Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
One of my earliest and fondest movie memories has me watching a black-and-white double-bill creature-feature. I was about six years of age, armed with a melting bowl of ice-cream as I watched Ray Harryhausen’s giant sea monster attack San Francisco from the comfort and safety of an elaborate pillow-fort. It Came From Beneath the Sea (Robert Gordon, 1955) was followed by Attack of the Crab Monsters (Roger Corman, 1957). Did I notice that Harryhausen’s “octopus” only had six tentacles instead of eight, so as to save money on the budget? Or the wheels and legs under Corman’s giant crabs? No. In both cases I was equally thrilled and terrified by these nightmarish visions of giant and deadly sea creatures attacking puny humans. Also thrilling to me is the idea that 25 years later that kid would “grow up” (something I still have to put in quotes even now) and fly Ray Harryhausen out to Boulder as a special guest to introduce a beautiful, mint-condition 35mm print of It Came From Beneath the Sea, alongside separate presentations of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Nathan Juran, 1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963). TCM will be screening those titles, and many others bearing Harryhausen’s fingerprints, this Tuesday morning on through the afternoon.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
As I was thinking about Ray Harryhausen, it occurred to me that somewhere I might still have a recording of an interview that had been arranged in anticipation of his visit. I was clearly ill-prepared that summer morning in 1998 for I had no blank tapes at hand. I’m not sure how I wound up with a commercial cassette tape of Whitesnake‘s “Saints & Sinners” album, which still had the price sticker on it ($3.99), but I was more than happy to tape over Side 1 (“Rough An’ Ready”, “Crying in the Rain”, etc.) in favor of hearing what Mr. Harryhausen had to say to the DJ for Boulder’s local classic-rock radio station, KBCO, as part of the ‘BCO Morning Show.
Cut to this Sunday winter morning here in 2015 and, after fumbling around my closet this morning for about a half-hour, I found the tape. Now the question was… would it still play 17 years later? Would it be garbled? Curious and a bit nervous, I rewind side one and press the play button. It starts off in the middle of a Pearl Jam song and I am relieved because this is A) definitely the ’90s and B) not Whitesnake. Then comes the incredibly depressing morning news as a female announcer talks about “Three people found dead in Jefferson County condominiums… Baby manslaughter charges… Ruptured breast implants… Beanie-Babie brouhaha…” and a slew of other reminders as to why giant cephalopods and crabs are infinitely more interesting than humans. Mercifully, the morning news comes to an end as “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve comes on, and then… showtime:
DJ: The great Ray Harryhausen who has influenced the way all of us think and dream is with us live on the ‘BCO Morning Show, live from his home in London, and it’s a pleasure to talk to you sir, welcome to the ‘BCO Morning Show.
RH: Thank you.
DJ: I grew up with your movies.
RH: You’ve seen most of them, I take it?
DJ: Yes sir, a lot of us have. You’re definitely part of our subconscious.
RH: Oh, my goodness. I never dreamt when we started to make them it would end up influencing so many people.
DJ: You’re in town this weekend for screenings of It Came from Beneath the Sea, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Which is your favorite of those movies, Mr. Harryhausen?
RH: The Golden Voyage. I think it’s a better picture than the black-and-white period where we had to cut corners in order to make the pictures.
DJ: Do you have any current favorite films, anything you’ve seen recently at the cinema?
RH: Well, I don’t go to the cinema very often. They’re all too violent for me and it’s all about down-beat subjects and I find that very depressing.
DJ: What is missing from today’s movies?
RH: Storyline. A good storyline that you can follow. So many of the films you see today are short on continuity and story in favor of an explosion every five minutes.
DJ: Oh, so you saw Armageddon as well, huh?
RH: Not yet, no, it hasn’t been over here, no.
DJ: I saw it yesterday.
RH: You saw it? How is it?
DJ: Well, you just reviewed it perfectly. You have seen it, I guess it what I’m saying.
RH: No, I haven’t.
DJ: No, but in your words you have seen it.
RH: There’s no hope if we have to destroy the world now.
DJ: What’s the best screen monster in film history, Mr. Harryhausen?
RH : King Kong! Who else? The original, not the remake.
DJ: Not the Dino De Laurentiis job, eh?
RH: Oh, please, we don’t mention that in the same breath.
DJ: You know I went to the movies yesterday and saw the trailer for the new Mighty Joe Young film.
RH: Oh, yes.
DJ: That looks like a very interesting picture because they give the monster some emotion.
RH: Yes, he’s much bigger than our Mighty Joe when we made him in 1948 with Willis O’Brien and Merian Cooper. He’s much larger and it’s a different type of story. Our story was more of an animal taken out of its element and put up on display in a nightclub. Whereas this is more animal conservation.
DJ: It’s a privilege and a pleasure to talk to you Mr. Harryhausen… flying in from London to Boulder this weekend if you want to get a chance to meet the guy who influenced the way we dream. In fact, let’s present this Eric Clapton song in Dino-rama now on 97.3 KBCO!
The DJ then starts playing… “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton. Really? I doubt Mr. Harryhausen ever heard the interview, but I’m sure he would have been appalled. Especially as I remember picking him up from the airport a few days later and getting an earful about what he thought was wrong with the world today. I was surprised to find out that in his estimation the point at which western civilization started going south could be blamed on the rise of The Beatles. But I should not have been surprised. Mr. Harryhausen was a gentleman from a different time and place where monsters ruled the world, not long-haired musicians who dabbled with drugs and permissive lifestyles. Me being a fan of both The Beatles and Mr. Harryhausen I decided not to push the conversation further. He had flown all the way from England to Colorado for an embarrassingly small honorarium that had only allowed for economy seats for both him and his delightful wife, Diana. During the weekend of activities he was courteous and kind to all the excited people who showed up to see his movies, along with some of the props that he had brought, and he was gracious to a fault. He passed away May 7th, 2013, at 92 and, for what it’s worth, he outlived half of The Beatles.
Clik here to view.
Ray Harryhausen in my living room (1998).