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MIGHTY JOE YOUNG which employed the same stop-action animation techniques used in KING KONG, was Ray Harryhausen's first feature film. The twenty-seven-year-old Harryhausen, who was hired by Willis O'Brien to aid in the preparation of drawings and other menial tasks, ended up doing most of the film's animation.
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Producers Jack Dietz and Hal Chester originally offered their independent film, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, which they made for $285,000, to RKO, but the studio declined the offer. Warner Bros., interested in entering the science fiction market, then paid $400,000 for the film. The studio budgeted an additional $250,000 for a coast-to-coast radio and television ad campaign preceding a 500-city rollout for the film.
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Mr. Harryhausen has been a part of my life almost as long as I have memories -- I saw his films in theaters as soon as I could attend on my own at around age 5 -- either during special Saturday Afternoon Matinees -- or first run like "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." Each new film was an event for me -- something to cherish and remember. Back then you could only see a film a couple times (sometimes only once) -- then it retreated into memory -- only enhanceable by comic books, still photos, or soundtrack albums.
Those memories are extremely precious and rare in that they retain their clarity and emotional immediacy so many years later.
Thank you Mr. Harryhausen. You changed my life for the better. My condolences to your family and friends.
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The working titles of this film were "Attack of the Flying Saucers," "Invasion of the Flying Saucers" and "Flying Saucers from Outer Space." Actor Paul Frees provided periodic voice-over narration throughout the story.
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I grew up in an area where the television reception was spotty. In those pre-cable days, we generally were able to see only three of the four local stations. But sometimes, when the conditions were right, that fourth channel became viewable. One of those nights was a Saturday, when the station was running its late-night Chiller Theater. There, through just a little bit of interference, I was able to view this fascinating black-and-white monster movie--THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS.
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"Great scientific advances are often times sudden accomplished facts before most of us are even dimly aware of them. Breathtakingly unexpected, for example, was the searing flash that announced the atomic age. Equally unexpected was the next gigantic stride when men moved out of his very orbit to a point more than 20 million miles to earth."
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Dinosaur fossils seen at the beginning of the prehistoric era sequence in THE ANIMAL WORLD were filmed during one week of shooting at the Museum of Natural History in New York. For that sequence, Ray Harryhausen and Willis O’Brien were hired to work with stop-motion cameraman Harold Wellman. Among the scenes recreated by Harryhausen and O’Brien are sequences of a hatching Brontosaurus, dinosaurs fighting, and a dinosaur eating a human, which, the narrator explains, would have happened if man lived during the Jurassic era. The twelve-minute sequence took seventy-three days to shoot,
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I was ten years old when my dad took me to see Jason And The Argonauts, and I was never the same after that. I'm 60 now, and I still adore Ray's work. I had the pleasure of meeting him, Charles Schneer and Beverley Cross over Memorial Day weekend in 1977.
The man lived his dreams, shared those dreams with the world, and inspired generations of young dreamers to do the same. He will always be an inspiration to me.
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