JL: I love the creature in that: “The Monster from the Id.”
RH: Yeah. It was a fascinating concept and very well done.
JL: You’ve already said it, but I would like you to tell me again. You never call your creatures monsters because…?
RH: Well monsters, I think, in most people’s minds, are these bad men who go around scaring everybody.
JL: Doing bad things.
RH: Doing insane things! (Laughs.)
JL: Whereas, a creature…
RH: A creature, like the one in 20 Million Miles to Earth[Nathan H. Juran, 1957] comes from a different planet, and he is not aggressive until somebody is aggressive to him—the farmer jabs him with a pitchfork! That, of course, upsets his ego. (Laughs.)
JL: What do you think of actors who are famous for their fantasy roles, like Boris Karloff, or Christopher Lee?
RH: Well, Boris Karloff was perfect for Frankenstein. And he’s still the most profound Frankenstein’s Monster, I think. He wasn’t just frightening.
JL: But in your films, there are moments where you want people to be frightened.
RH: Well, yes. But that’s the way you stage a film. As a director, you have to think about how you’re going to stage it so you get the most effective appearance, visually.
JL: You know, I was thinking about it, and in your films, even more than a sense of fear, you often impart with a sense of wonder.
RH: Well, we try to do that. I hope that the strangeness of the subject matter also helps create a feeling of wonder.
One Million Years B.C.[Don Chaffey, 1966] Raquel Welch as Loana in the claws of a pterodactyl! A Hammer color remake of the black and white Hal Roach original [1940], with special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
DRAGONS & DINOSAURS
What’s the difference between a dragon and a dinosaur? “Dragons” are legendary creatures with reptilian traits. The term “Dinosaurs” refers to a diverse group of animals that were on Earth from the beginning of the Triassic period to the end of the Cretaceous. That was a long time ago. So for the purposes of this guide, which is about monsters in the movies, I think I can safely lump them together in one chapter. Especially since humans and dinosaurs did not coexist and most movies featuring dinosaurs have people running for their lives away from them.
Winsor McCay, the brilliant newspaper cartoonist (creator of the amazing comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland), wanted an animated film to use in his vaudeville act. With thousands of drawings, McCay created Gertie the Dinosaur[1914], in which the dinosaur Gertie would respond onscreen to McCay’s live commands from the stage. Gertie is probably cinema’s first dinosaur.
The first major movie to feature dinosaurs was an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World[Harry O. Hoyt, 1925]. This starred Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger and showcased the groundbreaking stop-motion animation of Willis O’Brien. The Lost World’s climatic scenes, in which a brontosaurus brought back by Challenger escapes and wreaks havoc on the streets of London, would inspire literally hundreds of movies in the future.
The rampaging dinosaur in The Lost Worldends up swimming in London’s River Thames; 36 years later, Gorgo[Eugène Lourié, 1961] and son wade down the Thames, making their way back home to the sea. Gorgo is one of those movie dinosaurs that relies more on the imagination of the filmmakers than on any science or research into the fossil record.
In 1924, Fritz Lang directed Die Nibelungen: Siegfriedand Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge[also 1924]. Based on the same 12th-century epic poem, The Song of the Nibelungs, that Richard Wagner based his Ring Cycle operas on, the first film has a marvelous dragon for Siegfried to slay. As I am sure you all remember, Siegfried bathes himself in the dragon’s blood, and if you’re curious about the proper way to bathe in dragon’s blood, Lang shows us how.
The Russian film Ilya Muromets[aka The Sword and the Dragon, Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956] features a ferocious dragon created, like the one in Siegfried, as a full-size mechanical puppet for the lead actor to fight.
Since both dinosaurs and dragons are hard to come by for motion-picture work, filmmakers have used a number of methods to bring them to the screen, including full-size puppets, like those in Siegfriedand Ilya Murometsand, later, sophisticated animatronics in Jurassic Park[Steven Spielberg, 1993] and its sequels. Traditional, hand-painted cell animation was used in the Rite of Springsequence in Walt Disney’s Fantasia[Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, 1940], while CG animation featured in How to Train Your Dragon[Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois, 2010]. Jurassic Parkand its sequels also makes extensive use of CG.
To save money, live lizards, iguanas, and alligators with fins attached to them were shot in slow motion in an attempt to convey great size and weight in movies like One Million B.C.[Hal Roach, Hal Roach Jr., 1940], the remake of The Lost World[Irwin Allen, 1960], and Journey to the Center of the Earth[Henry Levin, 1959].
My preference in dinosaurs and dragons is for ones made with stop-motion animation, as in the silent Lost World, King Kong[Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933], The Beast of Hollow Mountain[Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodríguez, 1956], The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm[Henry Lavin, George Pal, 1962], Dinosaurus![Irvin Yeaworth, 1960], Jack The Giant Killer[Nathan H. Juran, 1962], and the wonderful Loch Ness Monster in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao[George Pal, 1964]. Another, simpler technique to bring these enormous creatures to life is just to use men in dinosaur costumes stomping around miniature sets. This was done in Gorgo[1961], and Japanese movies like the original Godzilla[Ishirô Honda, 1954] and all of its sequels and imitations.
Stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen has created some of my favorite dragons and dinosaurs. There is the majestic dragon of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad[Nathan H. Juran, 1958] and the unforgettable Hydra that guards the Golden Fleece in Jason and the Argonauts. [Don Chaffey, 1963].
Ray’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms[Eugène Lourié, 1953] was the first of the many monsters unleashed by the atomic bomb. Based on a Ray Bradbury short story, “The Fog Horn,” in which a lonely, prehistoric beast rises from the sea mistaking a lighthouse foghorn for a mating call, the enormous success of The Beast From 20,000 Fathomsprovided the incentive for Toho Studios in Tokyo to produce their own gigantic-beast-rising-from-the-sea movie, Godzilla, in 1954. Godzilla’s sequel, Godzilla Raids Againwas retitled Gigantis, the Fire Monsterfor its US release in 1955.
Harryhausen made more realistic dinosaurs in Hammer’s remake of One Million Years B.C.[Don Chaffey, 1966]. Ray also gave us the indelible image of Raquel Welch in a fur bikini carried off by a mama pterodactyl to feed to her hungry chicks. In Harryhausen’s The Valley of Gwangi[Jim O’Connolly, 1969], cowboys discover dinosaurs in a hidden valley and capture an allosaurus, which they put on display in a bullring. It breaks free, and dies trapped in a burning cathedral.
Ishirô Honda’s Japanese dragon (or is he a dinosaur?) Godzilla[1954] was an international sensation and has been followed by countless sequels and one ill-conceived, big-budget Hollywood remake [Roland Emmerich, 1998]. Godzilla himself has had a fascinating relationship with Japan. Originally a symbol of the destruction caused by the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, Godzilla has gone from being Japan’s ultimate villain, to the country’s friend and protector. Godzilla has been joined by Rodan! The Flying Monster![Ishirô Honda, 1956], a sort of jumbo pterodactyl, and a golden, three-headed flying dragon from outer space named Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster[Ishirô Honda, 1964] among others. The great Eiji Tsuburaya supervised almost all of Toho Studios’ giant monster films, his special effects distinguished by his trademark miniatures: entire cities built to scale to be knocked down, stomped on, and blown up.