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Saturday, July 4, 2020

Book Review: Harryhausen - The Lost Movies

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of stop-motion special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen. I've been enjoying re-watching many of his films throughout the year but doubly entertaining is discovering all the wonderful books written about Harryhausen and his work. 

A recent find is Harryhausen-The Lost Movies written by John Walsh. This glossy 188-page book from Titan Books is packed with illustrations, storyboard sketches, posters and photographs that shed some light on the nearly 70 film projects that Ray Harryhausen began but never completed. These were ideas that were conceived but never quite made it to the incubation stage. 

Some of them are really quite fascinating - The Time Machine ( 1954 ), King of Geniis ( 1969 ) and Conan ( 1969 ). Also interesting are the projects that Ray Harryhausen turned down - Moby Dick ( creating the whale model of Moby Dick for the 1956 film version ) and Night of the Demon ( 1959 ). 

The title is a little misleading because the book is mainly comprised of "Unused Ideas" and were not films that were lost overtime - merely potential projects that went unrealized. But, title confusion aside, Harryhausen - The Lost Movies ( $39.95 ) makes a great addition to the library of any Harryhausen fan. 
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2 comments:

  1. Dan Day, Jr.July 5, 2020 at 9:08 AM

    I don't have this book, but I have the Harryhausen movie posters book from Titan, which is fantastic.

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  2. Rick29July 27, 2020 at 4:18 PM

    I recently watched THE VALLEY OF GWANGI again, which was inspired by a film that Willis O'Brien started in the 1940s. I wish Harryhausen would have made O'Brien's other shelved project WAR EAGLES, a World War II story about Nazis and lost Vikings that ride giant eagles!

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