Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection
By Chris Hyde
March 28, 2005
Some little seen early shorts by the great stop motion craftsman Ray Harryhausen make their DVD debut.
For just about anyone with an interest in fantasy films, the name Ray Harryhausen should be a pretty familiar one. An animator who lent his skills to movies such as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Jason and the Argonauts and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Harryhausen was famed for the high quality tactile nature of his work, a skill which in the days before CGI wowed audiences for decades. Lesser known in this artist’s canon are some shorts that he made prior to his storied feature film career - but it was these fairy tale and war training outings that really got the man started.
Though not seen much outside of the classroom since their creation, Sparkhill DVD has now collected Harryhausen’s late '40s/early '50s series of fairy tales and Mother Goose stories for the first time in digital form. While the tales are at times a bit staid and might look a little primitive to eyes trained on the latest Pixar blockbuster, the historic value and innate charm of these films easily transcends their age. They’re also amazingly valuable for the early glimpse they give of the work of Harryhausen, and there is undoubtedly a noticeable improvement in the quality of the stop motion animation as the films go on.
The package of story shorts on the DVD special edition consists of nine films, of which four are from Mother Goose and the other five classic fairy tales. The earlier Mother Goose shorts are nearly silent and very simple in form — but the work already has that unmistakable Harryhausen feel to it. The fairy tales that follow are somewhat more advanced in technique and demonstrate that the artist’s style was maturing, so in films like Little Red Riding Hood you’ll notice a little less stiffness in the characters as well as a more confident means of direction overall. Here the camera is in motion quite often and the animation has a livelier sense to it.
The last of the fairy tales included is a version of The Tortoise and the Hare, and it bears particular mention due to its interesting history. This is a short that Harryhausen had begun in 1952 and then abandoned when he finally got his start in the world of feature films. But a pair of young animators (Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero) saw the excerpts that had been completed on a television show and contacted Harryhausen with the idea that they might finish the film. When he agreed, they then set out to reconstruct the original character of the short (luckily, most of the animation models still survived) and eventually completed the tale in 2002. The work they did is utterly faithful to the original and spectacularly matched to the 1950s fragments around which they stitched the new material — and the devoted nature of their animation stands not as cheap imitation but instead as loving tribute to someone both men obviously revere as an inspiration.
Releasing these nine films alone would have made this disc special for anyone interested in this great cinema artist; but there’s far more for the fan on this two-disc set. One segment here collects some 1940s work that Harryhausen did for the military and advertising worlds, consisting of training shorts and cigarette and real estate commercials. These are slightly different in style than what we’ve become accustomed to from the animator and really give great insight into his early development. The Army shorts are particularly fascinating for the nature of the stop motion on display and the peek into the sort of thing that their creator cut his teeth on. The commercial work is somewhat less distinguished overall (honestly now, how seriously can you take a character named Kenny Key?) but still have the animator’s typical flair giving them life.
Also included on Disc One is perhaps the most worthwhile batch or rarities for the animation historian: a collection of rare test footage and other material from projects that were never completed. Some of these have been long sought after by collectors, such as the bits of the dinosaur film Evolution that Harryhausen created in the '30s and that he utilized to gain employment in the cinema world. There is also some stuff in this segment that will make you weep imagining just what might have been if the animator had somehow gotten to create what look to have been incredible ideas. Notable in this instance are the drawings detailing a Poe story and a version of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; there’s also a brief stop motion snippet and some drawings of a War of the Worlds adaptation that I would have far rather seen made than a Spielberg/Cruise blockbuster.
As if all the above wasn’t enough to satisfy us all, Sparkhill includes an almost absurd amount of other bonus extras that complete the set. In fact, there’s so much here that it’s necessary to give it all short shrift so as not to run this review out to a couple thousand words! There’s a featurette and commentary track on The Tortoise and the Hare, an alternate ending for one of the military training films, footage of Harryhausen getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a roundtable interview with fellow fantasy giants Ray Bradbury and Forrest J. Ackerman, a narrative on the restoration of the work by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and another interview or two. Is that it? Nope, as there’s also some information on Harryhausen’s sculptural work (including a piece on a statue of David Livingstone that he designed that now stands in Scotland), some extensive photo galleries and a segment full of tributes that contains a video birthday card with heartfelt appreciations by people like Peter Jackson, Joe Dante and James Cameron.
Basically, then, this Special Edition contains such a plethora of Harryhausen-related arcana that its purchase should be a no-brainer for anyone with an interest in either the man himself or the history of animation in general. This brilliant pioneer’s work is of such high caliber that it has inspired many of the directors and animators who make films today, and even his earliest shorts display a mastery of the medium with which few can ever hope to compete. It also seems somehow fitting that this wonderful tribute has hit the marketplace just as the newest version of King Kong is being filmed for the next generation of youngsters to stare at in slackjawed amazement - for in the same manner that Jackson’s craft was informed by the influence of this animator so was Harryhausen’s work driven by his early experience of the great Merion C. Cooper/Willis O’Brien original. Certainly again, as the stop motion art comes full circle and meets the world of CGI in a new piece of modern cinema there will be some future great artist who will take his or her inspiration from this latest application of the art of animation to the world entertainment. And while this ever present renewal of the means of creation stands as a common feature of all artistic endeavor through time, in this particular case one suspects that without Ray Harryhausen this circle may have closed long ago.
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