What Ray Harryhausen taught me

While we’re on the subject of stop-motion animation, today just happens to be the birthday of the granddaddy of them all (well, after Willis O’Brien that is).

7th voyage of sinbad poster

Yes, Ray Harryhausen, the man who gave us the wonderful creatures that inhabit films such as The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, the original Clash of the Titans, and, of course, Jason and the Argonauts, is 90 of the Queen’s years old.

Long before the shiny and sparkly CGI was used to divert the attention from a lack of character development and plot, Harryhausen was providing the special effects that brought to life mechanical Minotaurs, giant Cyclops, towering Krakens and an army of skeletons.

So many different fantastical creations… in fact, too many to mention here. And it was these enchanted embodiments of evil, lumbering leviathans and dastardly denizens of the deep, along with Doctor Who and Star Wars, that first sparked a young Jeffman’s imagination and instilled in him a love of the impossible, the fantastic, and the out of this world.

The promise of a Sinbad film, or another similar genre piece, on the TV at Christmas, Easter or any other school holiday was always a highlight. More often than not featuring the result of Harryhausen’s handiwork, these magical films played a part in fashioning the aspirations I once held and whereas others my age wanted to be footballers, firemen or whatever, I wanted to be a writer and create worlds like this for myself. Ones as far from the reality as it was possible to get.

Let’s not dwell on how that would go on to play out; after all, you make your own luck in this world… apparently.

But thankfully the love of the fantastic never went away. Every now and then one of these films will be shown on Channel 4 or Film4, of a morning or afternoon, and I’ll still try to catch it (although the cowboy meets dinosaur-fest that is The Valley of the Gwangi, never seems to get shown). Of course, it all looks very dated now, but as a collector of old Doctor Who DVDs, I’m desensitised to the occasional dicey effect or three. It’s not that which counts anyway, it’s the connection to my childhood that’s hardcoded into me and the nostalgia such films evoke.

It’s probably even played a small part in the music I listen to, courtesy of the trippily outlandish worlds of psychedelia, folk and progressive rock.

We had Doug McClure battling a giant Octopus in The Warlords of Atlantis (granted, not one of Harryhausen’s creations), what have the kids of today got? Blurred vision from watching too much Avatar.

And just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a four minute compilation of Harryhausen’s work. Allegedly every creature he has ever brought to life: