John Barry - Composer

John Barry ( November 3, 1933 - January 30, 2011 )

John Barry is undoubtedly one of the most iconic and talented composers in cinema's history. He is most famous for his themes to the James Bond movies and his scores to Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves but his body of work extends well beyond these films. Bearing the true mark of a great composer, his scores are quite capable of standing on their own, apart from the film they were written for. 

"Ever since I was a child I've considered poetry and music to be two twin sisters, completely inseparable. Over the years I've always tried to develop a poetic universe of my own, not only for filmmakers but, through their films, for audiences too." - John Barry

When one thinks of film composers, it seems that John Barry's name was always ranked at the top, but few realize how great was the shift he had chosen to make in the persona he would assume in the music world. 

John Barry Prendergast was born in York, England in 1933 and spent his childhood working in a chain of cinemas that his father owned. He took up the trumpet when he served in the British Army and shortly after his discharge formed his own band - The John Barry Seven. The young Barry was greatly influenced by American jazz and rock n' roll and he wanted his band, modeled after Bill Haley and the Comets, to usher in a new era of music; of vibrant and youthful jazz and swing beats. Between 1957 and 1960, the band had a number of hits that were released through EMI's Columbia label and these were formative years for Barry himself. He loved arranging and composing music and other groups were asking him to arrange their music as well. 

EMI later hired Barry to arrange orchestral accompaniment for many of the studio's other signed artists, including teen sensation Adam Faith. When Faith was asked to make his first film, Wild For Kicks aka Beat Girl ( 1960 ), Barry came along to compose, arrange and conduct the score. This began a forty-year career in composing for films. 

Producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman caught wind of the young Barry's arranging talents and asked if he could work his magic on a theme for the first James Bond film they were making - Dr. No ( 1962 ). Monty Norman's opening theme needed some extra punch so Barry was paid £250 to rework it and was also given a promise to be contacted if another Bond film was to be made. Barry went on to write the scores for 11 Bond films, including the themes to Goldfinger and Thunderball. 

The success of his work on From Russia with Love ( 1963 ), Zulu ( 1964 ), and King Rat ( 1965 ) skyrocketed him to musical stardom. Barry was no longer the leader of a youthful rock n' roll band. Now, his music represented the "new sound" of film and by 1972 he was dressed in white tie and tails conducting The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the Filmharmonic concert at the Royal Albert Hall, sharing the stage with the great Miklos Rozsa. 

Barry composed so many excellent scores throughout the 1960s and 1970s ( Born Free, The Lion in Winter, Deadfall, King Kong ) as well as the themes to the television series Vendetta, The Persuaders!, and Orson Welles' Great Mysteries. In the 1980s he was composing one beautiful theme after another, including the romantic classics Somewhere in Time and Out of Africa. His composing talent remained in high demand until his death at the age of 77 in 2011. 

Throughout his career, John Barry earned six Academy Award nominations, four BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globe awards, and won four Grammy awards. These were well-deserved accolades for such an accomplished composer. 

Signature Style

Barry's trademark stamp of excellence is a unique mixture of lush strings, very precise harmonic mechanisms and jazz elements. His melodies are often sensuous and usually involve complex key shifts. Barry was influenced by his love for jazz, big band music, and Russian romantic composers. Quite an intoxicating combination!


The Noteworthy Five

Goldfinger ( 1964 ) - This was the theme that set the bar for all James Bond films to follow. It was bold, brassy and extremely classy. The golden voice of Shirley Bassey increased its worth tenfold. 

Born Free ( 1966 ) - The theme to Born Free is a lovely musical salute to freedom and the yearning wild animals have for their native habitats. It sounds beautiful whether it is performed strictly as an instrumental or sung by the English singer Matt Monro. Notice how the french horns majestically sound the "Born Free" notes as the Columbia logo appears on the screen just prior to the introduction of the melody. 

The Lion in Winter ( 1968 ) -  Like his score to Zulu, The Lion in Winter is very menacing and yet it captures the atmosphere of its medieval setting beautifully. Without the presence of Barry's score, this film would be dreary indeed. The version linked here is an easy-listening adaptation by Percy Faith but Ferrante and Teicher also made an excellent cover on their album "Listen to the Movies".

Out of Africa ( 1985 ) - This one is truly breathtaking. The main melody does not make its entrance until nearly a minute and a half into the theme yet that seems to matter very little since the orchestration is so lush and sweeping. Like Bernard Herrmann, Barry loved french horns and used them profusely. 

Dances with Wolves ( 1990 ) - The John Dunbar theme to Dances with Wolves is one of those melodies that most everyone instantly recognizes, regardless of whether they have seen the film or not. The movie is set in the American West during the time of the Civil War and so John Barry implements motifs that evoke traditional American folk tunes, yet always remaining distinctly Barry in style. 

Highlights from his Discography

• Zulu ( 1964 )
• Goldfinger ( 1964 )
• King Rat ( 1965 )
• The Ipcress File ( 1965 )
• Born Free ( 1966 )
• Deadfall ( 1968 )
• The Lion in Winter ( 1968 )
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service ( 1969 )
• The Last Valley ( 1971 )
• Mary, Queen of Scots ( 1971 )
• Love Among the Ruins ( 1975 )
• The Day of the Locust ( 1975 )
• King Kong ( 1976 )
• The Black Hole ( 1979 )
• Somewhere in Time ( 1980 )
• A View to a Kill ( 1985 )
• Out of Africa ( 1985 )
• Dances with Wolves ( 1990 )
• Chaplin ( 1992 )

Eugene Loring - Choreographer

It has been quite a while since we have profiled someone for our Behind-the-Screen: The Hidden Masters of the Golden Age of Filmmaking series, so as a special treat the spotlight will be put on an occupation not usually covered in this series - that of the choreographer. 

Eugene Loring was never a household name and yet his unique style of dance was recognizable in many musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. His best-known works are Silk Stockings ( 1955 ) and Funny Face ( 1957 ), but it was through the peppy "La Bamba" number in Fiesta ( 1947 ) that first made me take notice of him. Loring blended jazz with ballet and contemporary dance to create innovative moments that were exciting to watch onscreen.

Eugene Loring, born in 1911 in Milwaukee, fell in love with music and dance at a young age. His father ran a saloon and dance hall and Loring would always join in for the Friday night dances. He was also a self-taught pianist. One day, he saw Uday Shankar, a talented Indian dancer, perform and Eugene knew that he wanted to become a professional dancer. 

He went to New York City to study with George Balanchine at the School of American Ballet in 1934, beginning at the ripe old age of 24. Loring had a powerful physique and chiseled facial features that made him look like an ancient Grecian dancer. He joined with Michel Fokine's dance troupe only two months later and quickly moved from being a character dancer to a soloist in his productions. By 1936, Loring was already creating his own ballets for the Ballet Caravan, a touring company specializing in an all-American repertoire. These ballets included Harlequin for President ( 1936 ), Yankee Clipper (1937), and Billy the Kid ( 1938 ), which featured a score by Aaron Copland and is still often performed today.

Based on his work in these productions, he was offered a lucrative six-month MGM contract in 1943. But, in typical Hollywood fashion, the studio did not know what to do with Loring after they signed him and so his first work in film was actually an acting job as jockey Taski in National Velvet ( 1944 ). It was not until 1945 that Loring was tasked with choreography work, helping to create some of the dances in Ziegfeld Follies. It was during the making of this film that he met Fred Astaire, whom he would work together with on four films, including his next production Yolanda and the Thief, which gave Loring his first onscreen credit as choreographer.

Loring staged a number of interesting dances for productions throughout the 1940s including The Thrill of Brazil ( 1946 ), Fiesta ( 1947 ) which showcased Ricardo Montalban's fine dancing ability; Abbott and Costello's Mexican Hayride ( 1948 ) and even The Inspector General ( 1949 ). Most of these films featured only a few dance numbers and so Loring had plenty of time to continue his work in ballet, his true love. He choreographed the marvelous "Carmen Jones" on Broadway and in 1948 founded the American School of Dance in Hollywood. 

Loring felt strongly about how American dancers ought to be trained. He always believed that dance was dance and no dancer should learn simply one style but instead embrace a wide variety of forms and movement.

“Americans are a composite lot and American dancers must be as many-faceted as the melting pot” Loring said in an interview conducted for Dance Magazine in 1956. The American School of Dance was open to anyone interested in dance and featured all forms - tap, ballet, jazz, modern dance - blended in a unique well-rounded curriculum. 

In the early 1950s, Loring worked on several MGM productions that featured Mario Lanza including the fun "Tina-Lina" from The Toast of New Orleans ( 1950 ), and "One Alone" and "It" from Deep in My Heart ( 1954 ) that beautifully showcased Cyd Charisse's ballet ability and Ann Miller's fantastic tapping skills. 

But Loring is best known for his work with Fred Astaire in two MGM musical classics - Funny Face ( 1957 ), which gave Audrey Hepburn a chance to jazz to an eclectic beat in "Bohemian Dance", and Silk Stockings ( 1957 ) which again featured the lovely Cyd Charisse in the exciting "The Red Blues" and "All of You" dance numbers. 

Eugene then took time off from Hollywood productions and, aside from a few television productions ( including Cinderella in 1965 ), he focused his attention on teaching. He founded the dance department at the University of California at Irvine where he taught up until his death in the early 1980s.

Eugene Loring may be one of the lesser-known choreographers, but during his lifetime he created a fine body of work. He invented marvelous dance numbers for all of the films he worked on and left "Billy the Kid" as his legacy to the world of dance. Please click on the links hidden within the text to enjoy and appreciate Loring's work, the man deserves more recognition for his contribution to film choreography than he has received. 

Carl Jules Weyl - Art Director

During the Oscars ceremonies, the awards given for Best Picture and Best Actor/Best Actress are often the most anticipated moment, while the categories of Best Sound, Best Set Design, and the like, are usually rushed through to make way for a commercial break. But I always find categories like these the most interesting because the men and women who work behind-the-scenes put in just as much effort as the leading players or director, and yet continue on in their careers without the plaudit of the general audience.

To pay tribute to some of the talented individuals who worked behind-the-scenes in films, Silver Scenes has been releasing a series of posts entitled Behind-the-Screen : Masters from the Golden Age of Filmmaking. Today, I'll be highlighting Carl Jules Weyl, an extremely talented art director who worked primarily for Warner Brothers studios throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

The Stuttgart-born Weyl studied architecture in Berlin, Munich, and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before emigrating to America, where he worked as an architect throughout the 1920s. He designed such landmark Los Angeles buildings as the Hollywood Palace Theatre and the Brown Derby restaurant prior to landing a career as an art director in the early 1930s at Warner Brothers studios.

One of his first assignments was designing the sets for The Case of the Curious Bride ( 1935 ), an early Perry Mason mystery. It was a quick B-production featuring simple sets such as an apartment, court room, diner, and Mason's office, but it gave Weyl a chance to acquaint himself with creating architecture for film. Many more assignments for budget films and quick comedies would follow until 1937, when Weyl designed the sets for two better releases - Ready, Willing, and Able and Kid Galahad. 

His consistent work at the studio led to Weyl being offered The Adventures of Robin Hood, giving him his first chance to experiment with the architecture of a different period. Weyl created several beautiful sets for this classic, including the interior of Nottingham castle with the now-famous circular stone staircase, and Sherwood Forest. Weyl romanticized this forest, which was filmed in Chico, California, by spray-painting the foliage green and adding a number of artificial rocks and trees. 

While each and every one of his set designs were marvelous to look at, Weyl received but two Oscar nominations during his career, one of which was for The Adventures of Robin Hood. 

The enormous Nottingham Castle interior set

After Robin Hood, Carl Weyl worked primarily on designing sets for Warner Brother's leading players, notably for the films of Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. All This and Heaven Too, The Letter, The Great Lie, Watch on the Rhine, and The Corn is Green were all Bette Davis films that Weyl created sets for. 

Interior of Miss Moffet's cottage in The Corn is Green

Carl Jules Weyl varied his style for each different production, but a signature trademark of his work was that broad, almost medieval, strength of the frames on the structures that he designed. Almost all of the buildings he created for his films give the impression that they have been around for decades and will continue to stand for hundreds of years. Quite a feat to accomplish, considering many of these sets did not even have a backside to their walls! 

The Corn is Green ( 1944 ) featured a particularly memorable country Tudor, with heavily plastered walls and oak beams. He created a similarly indestructible set for the interiors of the German locations seen in Desperate Journey ( 1942 ).

Rick's Cafe interior and the train station from Casablanca ( 1942 )

Undoubtedly, Casablanca remains Carl Weyl's most famous set, even though the set required very little new construction with many of the exteriors of "Rick's Cafe" being taken from older sets, and the interiors being kept to a minimum as producer Hal Wallis did not desire a lush set design. George James Hopkins worked as the set decorator for this picture, adding all of the smaller elements that made up the interior of the famous cafe. 

During the 1940s, Weyl worked on many excellent dramas including Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet ( 1940 ), Kings Row ( 1942 ), Yankee Doodle Dandy ( 1942 ), Mission to Moscow ( which earned him his second Oscar nomination ), Saratoga Trunk ( 1945 ), and The Big Sleep ( 1946 ).

Sets from Escape Me Never

His final film, before he passed away at the age of 57, featured some of his best work, Escape Me Never ( 1947 ). This script allowed Weyl to create sets for three different country locations - Italy, Switzerland, and England. The opening sequence, set in Venice, perfectly captures the essence of the city while remaining condensed and accessible for filming. For the Switzerland sets, he created the exterior and interior of a charming Gasthaus and exteriors resembling mountain woodlands. These sets resembled another one of Weyl's fine creations - the interiors and exteriors of the Sanger house seen in The Constant Nymph ( 1943 ).

Henry Mancini - Composer

Henry Mancini ( April 16, 1924 - June 14, 1994 )

Henry Mancini was one of the most prolific film composers - and certainly the most famous - in Hollywood throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His popularity outside of the film community was due in no small part to the numerous albums he released as an independent artist ( 90 albums to be precise ). Mancini had a particular knack for jazz and some of his greatest film scores ( Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther ) combined lilting jazz with his signature smooth string arrangements. During his lifetime he was nominated for 72 Grammy Awards, 18 Academy Awards, and two Emmy Awards. Impressive indeed! 

Mancini was born in Cleveland, Ohio and took up music arranging at the young age of 12 years old having been introduced to music by his father, a flutist. After serving overseas in the Air Force during World War II, he joined up with the Glenn Miller-Tex Beneke Orchestra as a pianist/arranger, which is also where he met his wife, Ginny O'Connor, one of the original members of Mel Torme's Mel-Tones. 

In 1952, he was given a two-week assignment to work on the Abbott and Costello vehicle Lost in Alaska at Universal Pictures and ended up staying for six years, working uncredited on background music to numerous comedies and dramas for the studio. It was his scoring of the television series Peter Gunn ( 1958 ) that launched Mancini to musical stardom. This hard-core rock and roll jazz beat earned him an Emmy award and two Grammys, as well as a 30-year collaboration with writer/producer Blake Edwards.

Throughout the 1960s, Henry Mancini was one of the most sought-after composers of comedy films, working on such classics as The Great Imposter ( 1960 ), Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation ( 1962 ), The Pink Panther ( 1963 ), Man's Favorite Sport ( 1964 ), The Great Race ( 1965 ), and The Party ( 1968 ), as well as dramas like Breakfast at Tiffany's ( 1961 ), Experiment in Terror ( 1962 ), Charade ( 1963 ), Dear Heart ( 1964 ), and Two for the Road ( 1967 ). 

He continued his success throughout the 1970s and 1980s, tackling both film ( The Molly McGuires, Darling Lili, Oklahoma Crude, The Great Waldo Pepper, Victor/Victoria ) as well as television ( The Moneychangers, What's Happening!, The Thorn Birds ) while touring around the world giving concert performances. Mancini passed away in 1994 of complications arising from pancreatic cancer, but, today, his three children continue his legacy with their own music ( daughter Monica is a singer, son Chris is a composer ) and through concert tours performing the music of their father. 

Signature Style

Mancini's musical arrangements are vibrant, different, and downright fun. He infused jazz into traditional film music scoring, creating themes that were catchy as well as lush and beautiful. Many of his songs feature marimbas, xylophones, and saxophones...instruments not often heard in traditional movie music. When Mancini turned the romance on high he often utilized slow strings, tinkling piano keys, and gentle choral background singing. He was a maestro of every style. 

The Noteworthy Five 

Of all the composers that will be featured in our Behind-the-Screen series, Mancini is probably the most difficult composer to select just five scores from, since he made so many marvelous ones...and it's tempting to pick personal favorites!  Peter Gunn and The Thorn Birds should be included but since they were written for television we have omitted them. 

1. The Pink Panther ( 1963 ) - Undoubtedly, Henry Mancini's most famous piece...and it is one of the few tunes that can be recognized just by hearing two notes! Mancini's theme perfectly captured the slow stealth motions of the film's cat burglar, the "Phantom", infused with that iconic sassy brass.

2. Charade ( 1963 ) - Mancini set the tone for the film from the first few minutes : Getting chased by criminals is serious business, but when you have Cary Grant as an ally, running hard and fast can be fun. 

3. The Sweetheart Tree from The Great Race ( 1965 ) - Natalie Wood sings this beautiful love song in a sequence in The Great Race, but the original version - the player-piano styling - can be heard in the background throughout the film. It's a touching tribute to a bygone era. 

4. Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's ( 1961 ) - Another one of Mancini's enduring legacies. This is probably the most romantic  song to appear in a motion picture and it is certainly one of the most covered tunes of the 20th century. Andy Williams made "Moon River" a personal chart-topping hit in 1962. 

5. The Days of Wine and Roses ( 1962 ) - This theme features some gorgeous lyrics by Johnny Mercer, who had a long and fruitful collaboration with Mancini for years. You can hear Mancini's lovely chorus in this piece too. 


Highlights of his Discography

• The Glenn Miller Story ( 1953 )
• Peter Gunn ( 1958 ) 
• Mr. Lucky ( 1959 )
• The Great Imposter ( 1960 ) 
• "Baby Elephant Walk" from Hatari! ( 1962 ) 
• Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation ( 1962 ) 
• Dear Heart ( 1964 ) 
• Man's Favorite Sport? ( 1964 )
• The Great Race ( 1965 ) 
• The Thorn Birds ( 198
• Mommie Dearest ( 1981 )
• The Great Mouse Detective ( 1986 )

Carroll Clark and Emile Kuri - Setting the Scene for Walt Disney

This edition of our Behind the Screen - The Hidden Masters of the Golden Age of Filmmaking series was going to be a feature on one of my favorite art directors - Carroll Clark. But it is very difficult to praise the work of an art director without giving due praise to the set decorator who, through the use of furnishings, props and small personal objects make the sets “come alive”. And so, this post will pay tribute to Carroll Clark and Emile Kuri…the art director and set decorator or just about every live-action Walt Disney film made between 1955-1972. Wow, is that a lot of movies! Due to the limited amount of space on this blog... I’ll just be highlighting these Disney films and will cover more detail about Clark's work in the 1940s in a future post. 

Carroll Clark was born in Mountain View, California on February 6, 1894. He got his formal training in architecture but decided to pursue commercial design instead, which eventually led to his getting a position as art director for Pathe studios during the mid-1920s.

In 1930 Howard Hughes selected him to be art director on his high-flying war adventure Hell’s Angels and Clark began to get more assignments his way. However, it was when he joined RKO studios two years later that he accomplished his real triumphs of design ingenuity.

Van Nest Polglase, one of the most influential production designers of the American cinema, was working on sets for Merium C. Cooper’s epic thriller King Kong ( 1933 ) and hired Carroll Clark as an assistant on the project. The two worked well together and soon after were sharing credit ( and Academy Award nods ) for creating the imaginative and elegant art deco sets for the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers films Flying Down to Rio, Roberta, Top Hat, and later Carefree.

Carroll Clark was kept busy throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, on films such as The Little Minister, Enchanted April, Hitler’s Children, Murder my Sweet, and The Enchanted Cottage. Clark made the "enchanted" cottage simple and cozy and inviting through his open-floor plan, and use of wide beams, diamond-paned windows, and stonework.

Now is a good time to introduce Emile Kuri, for around this year he was beginning to make his mark in Hollywood too. Emile Kuri was born in Mexico on June 14, 1907 to Lebanese parents. When Emile was only 12 years old, his father died, and needing to support his mother and siblings he found work at a furniture store in Hollywood. One day during lunch hour, while all the salespeople were away, a wealthy woman came into the store looking for articles to decorate a room in her house and Emile gladly made suggestions…even though his job was just to dust the furniture. She liked his taste and suggestions so much she asked if he could re-decorate her and her husband’s house. Her husband was Hal Roach.

Emile impressed Mr. Roach with his innate flair for decorating and soon found himself working as the set decorator on Roach’s comedy classic Topper ( 1938 ). His career as a set decorator had begun – and what an impression on film design he would make!

Throughout his career with Warner Brothers and Paramount studios during the 1940s and 50s he worked with such directors as William Wyler ( The Heiress ), Frank Capra ( It’s a Wonderful Life’s Bedford Falls was Emile’s creation ) George Stevens ( A Place in the Sun, Shane ) and Alfred Hitchcock ( Spellbound, Rope, Trouble with Harry ).

Carroll Clark was also working with Hitchcock during the 1940s ( Suspicion, Notorious ) and was busy creating beautiful sets for such classics as I Remember Mama ( 1948 ), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer ( 1947 ), and Mr. Blandings Buildings His Dream House ( 1948 ).

In 1953, Walt Disney hired Emile Kuri to give Walt Disney Studios’ office complex a face-lift. Plans for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea were under way and once again Emile was in the right place at the right time. He became set decorator for the film, and his creative use of ironwork, velour, and ship parts earned him his second Academy Award and helped inspire a new Jules Verne Victorian fantasy style – Steampunk.

Carroll Clark arrived at Disney Studios not long after for his first assignment, Darby O’Gill and the Little People ( 1959 ) and thereafter the talented designing duo were working side by side for the next 15 years.

The sets and décor for Toby Tyler ( 1959 ), The Absent Minded Professor ( 1959 ), Pollyanna ( 1960 ), Babes in Toyland ( 1960 ), The Parent Trap ( 1961 ), Summer Magic ( 1963 ), Mary Poppins ( 1964 ), and That Darn Cat ( 1965 )were all their handiwork.

While an art director has the task of setting the scene, it is in the set decorator’s hands to furnish that setting with objects in keeping with the art director’s vision. "The most difficult thing," Kuri once told an interviewer, "is to make a set not look like a set, but like a home, as if the people just walked out."

Emile Kuri knew how to convey character through the use of objects in a set. This is especially evident in A Place in the Sun, It’s A Wonderful Life, and in Pollyanna and Mary Poppins. The Banks household at 17 Cherry Tree Lane is very old "banker"ish and yet quite modern... and quite feminine... just overall a happy place to live in.

But let’s not forget that the look of Cherry Tree Lane itself came from the mind of the art director, Carroll Clark, too.

In The Happiest Millionaire and Pollyanna, Emile Kuri made great use of light toned furniture and abundant greenery to add color and cheerfulness to the Victorian residences of two wealthy upper-class families.

During the mid 1960s the team worked on such classic live-action films as The Ugly Dachshund, The Monkey’s Uncle, Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit and The Love Bug.

The Love Bug was Carroll Clark’s final feature. He passed away on May 17th, 1968, after designing the sets to over 172 feature films in his career.

Emile Kuri continued to work at Walt Disney Studios up until his retirement in 1973. In addition to using his skill of set decorating for film, Emile Kuri worked on the sets of Disneyland as well, designing the interior to the Columbia sailing ship and the New Orleans Plaza Inn.

Emile Kuri earned 8 Academy Awards nominations in his lifetime, but more importantly than the awards and accolades he received was the wonderful interiors that he created for all those Walt Disney films that have become so memorable and identifiable with the film itself and the characters. Of all the films that Emile Kuri and Carroll Clark worked on, I love The Parent Trap set the best...and so, I'll close here with a screenshot from that magnificent modern kitchen.

Ray Harryhausen and the Creation of Dynamation

Wolffian Classics Movies Digest is currently hosting a blogathon in tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animator extraordinaire behind such fantasmagorical creatures as the fighting skeletons, the cyclops, Medusa, Kraken, and the beast from 20,000 fanthoms in such classics as Jason and the Argonauts ( 1963 ), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad ( 1958 ), and Clash of the Titans ( 1981 ). 

As part of this tribute to this talented man we thought we'd include a brief introduction to the process he created, known commercially as Dynamation. It can also be called the "split-screen" process because of the way the screen appears to be split while the animation is being enacted in the middle layer.  

Prior to Harryhausen's development of this technique most animation was created for sequences that did not require "live" actor interaction within the scene. For instance, in an adventure film a group of archaeologists may come across a dinosaur grazing on grass in the distance. The director of the movie would film the actors expression of surprise upon seeing the dinosaur and an animator would film the stop-motion sequence of the dinosaur but when completed these scenes would remain separate...actors in one scene, animation in another. However, with the split-screen process, viewers were able to see the actors directly interacting with the animation..e.g a dinosaur with a man struggling to get free from his grasp.

In three-dimensional stop-motion animation, an object, or a poseable model, is photographed one frame at a time using a traditional film camera. In between each frame the animator moves the arms or legs of the model a fraction of an inch before photographing the object again. When these still shots are run through a projector the rapid succession of images creates the illusion of movement. A standard 35mm film projector runs the film at 24 frames per second, and so 24 separate photographed frames have to be taken to make each second of animation on screen. Hence, a 2-minute sequence of a giant cyclops eyeing a tasty morsel for dinner would take 2,880 separate frames to compose. Quite a time-consuming task! 

Stop-motion animation can be traced back to the beginning of movie-making, in the late 1800s.  Some of the earliest animated films include Vitagraph's The Humpty Dumpty Circus ( 1897 ) by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton, featuring a circus of acrobats and animals coming to life, and The Haunted Hotel by J. Stuart Blackton ( 1907 ). 

Willis O'Brien was the resounding king of animation during the early days of talking pictures. He brought to life the prehistoric creatures of yor in First National Pictures adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World ( 1925 ) and later, in one of the most iconic films of the century, King Kong ( 1933 ), where he created a creature so lifelike in appearance and emotion that many viewers were brought to tears at his demise at the end of the film. 

It was Willis O'Brien's work on King Kong that instilled in Ray Harryhausen the desire to make stop-motion animation his career. The Eighth Wonder of the World inspired the young 14-year-old Ray to attempt creating his own model Kong, which led to his discovery of the stop-motion animation process. 

Under O'Brien's tutelage, Harryhausen learned the filmmaker's craft from the ground up and by 1948 was working alongside O'Brien on his first feature film, Mighty Joe Young ( 1948 ). O'Brien had utilized the multi-dimensional process of interacting animation with the actors through the means of sandwiching his models between two glass paintings, one of which was painted foreground, and shooting "through" them with the camera.

It was while working solo on his second feature film ,The Beast from 20,000 Fanthoms, that Harryhausen realized what a tiresome and time-consuming process painting foreground could be and knew that it would never work for that particular film due to the low budget the production had. He had been experimenting with using mattes as far back as 1938 to create a "split-screen" and so on The Beast from 20,000 Fanthoms he put those tests to use. 

The split-screen was a simple process that used mattes to block out portions of the film. Since film only develops from the light that escapes through the eye of a camera, any portion that is blackened out remains undeveloped. If the film is rewound the portion that was blackened can then be used again. This technique was used as far back as the early 1900s.

Dynamation however, used a model in between the matte and the background image to create a three layered image. The first step in the Dynamation process was to plan out in detail the movements the model, or creature, was to make and then to film the live-action scene with the actors and usually a stick or stand-in crew members to represent the movements and position of the creature. 

This film was developed and rear-projected on a screen. Harryhausen would place his model on an animation stand in front of this screen and then place a large pane of glass in front of that. On this glass he painted in black the foreground that he wished to block out. After filming the animated sequence so that the creature interacted with the actors as planned, he then rewound the film and filmed through the glass again, this time with the image he had previously filmed blackened out. 

Although it sounds like a very tiresome process, it was actually much easier to utilize mattes then to build and film miniature sets for the models to move in.

In 1957, Charles Schneer, the producer of many of Harryhausen's films during the late 50s and 1960s, dubbed this split-screen technique Dynamation. He was sitting in his Buick one day while waiting for traffic and noticed the Dynaflow logo written on the dashboard...he thought the prefix dyna would be the perfect marketing term for Harryhausen's animation process. 

Harryhausen used Dynamation in It Came from Beneath the Sea ( 1954 ), Earth Versus the Flying Saucers ( 1956 ), The Animal World ( 1956 ) and 20 Million Miles to Earth ( 1957 ) but it was not until The 7th Voyage of Sinbad ( 1958 ) that it was exploited as a merchandising feature. 

"Dynamation will be brought to the screen for the first time in COLOR!"

In the short trailer This is Dynamation! ( 1957 ) used to promote The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the narrator announces the glorious wonders of the technique and how "anything that the mind can conceive can now be brought to the screen". 

Dynamation was utilized on all of the Ray Harryhausen films up until his final feature motion picture, Clash of the Titans in 1981. Today, most special effects are created using computer graphic programs ( CGI ) but somehow, in spite of the amazing realism provided by digital graphics there is something very unique, very alive, about Harryhausen's technique. Perhaps the creatures we see created by computer effects have lost their awe because we know the secret behind their existence  The mysterious process of Dynamation was kept from the public during the release of many of his biggest films... and this was one more element that added to the magic of the Harryhausen pictures. 

This post is our contribution to the Ray Harryhausen Blogathon being hosted by Wolffian Classics Movies Digest. It was originally published here on Silver Scenes in June, 2013. Click this link to read more posts about Harryhausen, his work, and his films. Enjoy! 

Bertram Millhauser and the Sherlock Holmes Films

Bertram Millhauser is a familar name to any mystery fan, for he penned five scripts for the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films of the 1940s. Millhauser obviously loved mysteries himself. His personal life is shrouded in mystery and even his portrait bears a striking resemblance to Edgar Allen Poe, looking like it belongs hanging on the walls of the Haunted Mansion. 

Millhauser was born in New York City in 1892. He began his career as a stenographer in the advertising department of Pathe films. While still a teenager, he worked his way up to the script department penning scenarios and then full scripts to a number of short films starring Pearl White, including the famous serial The Perils of Pauline ( 1914 ).

Throughout the 1920s Bertram Millhauser kept busy at Pathe devising story plots for dramas and action and adventure flickers such as The Timber Queen ( 1922 ), The Eagle's Talons ( 1923 ), Code of the Sea ( 1924 ) and Feet of Clay ( 1924 ). He also tried his hand at producing, and he put the money down on a film he helped write, The Leopard Lady ( 1928 ) for the DeMille Corporation. 

Millhauser got a foretaste of his future bread-and-butter, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, when he was called upon to write the script for the last Holmes film to feature the stone-faced English actor, Clive Brooks - Conan Doyle's Master Detective Sherlock Holmes - in 1932. This script was far removed from the Holmes scenarios that Arthur Conan Doyle had made so popular in his serialization of the character in the Strand Magazine. It pitted Holmes against his arch-nemesis Moriarty who unleashed a group of international criminals in London, plotting to introduce the "American method" of organized crime - protection rackets - unto the public. Gone was the Victorian London of yor, for Holmes was now a detective in a modern 1930s setting.

While Holmes remained true to character, Millhauser obviously must have had very little regard for Dr. Watson ( portrayed admirably by Reginald Owen) because he gives the old boy the brush-off after only two scenes. When Holmes learns of the American hoodlums plotting their mob rule in London, this exchange takes place : 

Sherlock

"There's only one way to deal with these alien butchers.....Their own way. Shoot first, investigate afterwards."

Dr. Watson

"But is it sporting, old chap?"

Sherlock

"Oh, get out, Watson."

Times have indeed changed from Conan Doyle's days! Poor Watson leaves the scene, never to appear again in the film. 

While the production values to Conan Doyle's Master Detective Sherlock Holmes were high, the script bogged the film down, and Clive Brook would later confess that his last outing as Holmes was in "a terrible film". 

Perhaps Millhauser's mind was on a project more dear to his heart at the moment. In 1932 he was adapting his own novel - "The Life of Jimmy Dolan" - into a film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Loretta Young. Millhauser was no longer devising merely scenarios for budget action films and was now working steadily on scripts for productions that starred top-drawing actors such as Kay Francis ( Storm at Daybreak ), Barbara Stanwyck ( Ever in My Heart ) and James Cagney ( Jimmy the Gent ). 

It was during this time that Millhauser hit his stride, penning a number of great budget mystery films including The Garden Murder Case ( one of the Phylo Vance series ), Magnificent Brute ( 1936 ), Under Cover of Night ( 1937 ), The Crime Nobody Saw ( 1937 ), and Nick Carter, Master Detective ( 1939 ). 

Universal Studios beckoned in 1942 when they called Bertram over to pen a screenplay for the next entry in their popular Sherlock Holmes series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce - Sherlock Holmes in Washington. Universal made an exclusive $300,000 deal with the Conan Doyle estate which gave the studio title to the characters for a seven-year period, along with rights to 21 of Doyle's original stories. Universal quickly decided to depart from the traditional Victorian era setting that the 20th Century Fox films had established ( The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ) and feature the detecting duo in a series of brashly up-to-the-minute espionage intrigues : Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror and Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. 

Sherlock Holmes in Washington was the last in the series to feature Nazis as the main antagonists, and also the last in which Rathbone sports his Caesarian haircut. Millhauser fancied himself capable of creating his very own Holmes yarn without referring to the Conan Doyle stories, but sadly, his ego would be wounded. The story to Sherlock Holmes in Washington ( 1943 ) relied too heavily on coincidence to generate much excitement, and Millhauser's script was surprisingly lackluster considering the premise itself was quite clever. It concerned an all-important piece of microfilm hidden in a matchbox. The British have it, then lose it; the Americans want it, and the Nazis will fight for it; but only Sherlock obtains it in the end. 

Undeterred by this stilted script, Universal assigned Bertram Millhauser to create another Holmes mystery, and their faith in his writing ability paid off....Sherlock Holmes Faces Death was one of the best in the series. This time Millhauser worked from a Conan Doyle story - "The Sign of Four" - to create a really taut screenplay set in an army officers convalescence home called Musgrave House, in which three murders have taken place - always after the clock strikes thirteen! Holmes ingeniously discovers - with the aid of boozy butler Brunton - that an old spoken inheritance ritual is in fact a clue, passed down from generation to generation, pointing the way to a long forgotten land grant buried in the cellar of the manor. 

"Hurlstone? Grim old pile. Very spooky"

Dr. Watson

"Don't tell me you met a ghost?"

Sherlock Holmes

"No, not so spooky as that. Ghosts don't stab people in the neck, do they? Or do they?"

Dr. Watson

"Not well-bred ghosts, Watson."

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death dispensed with the Nazis and had Sherlock using his powers of deduction to solve crimes committed by devious criminals. This film captured an almost Gothic atmosphere and the script implied an acceptance of the supernatural, for the first four lines of the Musgrave ritual - "Who first shall find it, were better dead; who next shall find it, perils his head; the last to find it, defies dark powers; and brings good fortune to Hurlstone Towers" take on the air of prophecy when it comes true. Bertram wove a number of great classic mystery elements together - the dark stormy night, secluded manor, hidden passages, and the old chestnut of the clock striking 13 - into an engrossing and sprightly paced film. 

Since he was so successful in adapting a Conan Doyle story, Millhauser decided to use them as reference again for the sixth Sherlock Holmes film, The Pearl of Death ( 1944 ), which had Holmes chasing after a stolen pearl hidden within the bust of a Napoleon statue. This scenario, based upon "The Six Napoleons", had the elements of being a highly entertaining film, but Millhauser did not expand on some of its most promising plot innovations ( the public 'disgrace' of Holmes, for example ) and instead chose to throw in the brutish Oxton Creeper to give the film more of the Universal horror touch. 

Millhauser's last Sherlock Holmes script was undoubtably his best. He combined elements from six of Conan Doyle stories into one of the most delightful Sherlock Holmes films in the series - The Spider Woman ( 1944 ). This film pitted Holmes against Adrea Spedding, a female Moriarity, who selects gamblers down in their luck as her victims in a series of "pyjama murders". The film itself is only 63 minutes and yet it included some of the most memorable scenes in the entire series - Holmes' "demise" in a roaring turrent ( taken from "The Final Problem" ) and the mourning by Mrs. Hudson, Watson, and Lestrade ( each of whom wanted his pipe ); the pygmy killer; Holmes' disguise as Maharajah Singh; the fake entomologist; and the smoke-bomb ruse Ms. Spadding employed at 221B Baker Street. 

"Of all the transparent old fakers I ever saw!...."Gilflower" what a name to pick!..."Bullflower"...."Bullfrog"...."Wiggle-woggle"! Why, you can do better than that....those dark glasses! That preposterous wig! Come out from behind those silly whiskers - I know you!"

Dr. Watson, talking to an aged entomologist he believes is Holmes in disguise

In 1944, Bertram Millhauser took a brief break from the Sherlock Holmes series to pen two other mysteries for Universal : The Invisible Man's Revenge and Enter Arsene Lupin, before he completed his last Holmes film, The Woman in Green ( 1945 ). This was certainly the most ghoulish premise in the series with Holmes hunting for a killer who blackmails innocent people by convincing them, with the placement of a severed finger in their pocket and some clever hypnotizing, that they committed the crimes themselves. This film had its memorable moments, but it lazily approached its climax and Sherlock Holmes himself seemed rather tired with the whole mystery. 

Millhauser typed out the scripts to a few other mysteries in the late 1940s such as The Web ( 1948 ) and Toyko Joe ( 1949 ) starring Humphrey Bogart, before he decided that television would provide him with more creative opportunities. He worked on several episodes of Chevron Theatre, and the Lux Video Theatre, and worked as story editor on over 39 episodes of The Lone Ranger before he put the dust cover on his typewriter for good. Millhauser passed away in 1958 at the age of 66. 

This post is our contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association's spring blogathon "Words, Words, Words" running from April 11th to April 15th. Be sure to head on over to CMBA's website to check out more posts on screenwriters, authors, and writers featured in movies.