Ray Harryhausen, Part II
July 13, 2007

Here’s the second part of my recent conversation with legendary stop-motion special effects craftsman Ray Harryhausen on the occasion of Sony's upcoming release of a 50^th Anniversary DVD Edition of the 1957 sci-fi flick 20 Millions Miles to Earth (Street: July 31, $24.95 srp).

VB: On the new DVD, there’s a supplemental piece where you have a sit-down with filmmaker Tim Burton, who’s often said that he’s a big fan of your work.

HARRYHAUSEN: Yes, yes. We visited his studio back when he was producing his stop-motion movie The Nightmare Before Christmas.

VB: He’s a disciple of yours in a way as he’s keeping the spirit of stop-motion animation alive.

VB: That’s one of my favorite Harryhausen sequences! Are there any other nation

al monuments you wished you had a chance to destroy in a film but were never given the opportunity?

HARRYHAUSEN: I made new ruins among the old in Rome and that was enough.

VB: I imagine that when you’re changing channels on the television you bump into your old films from time to time.

HARRYHAUSEN: Sometimes, yes, and at any and all times of the day or night.

VB: That must give you a nice feeling.

HARRYHAUSEN: I’m happy that my low-budget, ‘B’ pictures have sustained all these years where ‘A’ pictures have fallen off by the wayside. Our pictures, particularly the mythologies and fantasies, seem to survive a long time because they don’t feel like they’re dated. And many of them seem to be more appreciated today than they were when they came out.

VB: Are there plans to colorize any of your films from that era. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, perhaps, or It Came from Beneath the Sea?

HARRYHAUSEN: Earth vs. The Flying Saucer is up next. We’re going to colorize it and restore it. We’ve done tests on 20,000 Fathoms and that may come later. And we’ll eventually get to It Came From Beneath the Sea as well. So we have that to look forward to.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on July 13, 2007 | Comments (0)