenes utilising stop-motion animation (or model animation ), those featuring creatures on the island or Kong, were the work of pioneer model animator Willis O'Brien . His work in King Kong inspired Harryhausen, and a friend arranged a meeting with O'Brien for him. O'Brien critiqued Harryhausen's early models and urged him to take classes in graphic arts and sculpture to hone his skills. Taking O'Brien's advice, while still at high school, Harryhausen took evening classes in art direction, photography and editing at
10829-612: The public, the film was initially released only in the U.K., but was released on Blu-Ray in the U.S. in 2016. In February 2016, John Walsh and Collections Manager Connor Heaney began a podcast about all things Harryhausen, from the films to the various composers involved on the productions. Occasionally the podcast features interviews with fans, as well as insights into Harryhausen's models from Foundation model conservator Alan Friswell. The podcast has featured Mark Gatiss , John Cairney , Caroline Munro, and Vanessa Harryhausen. Some of Harryhausen's models and artworks were showcased as part of
10948-653: The rest of his life in England. (See Lamb House ). He was naturalised as a British subject in the final year of his life. T. S. Eliot left his family home in St. Louis , Missouri , to go to Harvard , in New England. From there he moved to Europe and stayed in Germany and France. When World War I began, he moved to Oxford , United Kingdom. He gained British citizenship and joined the Church of England . Wallis Simpson
11067-437: The review from The New York Times was "lukewarm". The reviewer wrote: "And though the sight of the gigantic monster rampaging through such areas as Wall Street and Coney Island sends the comparatively ant-like humans on the screen scurrying away in an understandable tizzy, none of the customers in the theater seemed to be making for the hills. On sober second thought, however, this might have been sensible". The Rhedosaurus
11186-405: The rights to Bradbury's story to avoid any potential legal problems. Also, the title was changed back to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms . Under that title, it became Harryhausen's first solo feature film effort, and a major international box-office hit for Warner Brothers . It was on The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms that Harryhausen first used a technique he created called "Dynamation" which split
11305-718: The same grave as Long Wolf's remains. Long Wolf and White Star Ghost Dog's coffins were repatriated to the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1997. Two years later, Paul Eagle Star's coffin was repatriated to the Rosebud Indian Reservation . Tribal descendants include John Black Feather (Long Wolf's great-grandson), Moses Eagle Star and Lucy Eagle Star (Paul Eagle Star's two grandchildren). Blackfoot Sioux chief Charging Thunder came to Salford at age twenty-six as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1903. Like many Lakota tribesmen, Charging Thunder
11424-418: The structure. Split-matte, in-camera special effects by Harryhausen effectively combined the live action of the actors and the roller coaster background footage from the Pike's parking lot with the stop-motion animation of the Beast's destroying a shooting miniature of the coaster. In a scene attempting to identify the Rhedosaurus , Professor Tom Nesbitt rifles through dinosaur drawings by Charles R. Knight ,
11543-480: The surviving fishermen identifies from a collection of drawings the very same dinosaur that Nesbitt saw. Plotting the sightings of the beast's appearances on a map for skeptical military officers, Elson proposes the dinosaur is returning to the Hudson River area, where fossils of Rhedosaurus were first found. In a diving bell search of the undersea Hudson River Canyon , Professor Elson is killed after his bell
11662-475: The systems necessary to maintain proper color balances for his DynaMation process, resulting in his biggest hit of the 1950s, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). The top-grossing film of that summer, and one of the top-grossing films of that year, Schneer and Harryhausen signed another deal with Columbia for four more color films. After The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and Mysterious Island (1961), both great artistic and technical successes, and successful at
11781-502: The three became lifelong friends. After studying art and anatomy at Los Angeles City College , Harryhausen secured his first commercial model-animation job, on George Pal's Puppetoons shorts, based on viewing his first formal demo reel of fighting dinosaurs from a project called Evolution , which was never finished, after Harryhausen saw Disney's Rite of Spring montage in Fantasia . During World War II , Harryhausen served in
11900-416: The time with Warner Bros., would write the film score. Steiner had written the landmark score for RKO's King Kong in 1933. Unfortunately for Harryhausen, Steiner had too many commitments, but Buttolph composed one of his more memorable and powerful scores, setting much of the tone for giant monster film music of the 1950s. Warner Bros. acquired the film for $ 400,000, $ 450,000, or $ 800,000 and launched
12019-557: The time, which was the second-largest ethnic group in British North America only after the English and as many as 30,000 slaves escaped to British lines. The largest regiment was the Black Pioneers who followed troops under Sir General Henry Clinton . Working as soldiers, labourers, pilots, cooks, and musicians, they were a major part of the unsuccessful British war effort. African Americans who fought against
12138-462: The top of the tracks to get to eye-level with the beast, he fires the isotope into its open neck wound. It thrashes about in reaction, causing the roller coaster to spark when falling to the ground, setting the amusement park ablaze. With the fire spreading rapidly, Nesbitt and Stone climb down as the park becomes engulfed in flames. The Rhedosaurus collapses and eventually dies from the isotope's radiation poisoning. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had
12257-453: The uncredited blacklisted screenwriter was Daniel James , who worked on Lourié's The Giant Behemoth (1959) and Gorgo (1961) under the pen name Daniel Hyatt. Some early pre-production conceptual sketches of the Beast showed that, at one point, it was to have a shelled head and later was to have a beak. Creature effects were assigned to Harryhausen, a protégé of King Kong co-creator Willis O'Brien . The film monster looks nothing like
12376-644: The use of an optical printer . Harryhausen's use of diffused glass to soften the sharpness of light on the animated elements allowed the matching of the soft background plates far more successfully than Willis O'Brien had achieved in his early films, allowing Harryhausen to match live and miniature elements seamlessly in most of his shots. By developing and executing most of this miniature work himself, Harryhausen saved money, while maintaining full technical control. A few years later, when Harryhausen began working with color film to make The 7th Voyage of Sinbad , he experimented extensively with color film stocks to overcome
12495-494: The various movie posters associated with Harryhausen's films from across the globe. In September 2019, Foundation trustee, Titan Books published a new book by Walsh, Harryhausen: The Lost Movies which delves into the hidden treasures of Ray's unrealised film projects. On the 15th September, a book launch and signing event was held at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, and was followed up with
12614-408: The working title Monster From the Sea . The filmmakers learned that a long-time friend of Harryhausen, writer Ray Bradbury , had sold a short story called "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (later re-titled " The Fog Horn ") to The Saturday Evening Post , about a dinosaur drawn to a lone lighthouse by its foghorn. Because the story for Harryhausen's film featured a similar scene, the film studio bought
12733-609: Was "a one-man industry and a one-man genre". The BBC also quoted Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright : "I loved every single frame of Ray Harryhausen's work ... He was the man who made me believe in monsters." In a full statement released by the family, George Lucas said, "Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars ". Terry Gilliam said, "What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits." James Cameron said, "I think all of us who are practitioners in
12852-492: Was a rip-off of The Beast , and allegedly disliked the Toho monster presumably due to the aftermath of the 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla . Harryhausen continued to gain popularity for his efforts on monster movies such as It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). He eventually decided to venture into other genres, accepting that Godzilla and other Japanese kaiju movies were making
12971-473: Was also nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list , and listed among the best B-movies of its decade by Collider and Screen Rant . On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 91% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. Harryhausen's stop-motion and special effects work in particular have continued to receive critical acclaim in retrospective reviews. Leonard Maltin cited Harryhausen's effects in
13090-502: Was also published. Harryhausen continued his lifelong friendship with Ray Bradbury until Bradbury's death in 2012. Another longtime close friend was Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine editor, book writer, and sci-fi collector Forrest J Ackerman , who loaned Harryhausen his photos of King Kong in 1933, right after Harryhausen had seen the film for the first time. Harryhausen also maintained his friendships with his longtime producer, Charles H. Schneer , who lived next door to him in
13209-692: Was an exceptional horseman and performed thrilling stunts in Buffalo Bill's show in front of huge crowds, on the site of what is now Lowry in Salford Quays. But when the show rolled out of town, he remained in the North West. He married Josephine, an American horse trainer who had just given birth to their first child, Bessie and together they settled in Darwen , before moving to Gorton . His name became George Edward Williams, after registering with
13328-410: Was announced that The Ray Harryhausen Award would be launched to celebrate Ray's influence on contemporary filmmakers and animators. The first awards ceremony took place on what would have been Ray's 102nd birthday, in June 2022. The movie Mad God won the inaugural award for best feature film, and six other winners were selected across a range of categories. American-British Americans in
13447-499: Was born on June 29, 1920, in Los Angeles , California , the son of Martha L. (née Reske) and Frederick W. Harryhausen. Of German descent, the family surname was originally spelled "Herrenhausen". After having seen King Kong (1933) on its initial release for the first of many times, Harryhausen spent his early years experimenting in the production of animated shorts, inspired by the burgeoning science fiction literary genre of
13566-648: Was buried at St George's Church in Gravesend afterwards. Her son Thomas Rolfe lived in England until the age of 20 before returning to Virginia. Lakota tribes arrived in England when they were part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show . Surrounded By the Enemy, a twenty-two-year-old Oglala gun-slinging and horse-riding stuntman and a year old boy named Red Penny died during the tour in 1887. Their interments were at West Brompton 's cemetery . Brulé tribesman Paul Eagle Star died after breaking his ankle when he fell off
13685-687: Was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg , James Cameron , Peter Jackson , George Lucas , John Landis and the U.K.'s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations." Harryhausen drew a distinction between films that combine special effects animation with live action and films that are completely animated, such those of Nick Park , Henry Selick , Ivo Caprino , Ladislav Starevich (and his own fairy tale shorts), which he saw as pure "puppet films", and which are more accurately (and traditionally) called "puppet animation". The BBC quoted Peter Lord of Aardman Animations , who wrote on Twitter that Harryhausen
13804-452: Was largely panned by dinosaur experts, who felt that its depiction was unrealistic. These viewers also complained that the filmmakers should have used an actual dinosaur instead of creating a fictional one. Lourié subsequently explained that the Rhedosaurus was created because the crew agreed that a regular dinosaur would not frighten modern-day audiences. The film's financially successful release and RKO's re-release of King Kong spawned
13923-406: Was popular with the new " Boomer-generation " audience, Harryhausen's love of the past, setting his stories in ancient fantasy worlds or previous centuries, kept him from keeping pace with changing tastes in the 1960s. Only a handful of Harryhausen's features have been set in then-present time, and none in the future. As this revolution in the traditional Hollywood film studio system, and the influx of
14042-666: Was the American-born wife of Anglo-American businessman Ernest Simpson before her marriage to the Duke of Windsor , formerly King Edward VIII . The latter famously abdicated in 1936, the same year he ascended the British throne; in order to marry her. Despite living primarily in France , she was buried next to her husband in the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore , the first American to be interred there. Zoë Wanamaker
14161-543: Was then followed in 2005 by The Art of Ray Harryhausen , featuring sketches and drawings for his many projects, some of them unrealized. In 2008, Harryhausen and Dalton published a history of stop-motion model animation, A Century of Model Animation , and, to celebrate Harryhausen's 90th birthday, the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation published Ray Harryhausen – A Life in Pictures . In 2011, Harryhausen and Dalton's last volume, called Ray Harryhausen's Fantasy Scrapbook ,
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