MovieChat Forums > The Thing from Another World (1951) Discussion > Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen

posted 14 years ago by powersroc
11 replies | jump to latest

I read in Harryhausen's excellent book RH:An Animated Life,that he approached the producers of The Thing From Another World about doing the alien as a stop-motion creature.Now this movie is one of my all time favorites but the make-up for the Thing is inferior & disappointing.I realize that the terrific suspense of this movie hinges on not getting a long & clear view of the Thing,at least not until the end.But if the producers had accepted RH's offer,this film would be even more of a classic than it already is.A stop-motion creature would not have to be humanoid,& brief glimpses of such a creature would have been just as,if not more so,terrifying as an actor with so-so make-up.

[–] razorwyre1 14 years ago

That assumes that it would have remained the same type of movie with RH's effects, which I doubt. By necessity, RH must dictate the way the scenes featuring his creatures are shot. Consider the few scenes where we do get to see the alien. They are, as you say, brief glimpses. I seriously doubt that either RH, or the studio (once they had committed to the enormous expense of the stop motion process) would have been happy with brief glimpses. Remember they tried several variations before they said "just put a Frankenstein cap on him". The physical appearance of the alien isnt important to the film, and if it had been, more emphasis would have been put on it's execution. (Personally, I'd love to know if any of those variations were based on the description in the novella.)

Please dont get me wrong, I LOVE RH's work; I've had the honor of meeting him twice, and spent a few hours guarding a display of his stop motion models 30 some years ago. However, I believe his participation would have greatly changed the emphasis and character of the whole film.

[–] powersroc 14 years ago

Perhaps,perhaps not.We really don't know if RH's stop-motion techniques would have altered TTFAW from a script perspective.Howard Hawks was a powerful producer/director.He would have a clear direction for this movie & would have said so if he'd ever considered hiring Ray & asking Harryhausen if his s-m FX could be done for the film but not disrupt the vision that Hawks had for it.But we cannot rule out that a stop-motion Thing by Ray could have been done in an effective,powerful manner that would have enhanced the scenes with the alien far beyond what we got.

[–] jasonbourneagain 13 years ago

I would imagine something like the creature from 20,000 Miles from Earth and we would see it on screen earlier on and it would become one of the main actors in the movie. That was one of the criticisms for The Thing 2011, so I'm okay with the creature not appearing as much. The creature would probably take out the newspaper guy's role, so Scotty could be one of those killed early on. Does he become a shape shifter or another creature like thing? The way it was with Arness, it made the movie focus on the characters and added more suspense.

[–] a_l_i_e_n 14 years ago

Pros and Cons. The only thing I don't care for about stop motion creatures is they don't look like they were actually in the scene when it was shot- and of course they're not as these are models superimposed into the scene after the actors are done filming their portion. I would have been fascinated to see what Harryhausen might've come up with (it surely would've been more memorable than the unimaginative alien makeup we got), but atleast James Arness looks like he's actually there interacting with the actors.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] poetcomic1 13 years ago

My little brother and I used to play 'battling monsters' on the front lawn. we would imitate, without realizing it Harryhausen 'stop-action'. It looked like two children putting on a Kabuki play.

[–] caraeas 13 years ago

Interesting paradox. I LOVE Harryhausen...also love the movie as is. I think the makeup as used was very unsettling. Would have loved to see Ray's take on the concept, but not at the expense of deleting the original film as it is.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

I love Ray's work, too, but his incredible animation is not appropriate for every sci-fi film. The Thing needed to be a real and immediate being interacting with the expedition members, and making it an animated figure just wouldn't have worked as well as having an actual actor playing the part. An actor made the Thing much more real and threatening. An animated figure would have had too much of an air of fantasy and unreality, which wouldn't have been suitable for this film.

I also think the Martians used in the 1953 The War of the Worlds worked better than Ray's own proposed animated Martians would have, for much the same reasons as with The Thing From Another World. Ray's test footage of the Martians was interesting and well done but George Pal's "live" Martians were better.

I don't know why so many people criticize the make-up used for the Thing. To me it works much better making him a humanoid, not very different in shape from a human, yet completely different in nature (as a plant rather than an animal). He's capable of making the same kinds of moves a person can, yet is less vulnerable and more deadly one-on-one. It's simple, yet extremely scary and effective -- much more so, in my view, than the shape-shifter of the story and the 1982 movie. That worked well in print but less so in the film, where the creature was more gory and weird than scary.

[–] KnoxWarner 11 years ago

Stop-motion creatures cost a lot of money and took a lot of time. It might just have been a matter of budget. Godzilla was originally supposed to be stop-motion just to have a Japanese entry into the "Beast from 20,ooo Fathoms" genre, but they just couldn't afford it. It led to the birth of the guy-in-a- dino-suit genre.

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

The other reason the Japanese couldn't do an animated Godzilla is that, as effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya told Toho producers when they asked him about it, no one in Japan had any knowledge or experience in stop-motion animation. When asked how long it would take to film Gojira if they did decide to use stop-motion, Tsuburaya told them seven years. Since Toho wanted the film in four months, they went with having an actor portray Godzilla. And that 1954 film is a classic.

"Suitmation", as it's called, is much and undeservedly maligned. Done well it can be effective and scary and is in many ways more "realistic" than stop-motion. It's not just sticking a guy in a monster suit. It's incredibly hard, even hazardous work requiring great skill. Few people can do it. There's nothing more unconvincing or disparaging about that method than there is about using make-up to create a frightening and convincing alien, as The Thing From Another World proved.

And again, I'm a huge fan of Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien; what they accomplished, working basically alone, never ceases to amaze me.

[–] HarlemEagle42 (18085) 3 years ago

That would had been great.