When I was a kid, there were two cinemas in my hometown of Jarrow. The most popular was the Empire. In fact, I was a proud member of the Empire Club, which cost one shilling to join. Proof of membership was a small, circular, yellow plastic badge with the words "The Empire Club" engraved upon it in red. As a member of the Empire Club I was allowed to attend matinees on a Saturday morning. It cost sixpence to get in, and all badge-holders got a free bag of sweets with their ticket.
The Empire Club matinee was two and one-half hours of great fun. The compere was a rather rotund chap called Uncle Tom, who wore a bowler hat and a tweed jacket. His niece, I think – her name escapes me – was his co-presenter and at some point in the proceedings would sing stuff from The Sound of Music. She had the voice of an angel.
The highlight of the Empire Club whilst it lasted was the showing of a black-and-white series called Danny the Dragon, which starred Sally Thomsett and the late, great, Jack Wild. God knows who played the dragon, which was some dude in a rubber suit. Richard Freeman would have loved it. I was sure that the series also starred Pauline Quirke (later of Birds of a Feather fame), but I can't find her credited anywhere. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.
At various intervals during the show, competitions would be held and loads of prizes distributed. No one could have tempted me away from the Empire Club on a Saturday morning. No one, that is, except Raymond Frederick Harryhausen.
The other cinema in Jarrow at the time was the Regal in Grange Road. The Regal – unjustifiably nicknamed "the Flea Pit" by some – was where the Big Kids went. The Big Kids were youthful Jarrovians who had graduated from Danny the Dragon and its ilk, and were now exposing themselves to much scarier productions. To Empire Club members the Regal was a dark, brooding edifice. Not only was it the meeting place of Big Kids, it was also – quelle horreur – a place which attracted Rough Kids. Our parents didn't mind us going to the Empire, but the Regal was out of bounds.
One morning in 1966, when I was ten years old, two friends of mine came up with a daring plan. We would tell our parents that we were off to the Empire as usual, but in reality we'd sneak off to the Regal. My stomach turned at the suggestion. What if the Big Kids got us? Or worse, the Rough Kids that our parents repeatedly warned us about? John, who was twelve, explained to us that we simply had to take the chance, for the Regal was showing "the monster film".
Kerry and I stood in stunned silence. We'd heard of "the monster film", but never for one moment contemplated that we'd ever get to see it. There were rumours that it was a colour film, too; which we found hard to believe, after watching Danny the Dragon in glorious monochrome. In a fit of daring I decided to take the chance.
At 9.45 the three of us were proceeding down Grange Road – in an orderly manner, your Worships – and eventually the display board of the Regal hove into view. The words Jason and the Argonauts loomed large, as large, looming things are wont to do. Kerry, who was thirteen but looked older, purchased three tickets. Two were for "her friends" who'd be coming later, she fibbed. The woman in the ticket booth obviously thought her friends would of an age which permitted them entrance, and not two urchins barely out of nappies. John and I crouched in a recess and waited until the woman in the booth was distracted. Then we ran inside, and Kerry gave us our tickets. Somehow we circumnavigated the guy who tore your ticket in half at the top of the stairs, and suddenly found ourselves in the belly of the beast. This was it, then; there was no going back. It was dark, save for the light emanating from the screen. A swirling miasma of colours assaulted our eyes as the universally familiar, nah-nah-nah-nah nahnah of the Pearl and Dean commercials rattled around the building. We took our seats, and waited for Jason and the Argonauts to begin.
And so, dear reader, this was how my relationship with Raymond Frederick Harryhausen began. For ninety minutes or so – save an ice-cream and toilet break at the interval – I watched, enthralled, as all sorts of deities and demons went about their business.
The greatest surprise of all, though, was the blind prophet Phineas. There was something about him that I found deeply familiar, and after a few minutes it struck me. Flaming heck, I thought, its him! Phineas was actually Doctor Who! Readers should bear in mind that my childhood was, like most others, wrapped in a mantle of innocence which is largely non-existent now. It was perfectly respectable for ten year-olds to believe that Doctor Who was a real person who put himself about the universe a bit in a very real Tardis. Imagine my surprise, then, when I realised that the good Doctor was masquerading as this blind geezer Phineas. What was going on? Wasn't it only a week ago that he'd been on Skaro mixing it with the Daleks? Later, I found out that Phineas and the Doctor were both Patrick Troughton, and that although Patrick Troughton was real Phineas and the Doctor were not. To this very day I should still be having counselling for the trauma this revelation foisted upon me.
Seriously though, I was never the same after watching Jason and the Argonauts. It made me grow up.
People laud Ray Harryhausen as the grandfather of an entire generation of stop-animation movies, but personally I don't think they do him justice. Ray Harryhausen didn't just patron a genre – he IS the genre. To this day, no one has successfully captured or created monsters with stop-frame animation in the same way that Ray can. As the Harpies descended upon poor Phineas, and Jason and his shipmates bravely fought them off, a cacophony of oohs and aahs reverberated around the Flea Pit. Even the Big Kids and the Rough Kids were enchanted by this cinematic magic.
The thing I like about the classic Harryhausen monsters is the way they jerk almost imperceptibly when they are in motion. As a child, I never once thought that this was due to the technical limitations Ray had to work with. Monsters jerked as they moved because that's what real monsters did, I presumed.
To this day I still can't resist watching Jason and the Argonauts, the 7th Voyage of Sinbad et al without being mentally catapulted back to my youth. Ray's films rarely had megastars in the cast, but neither did they employ third-rate wannabe actors. They never achieved the status of Ben Hur, but they did possess all the allure of later CGI blockbusters like Alien and Terminator.
As a young 'un I never once questioned why the women on far-flung ancient isles wore lipstick and spoke with either a New York brogue or, sometimes, Thames Estuary English. In the fantasy world of Raymond Frederick Harryhausen there were no anomalies, no inconsistencies. Anything went, and everything fitted nicely.
Ray Harryhausen is a legend himself. I hope he has a very happy birthday. The Empire and the Regal have long gone, but Raymond Frederick Harryhausen is still with us. Long may he prosper, and may whatever deities he worships protect him from the Harpies.
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