One of the best points that Peter Biskind's book Easy Rider, Raging Bulls made is that thanks to the success of films by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Hollywood went from darker, more personal films in the 1970s, to essentially return to making pulpy Republic-style serials. Except instead of Flash Gordon spaceships on fishing wire, the budgets, and (when the films connected with an audience) the box office returns were astronomical.
As a result, concepts that would have been B-movies in Hollywood prior to the late 1970s became the norm. Indeed, Steven Spielberg admitted that when shot Raiders of the Lost Ark "I made it as a B-movie... I didn't see the film as anything more than a better made version of the Republic serials." The films of Lucas and Spielberg, such as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and E.T., each of which grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, were built on the efforts of special effects pioneers such as Ray Harryhausen.
Born in Los Angeles, Harryhausen was inspired by the seminal 1933 King Kong; he was 12 when the film was released, and said:
King Kong haunted me for years, I came out of the theatre in another world. I'd never see anything like that before in my life. I didn't know how it was done and that was half the charm. I didn't just say "eureka, I've found what I want to do"; that came over a period of time. But I'd done a few dioramas in clay of the Bre tar pits and I saw in King Kong how you could make them move. Luckily a friend of my father's worked at RKO and he knew all about stop-motion, so I started experimenting in my garage.
Building on those intense early efforts, Harryhausen devoted his career in film to filming miniatures, stop-motion animation, and other complex special effects, many decades before digital effects were even a gleam in George Lucas's eye. He eventually put his craftsmanship to work producing and/or supervising the special effects for Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and One Million Years, B.C., among many other films.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Thansk Ed, very interesting. I'm not sure how I missed UFO, must have watching someting else.
2 - JR
I think you were watching somewhere else. It was a British series.
3 - Ed Driscoll
JR,
Indeed it was. However, in the States, CBS picked it up to run for a season on Saturday nights (at 7:00 PM, I believe) in 1971 and then it ran perennially in syndicated afternoon reruns throughout the 1970s. The Sci-Fi channel dusted it off for a couple of years, when that channel debuted on cable in the mid-1990s.
Ed
4 - Jim Carruthers
UFO scared the crap out of me, especially the liquid oxygen used by the space astronauts. And the phones.
But the best tribute to Harryhausen is Evil Dead 3.
5 - Joe
I actually had the UFO lunchbox! Well, it was a handmedown, but still. Gerry Anderson also was the creator of Space 1999 (I still carry a torch for the woman with the chocolate chip eyebrows) as well as the guy responsible for Supermarionation, Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds and all that other cheezy goodness.
6 - Jim Carruthers
The only lunchbox I own is a "Milk And Cheese" tin box. Ghod knows what that will do to me down the years. And it isn't even a good size to keep booze in.
And you don't even want to know the kerfuffle posting a year ago about the live action Thunderbirds movie.
7 - harry larry
awesome stuff man!