Every Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster ever, in one video

[Video Link]. As Mark explained in a prior BB post, "Ray Harryhausen is a stop-motion-animation wizard who is widely regarded as the master of old-school special effects."

(via Aaron-Stewart Ahn)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: movies • Old school • Vintage Weird

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Prospero761

Ray is one of the many reasons I love movies as much as I do. And oddly, today’s CGI FX aren’t nearly as exciting as Harryhausen’s clay, fabric and wire monsters and beasties.
Vanwall

KILL! KILL! KILL THEM ALL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yYeZMx1Y7U
Anonymous

Reply to Anonymous #26

Agreed that the animation is a bit jerky and the monsters are lumpy. Movies like King Kong and Harryhausen’s relied heavily on the suspension of disbelief. You have to just eat your popcorn and “go with it”.

When you consider that he was working virtually alone as opposed to the vast FX crews on today’s movies, its quite an accomplishment.
Anonymous

technically these aren’t all his stop-motion monsters, ever — you’ve gotta include his home-made experiments and his fairy tale short features! yes, they’re short and intended for children, but they’re nevertheless very nice and definitely recommended for fans:

http://www.amazon.com/Ray-Harryhausen-Early-Years-Collection/dp/B00079RC00

what’s super awesome is that one short, “the tortoise and the hare,” was never completed — until a pair of young animators contacted the man himself and asked if they could, and he agreed:

http://www.screen-novelties.com/tnh/

for those interested in stop-motion and harryhausen’s legacy, there’s a new sinbad movie that’s being created using dynamation — harryhausen’s not involved to my knowledge, but it seems like a lovely tribute from what little there is to see so far:

http://www.sinbadthemovie.com/

yes, i’m one of those harryhausen nerds, as is my husband, who has a little stop-motion experience. given space and time we’d love to make things like these!
jeligula

That was fantastic. I named as many as I could, which I am certain was less than some. That soundtrack was physically painful. 30 Seconds of it is quite enough.
Lsamsa

Oh my…this takes me right back to my childhood!
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad & Jason & the Argonauts…two that were spectacular!!
What an amazing talent he had.
Thanks for posting this…wonderful!!
Anonymous

Three words: RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!
Anonymous

Some of that footage wasn’t Harryhausen, it was Jim Danforth’s from 1000000 years BC.
- Chinese Jet Pilot
  
  One Million Years B.C. is a Ray Harryhausen film, really.
  
  However, Jim Danforth did animate Pegasus in Clash of the Titans.
Anonymous

You know, this is great and I remember seeing a lot of these images over the years. But what I would prefer hear is some kind of commentary over the top of the video rather than the music. I mean I like the drums and all but it doesn’t tell me anything.

Thanks for putting this together.
Anonymous

What’s truly amazing is that he never got any better. From King Kong to the Kraken, still the same poorly made models and stiff frame by frame animation. Am I the only one who could never stand this guy?
- daneyul
  
  >>What’s truly amazing is that he never got any better. From King Kong to the Kraken, still the same poorly made models and stiff frame by frame animation.
  
  Poorly made models? Compared to…what?
  
  I absolutely love his work. What I couldn’t stand was the cheesy actors and plots his movies always were cursed with…but it was always worth enduring the cringe worthy acting for those brief scenes of awe.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  No. No, you’re not. I could never figure out why I was supposed to be frightened by some lumpy versions of Davey and Goliath.
- Tzctboin
  
  “What’s truly amazing is that he never got any better. From King Kong to the Kraken, still the same poorly made models and stiff frame by frame animation. Am I the only one who could never stand this guy?”
  
  Short answer: Yes.
  
  Long answer: yes, you dimwit.
- grikdog
  
  The Medusa’s main gripe always seemed to be “Who killed my sister? Was it you?”
  
  My Asbergian childhood was drowned in angst, wondering why Godzilla would never die. Harryhausen clued me in: Box office. Quality didn’t matter if you parked enough butts in theater seats and sold enough $5 popcorn salt.
  
  There was only one good fantasy film in all those savaged years before Star Wars, and that was Forbidden Planet. (Disney animation, though.)
Baron Karza

Awesome video, but I’m surprised to see it here â€” it came out years ago on the FilmThreat blog.

But Harryhausen’s work is terrific, and that poor deluded child who says it’s poorly done should try it himself sometime and see how well he can do it! You should see his beautiful production drawings, he was quite an artist too. Those films were the best anywhere compared to what else was out there at the time. Would you rather see someone in a big rubber suit, or iguanas with glued-on fins? The Godzilla series was inspired by his “Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” and they intended to do Godzilla as stop-motion, but guess what? It was too difficult and expensive for them to do that way. Ray is the master!
UnnecessaryUmlaut

This is wall-to-wall magic. Love it.
mondojohnson

The artistry of Harryhausen’s “Clash of the Titans” is so lush and full of character. The regrettable, forgettable CG/3D remake of last year can’t hold a candle to it.
genre slur

YES! YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESSSS! He’s the MAN.
Metlin

I wish someone had the names of the movies that these are from with the animations. I’d love to watch every single one of them — they all seem like they’d be much fun to watch!
- KanedaJones
  
  go to imdb and look up his film credits – you might be able to guess just by title vs face of beastie.
  
  Also grab a fan sit him down and grab a pen or pencil.. they might start blurting out names of movies heheh
Chinese Jet Pilot

Metlin, check out the video’s accompanying web site at http://www.harryhausen.com.

I put this video together a few years ago. It’s actually a compilation of the video clips that accompany the site’s list of movie titles.

The video has always been more popular than the web site. Praise to Ray Harryhausen!
Anonymous

Anyone know which movie the scene with the guys on horseback lassoing the tyrannosaurish came from?

Forget cowboys and aliens, I wanna watch cowboys and DINOSAURS.
- Chinese Jet Pilot
  
  That’s Harryhausen’s highly underrated THE VALLEY OF GWANGI.
maggotstail

Wow. A surprising amount of my childhood viewing represented here. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Anonymous

What’s really insane about these monsters is that they still hold up. The COMPOSITING is much more primitive than now, but the monsters themselves look GREAT.

Plus, everything good about watching movies my entire life, in 4 minutes.
Hopkinsii

I have tears in the corner of my eyes… So much of my childhood (at least, the bits without Thunderbird puppets) in such a succinct package. And to support #7 – DINOSAURS!!! AND COWBOYS!!!
gwailo_joe

Fabulous! Nice memories. . . I’d never seen some of these: Super Sweet…

Giant Squirrel! Look out!!
Anonymous

OH man. He was my childhood hero (along with Forrest J. Ackerman).
With these creatures you feel the presence of an artist’s hand and, even though they aren’t as ‘real’ as CG, they brim with another kind of life that I find even more engaging. It’s the different between a carny and Las Vegas. I need the carny, too. The spectacle overwhelms and I lose the humanity behind the curtain.
And that music. What the heck is it? It is such an awesome choice. It pumps this clip way up. Fantastic stuff!
shinchan

Tom Baker!!!
Vanwall

The Children of the Hydra in “Jason and the Argonauts” is still amazingly creepy and effective – my favorite FX scene.
- frankieboy
  
  I’m with you there. I loved a lot of these movies on TV when I was a kid, the Million Dollar Movie or the Late Late Show.
  I saw “Jason and the Argonauts” a few years ago at the movies, in a nice print, and I scrunched down in my seat and shivered with delight when that crazy priest scattered the Hydra’s teeth and those skeletons sprang from the ground. The music in that scene was awesome!
  Often said, but still true, “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore”.
Karl Elvis

Man, i wanna see someone make an entire new film just using Harryhausen techniques. He was so brilliant, and with modern camera and his modeling techniques, you could too something brilliant.
- Nicky G
  
  If you haven’t seen Coraline you REALLY owe it to yourself. FANTASTIC. And all stop-motiony goodness!
Anonymous

Seriously – what is the song????
Anonymous

The song is “Mon Ti,” from the incomparable Tito Puente’s album “Top Percussion.”