Ray Harryhausen turned 90 years old on June 29th.
If the name isn’t familiar to you, Harryhausen was the master of stop motion animation, creating a bounty of some of the most imaginative motion pictures of the 50s, 60s and 70s. While crude by today’s CGI standards of cinematic effects, Harryhausen’s work was nothing short of magic on the screen.
I grew up watching Harryhausen movies on TV and in the theater, and still enjoy his creations today. From the alien attack in Earth vs the Flying Saucers, the fiece Ymir of 20 Million Miles to Earth to Jason and the Argonauts and the various Sinbad movies, Ray Harryhausen brought his fantastical creations to life one painstaking frame at a time.
As a tribute to his genius, I want to share this video montage of his creations with you all.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Harryhausen. Thanks for the magic.
I remember watching Harryhausen’s movies on TV with my dad Sunday afternoons after we got back from church. In the 80′s one of the local channels would play old sci-fi and fantasy movies, and I was always fascinated by all the stop-motion monsters and aliens in Harryhausen’s work. The way they moved was just so cool. There’s a scene in “Jason and the Argonauts” where the Argonauts are attacked by about 10 animated skeleton warriors, and it’s still unbelievable to me how Ray was able to synchronize the fighting of the real actors with that of his skeletal army. Amazing stuff!
Thanks for the blog and for bringing back some fond memories!
I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Mr Harryhausen on two occasions. Once when he came and gave a talk when I worked for Disney Animation and once at SDCC at a Gentle Giant event in his honor.
I also got to see some of his original puppets.
He’s such a fascinating, nice guy. A legend and a pioneer. He made dinosaurs real to many of us.
I meet him once at a local convention for all of 2 min. I had a lot to ask him but i turned in a big fan boy and just said i like your work shook his hand and went on my way. I just loved all of his work i to watch on either sat or sunday moovies ran on the local tv staion here in St. Louis.