Happy Saint Joseph's Day, 2023 -- March 19, 2023

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Happy Saint Joseph's Day to my fellow Joes. One of my favorite movie Joes is Mighty Joe Young. Willis O'Brien led the animation team and Ray Harryhausen did much of the animating. Ernest B Schoedsack directed and his frequent partner Merian C Cooper wrote the script. 

Terry Moore takes her pet gorilla Joe Young to Hollywood in an attempt to save the family ranch. Robert Armstrong plays his usual hustler, who tries to market Joe. The scene where the orphanage burns at the end makes my eyes water.

Full Color Monster Movies -- August 17, 2021

Vampirella 37, 1974

When I was young, I read Warren Publishing magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland and Vampirella. The magazines always carried ads for back issues, posters and movies. I didn't have a film projector, so I read the ads with envy. Eventually, I got a Super-8 projector, but I didn't have enough money to buy any of these films. A friend had Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and I was fascinated by the way it had been cut down to less than 20 minutes. 

Here they offered a selection of short color films sampled from two Ray Harryhausen movies.

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I remember reading Ray Harryhausen's account of making The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad in Famous Monsters of Filmland. The battle with the skeletons was particularly hard to animate. 

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Jason and the Argonauts featured more fighting skeletons and a bronze giant.

Ray Harryhausen 100 -- June 29, 2020

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Animator Ray Harryhausen was born 100 years ago today, on 29-June-1920.  I remember seeing The Mysterious Island on television when I was very young.  I later read in Famous Monsters of Filmland, I think, that Harryhausen and his wife went out to dinner and he brought home the crab shell to use in the movie. 

I loved Mighty Joe Young.  I liked It Came From Beneath the Sea with its 8-legged octopus and scenes shot in San Francisco.  I saw Clash of the Titans and some of the Sinbad movies in the theater.  When I got a Super 8 camera, I tried to do some object animation.  It only showed me how difficult it is to do what Ray Harryhausen did.