The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has a valuable place in film
history. It is right alongside such films like King Kong, Toy Story
and Star Wars as one of the firsts. The Beast was
Ray Harryhausen’s first solo animation work on a feature length film.
The Beast is about a carnivorous dinosaur that is freed from
its artic prison as the result of a nuclear test. One scientist sees the Beast
but no one believes him except for a beautiful paleontologist who bucks the
rules. Eventually like all mythical creatures in movies like The Beastmaster,
Crocodile Dundee and Macaulay Culkin it makes it to New York where
it wrecks havoc. Now I don’t want to spoil the ending for you but eventually
the original scientist figures out a way to kill it.
That’s a joke son. It’s amazing to me that the original story for
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was taken from a Saturday Evening
Post by Ray Bradbury, who is one of the greatest science fiction writers
of all time. Even Harryhausen admits that the story is not the strongest part
of the film. Much of the film was made up as it went along including the ending
which was written by Harryhausen. Nostalgia may be interesting for people within
the field but the average viewer wants a monster to bite dozens of people’s
heads off then smash a building with its tale.
But as most critics know The Beast is not remembered for its
story but the amazing sequences that animated. The first look at the Beast,
the attacks at sea on the boats, the lighthouse attack in silhouette and of
course the famous police officer getting chomped on the streets of New York
are all beautiful scenes. It’s amazing that in Harryhausen’s first
work he already surpassed the work done by the previous master of stop motion,
Willis O’Brien.
Warner Bros did a brilliant job of transferring the film to DVD. The
sound is fantastic. This film is not in widescreen but it was never shot for
that format.
The extras are what makes this DVD vitally important to everyone’s collection.
The first one has even a better title than the movie, "The Rhedosaurus
and the Rollercoaster: Making the Beast". It is a brand new interview with
Ray Harryhausen, who still seems as sharp as ever. Harryhausen reveals secrets
of this film that are brand one. The Beast was made by an independent
film company for $200,000 then sold to Warners. Harryhausen created many sketches
for possible monsters in this film and many of them made it into later extravaganzas.
The real treat is that it shows the picture from the Saturday Evening Post which
inspired the movie. It also has dozens of Harryhausen’s preliminary sketches
many of which made it into the movie to be seen by the hero when is looking
for pictures of what he saw in the artic.
Harryhausen also puts down the rumor that he named the dinosaur Rhedosaurus.
It’s not named after him. Also many things which seem commonplace to even
the casual special effects fan such as animating in front of a screen which
is showing the live footage of New York was brand new back then and though it
may have a complicated name now back then Harryhausen called it “The Sandwich”.
Also there wasn’t the technology to do motion capture so Harryhausen filmed
himself stomping round his studio like he would imagine the Beast to and then
created movements from that.
Many people have wondered over the years why Harryhausen never directed his
own film. But it was a different time back then with the studio system. Everyone
filled their own niche. Studio heads and even directors were never fully sure
of how Harryhausen did what he did. All they know is that they handed him the
work and he came with brilliant after brilliant piece of footage.
The last and best extra on this DVD will have science fiction fans wishing
they knew where they were in June 2003 because they would have left their own
mother’s funeral to be there. "Harryhausen & Bradbury: An Unfathomable
Friendship" where Ray and Ray are onstage together in front of a live audience.
There is no moderator to come up with stupid questions and James Lipton isn’t
there with his mile high stack of blue index cards. Usually when you talk to
old people, lets face it people, Bradbury looks like he’s melting, they
usually talk only about themselves but this time each of them tells anecdotes
about one another. It’s wonderful. How Harryhausen called Bradbury in
1933 to get him to drive him to a screening of King Kong. They
also talk about how they were both part of the famous science fiction group
The Rocket Society which included Forrest Ackerman and Isaac Asimov.
One should pick up this disc if you ever saw Clash of the Titans
even once if not just for the historical significance of The Beast from
20,000 Fathoms then for the extras. Like many older American films
these movies must be viewed in historical context because otherwise you might
fall asleep.
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