helpful illustrations). Thanks to his innovations, he was able to prosper during the monster-on-the-loose cycle under faithful producer Charles H. Schneer (his collaborator on nearly every film thereafter); and as the decade drew to a close, Harryhausen finally fine-tuned his techniques for color (doesn’t sound like much, but it proved to be a near- Herculean task) and finally reinvented his oeuvre with THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958), the first of many legend and myth-derived fantasies. With few exceptions, each film in the Harryhausen canon receives its own lengthy chap- ter, though some titles, like the Columbia films of the 1950s and the dinosaur films of the ’60s, are grouped together. In addition to revealing the minute details of his effects (not only will you learn how the Gwangi roping sequence was achieved, but if you ever wanted to know how the rocket
ship’s shadow was cast in 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, this is your big day), the author gives thor- ough accounts of his involvement in all stages of production, from the writing and location scout- ing (he loves the word “Recce”) to the shooting, scoring and marketing. But rather unexpectedly, some of the book’s most intriguing sections syn- opsize early-draft scripts, which often contained concepts later deemed too wild or ambitious. Through pre-production art and storyboard samples, the reader is left to dream about the giant rats that were to rule subterranean Colossa in 7th VOYAGE (they were cut for fear of being too scary); Captain Nemo’s spider-like mining machine
and the man-eating plant of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND; the giant moth that rescues the heroes of FIRST MEN IN THE MOON; the nightmarish Val-
ley of the Vipers during the GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (Harryhausen was forever trying to in-
corporate a giant snake in his pictures, only Schneer wouldn’t allow it due to his hatred of the
animals); and the wood-eating worm of SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER that is loosed upon the hero’s ship from a giant clam shell by the evil witch Zenobia’s faithful “zomboids”! Additionally, Harryhausen covers the many stillborn projects of his career in this book’s final, profusely illus- trated chapter, an “A-Z of Unrealized Ideas.” These run the gamut from the infamous SINBAD GOES TO MARS to more unknown and unimaginable projects, including an aborted CONAN and THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.
Though he is more concerned with covering his craft than dishing out gossip, Harryhausen does offer an occasional juicy anecdote: he is generally full of praise for his directors (particularly Nathan “Jerry” Juran and Gordon Hessler, the latter of whom
“possessed a constructive and positive feel for fan- tasy”), but mentions a certain naïve director (un- named, alas) who actually tried to have him fired from his own film! There was also the time he and his family were shopping at Harrods and were scolded by an elderly woman who did not find the bundled-up Gwangi model in daughter Vanessa’s push-cart the least bit amusing (“It’s a good job she didn’t know what other creatures lurked in the house!”). He’s also refreshingly candid about failed effects and missed opportunities (usually, but not always, the result of never having enough money at his disposal), chastising himself for not pitting the evil Minoton against the sympathetic Troglodyte for the climax of EYE OF THE TIGER (“I can only blame myself for this”), and expressing dismay over the
dramatically anemic virgin sacrifice of CLASH OF THE TITANS (“It seems to lack... a visual sense that we are witnessing the wrath of the gods”). Though he is thankful for his Gordon E, Sawyer technical- achievement Oscar of 1992, Harryhausen vents frustration, as he should, over the Academy’s con- tinual refusal to even nominate his pictures: “The
committee members thought Kali [from GOLDEN VOYAGE] was a full-sized mechanical statue! I don’t believe the Academy ever really took our work seriously or judged stop-motion animation fairly.” The book is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of eye-popping drawings and stills, ensuring hours upon hours of thumbing pleasure; and yet, I can’t help but grouse over a few late chapters—par-
ticularly those devoted to THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and GOLDEN VOYAGE—which seem less inspired pic-
torially. More than once, the author refers to an extremely rare photograph, and for some unfath- omable reason it’s presented at the size of a post- age stamp! The writing is straightforward and unpretentious, and rather sensible at explaining difficult, technical concepts to the layman; how- ever, it should be noted that there is an unfortu- nate breakdown of sentence structure during a side-bar story on p. 69, and hardcore fans have noted some rather uncomfortably close paraphras- ing of texts from older magazine articles. Initially published in the UK, the book is now available in a US edition that boasts superior cover
art: the quintessential image of Talos from JA- SON AND THE ARGONAUTS, towering over the fleeing men of the Argo. All-in-all, AN ANIMATED LIFE is one of the major books of this or any year— as precious as a golden fleece, as dazzling as the beam of the Arimaspi and, like a drink from the Fountain of Destiny, quite able to restore a jaded cinéaste’s youth.
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