Alan first came to my notice when he turned up at our stall at last November's Unconvention. He was clutching a box that had once held a plastic Christmas Tree. He thrust it at me, and said "Here's your mermaid". I vaguely remembered Richard F. having said that one of his mates had offered to make us a feegee mermaid, but I had forgotten all about it. Sad to say, so many people offer to do stuff for us, and then fail to deliver, that I had got into the habit of treating all such offers cum grano salis, but the advent of Alan shows that I should not be such a cynical old sod. Now he has become a guest blogger, and furthermore a guest blogger who's output is often so elegantly macabre that I have started hassling him to write us a book....
As it happens to be Ray Harryhausen’s birthday this week, I thought that I might tell you a story about Ray’s creatures that you probably haven’t heard before, and may well take you by surprise - and besides, it gives me and Jon an opportunity to post up some completely, and unnecessarily gratuitous shots of Raquel Welch and Victoria Vetri, and that’s good enough for me. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't implicate me in your disgusting sexism, young Friswell. I am married to a feminist, and I am scared she will hurt me)It’s funny isn’t it, how one small, seemingly insignificant fact can compel us to re-evaluate our pre-conceived perception of the entire universe? Not to mention everywhere else.
For example, did you know that Teflon non-stick surfaces were originally invented, not to ensure prevention of your sausages from adhering to your frying-pan, but was actually created in the late 1940’s as a special coating for false teeth that chewing gum would not stick to?
I’ll bet you didn’t.
And furthermore, were you even remotely aware that it is possible to karate chop straight through 15 vinyl 45 rec
ord discs, each featuring the talents of little Jimmy Osmond performing his rendition of ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool‘? I’ll bet that’s a new one as well.
But the real question is: did you know that Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaurs were gay?
No, well I certainly didn’t, and I wouldn’t mind betting that it’s come as a bit of a shock to Ray as well, but if you believe the gospel according to Hammer Films producer Aida Young, that’s the way it is.
The story goes like this….
Hammer Films released One Million Years BC--allegedly their 100th production--in the winter of 1966. The combination of Ray’s fantastic stop-motion dinos, and the spectacle of a primeval Raquel Welch in a fur bikini that seemed to shrink in size during the course of the film, ensured that One Million Years BC made more money than practically every previous Hammer production put together.
Not surprisingly, the Hammer executives, quickly arriving at the conclusion that dinosaurs and sex, however unlikely bedfellows they might be, were obviously dynamite at the box-office, thought that a sequel should be run up the flagpole as quickly as possible. Even before a script had been written, Harryhausen w
as approached for the FX work, but by this time, he was already in pre-production with his regular producer Charles Schneer on what would become The Valley of Gwangi. (1969)
Looking around for a replacement for Ray, Hammer were directed--most likely by Ray himself--to Jim Danforth, a young (27) stop-motion animator from California, and one of Ray’s admirers and ‘pupils’. Apart from being a superb animator, Danforth is one of the best all-round special effects artists in cinema history, and took to Hammer’s new dino-flick with enthusiasm, as it would be the first project over which he would have complete control of the FX work.
The movie, now entitled ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth‘, went into the full-script-writing stage, and Danforth was told to prepare for the journey to England to participate in the principal photography, to be filmed on location in the Canary Islands, and on huge interior sets built at Shepperton Studios.
Understandably, Danforth sought to impress the Hammer top-brass, and while he was waiting to come to England, he constructed an armature of a tyrannosaurus-type dinosaur, which although he had yet to see the script, he believed--not unreasonably--would surely be in the storyline somewhere. I’m sure that you all know this already, but just in case, an armature is an articulate, fully-jointed steel skeleton of whatever creature is to be animated, which provides an internal frame for the rubber exterior, allowing the model to be positioned in incremental stages of movement during the animation process.
Danforth was, in his own words, trying to “get ahead of the game” in building the armature, and was intending to offer it up for free, saying in effect: “Hey guys, here’s this armature that I made for you, and it won’t cost you one penny!”
So on arrival at Hammer Studios at Bray, Danforth whacked the Rex skeleton onto the desk in the main conference room, and awaited the warm and glowing praise that he felt would be surely forthcoming from the assembled production execs.
This hopeful expectation, however, swiftly disintegrated as Aida Young, an associate producer on One Million Years BC, and who had now been ramped-up to fully-fledged producer on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, took one look at the armature and said: “We’re not having any of those in the film, they look like poofs! Yes, my husband agrees, they look like poofs wearing high-heeled shoes!”
To say that Danforth was somewhat taken aback by this would be something of an understatement as not only was he surprised by the hostile reaction to his dinosaur armature, but, as in 1967, national colloquialisms--is that an oxymoron?--such as ‘poof’, had not yet travelled across the pond to California, or at least not as far as Danforth’s ears, he had no idea what the hell Young was going on about.
So Aida Young patiently explained to him that ‘poof’, was an English slang term for homosexual.
Now Danforth was really confused.
It appeared that the main offender was the allosaurus from One Million Years BC, that raided the Cro-Magnon village before being spectacularly impaled by caveman actor John Richardson on a giant tent-pole. It seemed that the bird-like spur at the top of the allosaur’s ankle gave the impression that the dino was wearing high-heels, or at least it had to Aida Young’s husband who, it would be pertinent to point out here, had no professional connection with Hammer Films whatsoever, but had managed by some weird creative proxy, to influence the production, and consequently scupper the chances of any carnivorous dinosaurs appearing in the new film. Young, presumably convinced by her husband’s insightful observations, imposed an immediate ban on all ‘gay’ dinosaurs--the fact of the carnivores in One Million Years BC being one of the greatest reasons for the film’s success now seemingly irrelevant. Danforth realised that he would have to radically revise his plans, or as he put it: “I put the ‘poofasaurus’ back into my briefcase, and never brought it out again.”
Take it from me, all us stop-motion types are dino-nuts, and Danforth was no exception, originally planning to conjure up a Mesozoic menagerie as accurate as contemporary palaeontological science would allow; but now a spanner had been chucked into the works, and most of the dinosaurs would now have to be ‘invented’ with only two being ‘true’ prehistoric creatures.
The first was a chasmasaurus, a triceratops-type animal from the Cretaceous, and the second; a ramphorynchus, a pterosaur from the Jurassic. This latter figure was very accurate in most physical respects except for it’s size; in that the real pterosaur had the wingspan of a seagull, whereas it’s cinematic counterpart was portrayed as being large enough to carry off a human.
All the other dinos were ‘made up’, and included two plesiosaur-types, a huge lizard-like monster and it’s baby, and giant crabs.
Danforth made the best of the situation, going on to produce some brilliant, Oscar-nominated FX (the award went to Disney’s less deserving Bedknobs and Broomsticks 1971), but at the time, he must have wondered just what he had gotten himself into with these crazy, homophobic limeys.
Oddly enough, the poster for Dinosaurs cheats terribly in promising the kind of dinosaurs on offer in the film itself, sporting not only an image of a styracosaurus that was lifted directly from a painting by Zdenek Burian--of course there is no styracosaurus in the film, although there is a fantastic one in The Valley of Gwangi--but most unbelievably of all, a tyrannosaur that has been ‘nicked’ from an illustration by Natural History Museum artist Neave Parker meaning, presumably, that while ‘gay’ dinos were verboten in the movie, it was quite all right to splash them all over the promotional material. Why the poster artist chose not to render images of Danforth’s excellent models is anyone’s guess, although a subsequent poster design did boast more accurate renditions.
If you’re a stop-motion or dino-fan, a monster movie afficionado, or just enjoy a few beers and a B-movie, you need to check out When Dinosaurs Ruled the earth. It’s a very silly film, but great fun. Danforth’s FX are amazing, with some of the most realistic animation ever put on film. The pterodactyl even has motion blur on it’s wings, which Danforth achieved by photographing the model through a sheet of glass upon which was painted Vaseline, which obscured the sharp edges of the wings as seen though the camera lens.
As well as this, the hilarious Patrick Allen plays a tribal leader, prone to belting out such prehistoricisms--yeah, I know that’s not a real word but I love it--as “Akita!” and “Necro!”, shortly before scratching himself, and/or sacrificing blonde virgins. And speaking of which, the film is full of the obligatory half-naked young women, and all the more amazing for a PG-rated film, the beautiful Victoria Vetri gets her kit off (political correctness be dammed!), so you see, you just can’t go wrong.
And It’s not the only time by a long shot that the spouse of a film producer/executive has influenced a project in an adverse way. I’ve run into it more than once on film projects that I‘ve been involved with. And did any of you wonder, for example, why Judge Death didn’t put in an appearance in the Judge Dredd movie? Well, believe it or not, the film’s producer was sitting with his wife--who my source described as being a dead ringer for Shelly Winters--beside their swimming pool discussing the film, and his wife, looking at a particularly lurid comic book illustration of Judge Death said: “How could you possibly make something as hideous as this into a toy?” Well, that was enough for the producer, and poor old Judge Death got his marching orders.
And furthermore, were you even remotely aware that it is possible to karate chop straight through 15 vinyl 45 rec
ord discs, each featuring the talents of little Jimmy Osmond performing his rendition of ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool‘? I’ll bet that’s a new one as well.But the real question is: did you know that Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaurs were gay?
No, well I certainly didn’t, and I wouldn’t mind betting that it’s come as a bit of a shock to Ray as well, but if you believe the gospel according to Hammer Films producer Aida Young, that’s the way it is.
The story goes like this….
Hammer Films released One Million Years BC--allegedly their 100th production--in the winter of 1966. The combination of Ray’s fantastic stop-motion dinos, and the spectacle of a primeval Raquel Welch in a fur bikini that seemed to shrink in size during the course of the film, ensured that One Million Years BC made more money than practically every previous Hammer production put together.
Not surprisingly, the Hammer executives, quickly arriving at the conclusion that dinosaurs and sex, however unlikely bedfellows they might be, were obviously dynamite at the box-office, thought that a sequel should be run up the flagpole as quickly as possible. Even before a script had been written, Harryhausen w
as approached for the FX work, but by this time, he was already in pre-production with his regular producer Charles Schneer on what would become The Valley of Gwangi. (1969)Looking around for a replacement for Ray, Hammer were directed--most likely by Ray himself--to Jim Danforth, a young (27) stop-motion animator from California, and one of Ray’s admirers and ‘pupils’. Apart from being a superb animator, Danforth is one of the best all-round special effects artists in cinema history, and took to Hammer’s new dino-flick with enthusiasm, as it would be the first project over which he would have complete control of the FX work.
The movie, now entitled ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth‘, went into the full-script-writing stage, and Danforth was told to prepare for the journey to England to participate in the principal photography, to be filmed on location in the Canary Islands, and on huge interior sets built at Shepperton Studios.
Understandably, Danforth sought to impress the Hammer top-brass, and while he was waiting to come to England, he constructed an armature of a tyrannosaurus-type dinosaur, which although he had yet to see the script, he believed--not unreasonably--would surely be in the storyline somewhere. I’m sure that you all know this already, but just in case, an armature is an articulate, fully-jointed steel skeleton of whatever creature is to be animated, which provides an internal frame for the rubber exterior, allowing the model to be positioned in incremental stages of movement during the animation process.
Danforth was, in his own words, trying to “get ahead of the game” in building the armature, and was intending to offer it up for free, saying in effect: “Hey guys, here’s this armature that I made for you, and it won’t cost you one penny!”
So on arrival at Hammer Studios at Bray, Danforth whacked the Rex skeleton onto the desk in the main conference room, and awaited the warm and glowing praise that he felt would be surely forthcoming from the assembled production execs.
This hopeful expectation, however, swiftly disintegrated as Aida Young, an associate producer on One Million Years BC, and who had now been ramped-up to fully-fledged producer on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, took one look at the armature and said: “We’re not having any of those in the film, they look like poofs! Yes, my husband agrees, they look like poofs wearing high-heeled shoes!”
To say that Danforth was somewhat taken aback by this would be something of an understatement as not only was he surprised by the hostile reaction to his dinosaur armature, but, as in 1967, national colloquialisms--is that an oxymoron?--such as ‘poof’, had not yet travelled across the pond to California, or at least not as far as Danforth’s ears, he had no idea what the hell Young was going on about.
So Aida Young patiently explained to him that ‘poof’, was an English slang term for homosexual.
Now Danforth was really confused.
It appeared that the main offender was the allosaurus from One Million Years BC, that raided the Cro-Magnon village before being spectacularly impaled by caveman actor John Richardson on a giant tent-pole. It seemed that the bird-like spur at the top of the allosaur’s ankle gave the impression that the dino was wearing high-heels, or at least it had to Aida Young’s husband who, it would be pertinent to point out here, had no professional connection with Hammer Films whatsoever, but had managed by some weird creative proxy, to influence the production, and consequently scupper the chances of any carnivorous dinosaurs appearing in the new film. Young, presumably convinced by her husband’s insightful observations, imposed an immediate ban on all ‘gay’ dinosaurs--the fact of the carnivores in One Million Years BC being one of the greatest reasons for the film’s success now seemingly irrelevant. Danforth realised that he would have to radically revise his plans, or as he put it: “I put the ‘poofasaurus’ back into my briefcase, and never brought it out again.”
Take it from me, all us stop-motion types are dino-nuts, and Danforth was no exception, originally planning to conjure up a Mesozoic menagerie as accurate as contemporary palaeontological science would allow; but now a spanner had been chucked into the works, and most of the dinosaurs would now have to be ‘invented’ with only two being ‘true’ prehistoric creatures.
The first was a chasmasaurus, a triceratops-type animal from the Cretaceous, and the second; a ramphorynchus, a pterosaur from the Jurassic. This latter figure was very accurate in most physical respects except for it’s size; in that the real pterosaur had the wingspan of a seagull, whereas it’s cinematic counterpart was portrayed as being large enough to carry off a human.
All the other dinos were ‘made up’, and included two plesiosaur-types, a huge lizard-like monster and it’s baby, and giant crabs.
Danforth made the best of the situation, going on to produce some brilliant, Oscar-nominated FX (the award went to Disney’s less deserving Bedknobs and Broomsticks 1971), but at the time, he must have wondered just what he had gotten himself into with these crazy, homophobic limeys.
Oddly enough, the poster for Dinosaurs cheats terribly in promising the kind of dinosaurs on offer in the film itself, sporting not only an image of a styracosaurus that was lifted directly from a painting by Zdenek Burian--of course there is no styracosaurus in the film, although there is a fantastic one in The Valley of Gwangi--but most unbelievably of all, a tyrannosaur that has been ‘nicked’ from an illustration by Natural History Museum artist Neave Parker meaning, presumably, that while ‘gay’ dinos were verboten in the movie, it was quite all right to splash them all over the promotional material. Why the poster artist chose not to render images of Danforth’s excellent models is anyone’s guess, although a subsequent poster design did boast more accurate renditions.If you’re a stop-motion or dino-fan, a monster movie afficionado, or just enjoy a few beers and a B-movie, you need to check out When Dinosaurs Ruled the earth. It’s a very silly film, but great fun. Danforth’s FX are amazing, with some of the most realistic animation ever put on film. The pterodactyl even has motion blur on it’s wings, which Danforth achieved by photographing the model through a sheet of glass upon which was painted Vaseline, which obscured the sharp edges of the wings as seen though the camera lens.
As well as this, the hilarious Patrick Allen plays a tribal leader, prone to belting out such prehistoricisms--yeah, I know that’s not a real word but I love it--as “Akita!” and “Necro!”, shortly before scratching himself, and/or sacrificing blonde virgins. And speaking of which, the film is full of the obligatory half-naked young women, and all the more amazing for a PG-rated film, the beautiful Victoria Vetri gets her kit off (political correctness be dammed!), so you see, you just can’t go wrong.
And It’s not the only time by a long shot that the spouse of a film producer/executive has influenced a project in an adverse way. I’ve run into it more than once on film projects that I‘ve been involved with. And did any of you wonder, for example, why Judge Death didn’t put in an appearance in the Judge Dredd movie? Well, believe it or not, the film’s producer was sitting with his wife--who my source described as being a dead ringer for Shelly Winters--beside their swimming pool discussing the film, and his wife, looking at a particularly lurid comic book illustration of Judge Death said: “How could you possibly make something as hideous as this into a toy?” Well, that was enough for the producer, and poor old Judge Death got his marching orders.
I’ve never actually heard what Ray thought of the notion that his dinos might be gay. I’m sure that he might have been amused, if slightly nonplussed, and one can only assume that on his return to California, Jim Danforth put his ‘poofasaurus back into the closet, where presumably, Aida Young felt he belonged….
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