SIMPLY THE BEAST
A new exhibition celebrates Ray Harryhausen, the cinema special effects genius who brought to life mythical monsters, warrior skeletons and a range of creepy creatures to thrill us all
WHILE we had Action Men and Barbies to play with, Vanessa Harryhausen had dinosaurs, Medusa, skeletons and the many-headed Hydra.
Vanessa is the daughter of influential American film maker Ray Harryhausen – who created the iconic stop motion model special effects for films such as Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.
Growing up, she was allowed to play with the now famous latex model creatures her father made.
To Vanessa they were “pets”. She said: “The creatures like Medusa or the skeletons never gave me nightmares. This sounds a bit weird but they were part of the family.”
To mark the century of his birth this year, a landmark exhibition of his work will feature at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. It’s the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of the legendary film-maker’s legacy.
Ray Harryhausen – Titan of Cinema will include the models of his creatures and his connection to Scotland. His wife Diana was the great-great-granddaughter of Scottish explorer David Livingstone and one of his final projects was designing a statue of the legendary missionary being attacked by a lion.
Vanessa, who has lived in Scotland for 30 years, is proud that the country will host the biggest exhibition curated from more than 50,000 objects kept by her father, who died in 2013 aged 92. She said: “He’d be tickled it was in Scotland. My Dad loved Scotland. He was very interested in the Loch Ness monster.
“If he hadn’t retired from making movies after Clash of the Titans in 1981 something would have happened about that.
“He loved the Highlands and the family’s connection to Scotland through David Livingstone. He wanted to honour my mum’s ancestry because he loved the story of Livingstone so designed Livingstone’s Lion as a small sculpture which Gareth Knowles made into a life size sculpture you can see in the grounds of the David Livingstone Centre in
Blantyre.” Vanessa, who lives near Kinross, south of Perth, has also written a book to go with the exhibition – postponed from May due to the coronavirus.
Ray was a hoarder but also was adamant his drawings, art work and the priceless models wouldn’t be broken up so created the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation in 1986 to look after his extensive collection and allow it to be studied by film-makers and enjoyed by us all. Many of the models have been restored for the exhibition.
Ray’s fascination for film began in LA when he went to see King Kong aged 13. The following year he made his own version of the monster and found his
career path when the film’s animator Willis O’Brien became his mentor. His first major film was animating the gorilla in 1949’s Mighty Joe Young.
Ray’s The first Beast film from in charge 20,000 was Fathoms 1953’s for which he used his Dynamation technique, splitting the models with live action footage.
His skill, and what makes his films still stand up against CGI blockbusters now, was to bring creatures to life and give them personalities. He said: “I want people to see Cyclops, not just an actor with one eye glued to his forehead.”
In his three Sinbad films – 1958’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1973’s The Golden
Voyage of Sinbad and 1977’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, he gave us some of cinema’s most iconic creatures – the Cyclops, the six-armed statue of Kali, the griffin and the troglodyte. He gave us believable dinosaurs in 1966’s One Million Years B.C. which starred Raquel Welch. Jason and the Argonauts in 1963 featured a sword fight with skeleton warriors and Clash of the Titans in 1981 included Medusa and the Kraken.
Vanessa said: “At the end of Clash he was getting tired and knew computer animation was coming in. But he was happy with that. Doing animation takes a very, very long time and it does wear on a person.” Some of the greatest directors of modern times were inspired by Ray’s work. There were homages to Ray in films such as Wallace & Gromit, which he loved, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Mars Attacks! and even Monsters, Inc.
George Lucas claims without Ray there would have been no Star Wars and used stop-motion for the mechanical Walkers in The Empire Strikes Back.
Ray Harryhausen: Titan of the Cinema starts on Saturday and runs until September 5, 2021 at the Scottish National Gal l e ry of Modern Art.