Текст книги "Monsters in the Movies "

Автор книги: Джон Лэндис

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One Million Years B.C.[Don Chaffey, 1966] Raquel Welch as Loana in the claws of a pterodactyl! A Hammer color remake of the black and white Hal Roach original [1940], with special effects by Ray Harryhausen.

DRAGONS & DINOSAURS

What’s the difference between a dragon and a dinosaur? “Dragons” are legendary creatures with reptilian traits. The term “Dinosaurs” refers to a diverse group of animals that were on Earth from the beginning of the Triassic period to the end of the Cretaceous. That was a long time ago. So for the purposes of this guide, which is about monsters in the movies, I think I can safely lump them together in one chapter. Especially since humans and dinosaurs did not coexist and most movies featuring dinosaurs have people running for their lives away from them.

Winsor McCay, the brilliant newspaper cartoonist (creator of the amazing comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland), wanted an animated film to use in his vaudeville act. With thousands of drawings, McCay created Gertie the Dinosaur[1914], in which the dinosaur Gertie would respond onscreen to McCay’s live commands from the stage. Gertie is probably cinema’s first dinosaur.

The first major movie to feature dinosaurs was an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World[Harry O. Hoyt, 1925]. This starred Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger and showcased the groundbreaking stop-motion animation of Willis O’Brien. The Lost World’s climatic scenes, in which a brontosaurus brought back by Challenger escapes and wreaks havoc on the streets of London, would inspire literally hundreds of movies in the future.

The rampaging dinosaur in The Lost Worldends up swimming in London’s River Thames; 36 years later, Gorgo[Eugène Lourié, 1961] and son wade down the Thames, making their way back home to the sea. Gorgo is one of those movie dinosaurs that relies more on the imagination of the filmmakers than on any science or research into the fossil record.

In 1924, Fritz Lang directed Die Nibelungen: Siegfriedand Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge[also 1924]. Based on the same 12th-century epic poem, The Song of the Nibelungs, that Richard Wagner based his Ring Cycle operas on, the first film has a marvelous dragon for Siegfried to slay. As I am sure you all remember, Siegfried bathes himself in the dragon’s blood, and if you’re curious about the proper way to bathe in dragon’s blood, Lang shows us how.

The Russian film Ilya Muromets[aka The Sword and the Dragon, Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956] features a ferocious dragon created, like the one in Siegfried, as a full-size mechanical puppet for the lead actor to fight.

Since both dinosaurs and dragons are hard to come by for motion-picture work, filmmakers have used a number of methods to bring them to the screen, including full-size puppets, like those in Siegfriedand Ilya Murometsand, later, sophisticated animatronics in Jurassic Park[Steven Spielberg, 1993] and its sequels. Traditional, hand-painted cell animation was used in the Rite of Springsequence in Walt Disney’s Fantasia[Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, 1940], while CG animation featured in How to Train Your Dragon[Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois, 2010]. Jurassic Parkand its sequels also makes extensive use of CG.

To save money, live lizards, iguanas, and alligators with fins attached to them were shot in slow motion in an attempt to convey great size and weight in movies like One Million B.C.[Hal Roach, Hal Roach Jr., 1940], the remake of The Lost World[Irwin Allen, 1960], and Journey to the Center of the Earth[Henry Levin, 1959].

My preference in dinosaurs and dragons is for ones made with stop-motion animation, as in the silent Lost World, King Kong[Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933], The Beast of Hollow Mountain[Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodríguez, 1956], The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm[Henry Lavin, George Pal, 1962], Dinosaurus![Irvin Yeaworth, 1960], Jack The Giant Killer[Nathan H. Juran, 1962], and the wonderful Loch Ness Monster in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao[George Pal, 1964]. Another, simpler technique to bring these enormous creatures to life is just to use men in dinosaur costumes stomping around miniature sets. This was done in Gorgo[1961], and Japanese movies like the original Godzilla[Ishirô Honda, 1954] and all of its sequels and imitations.

Stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen has created some of my favorite dragons and dinosaurs. There is the majestic dragon of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad[Nathan H. Juran, 1958] and the unforgettable Hydra that guards the Golden Fleece in Jason and the Argonauts. [Don Chaffey, 1963].

Ray’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms[Eugène Lourié, 1953] was the first of the many monsters unleashed by the atomic bomb. Based on a Ray Bradbury short story, “The Fog Horn,” in which a lonely, prehistoric beast rises from the sea mistaking a lighthouse foghorn for a mating call, the enormous success of The Beast From 20,000 Fathomsprovided the incentive for Toho Studios in Tokyo to produce their own gigantic-beast-rising-from-the-sea movie, Godzilla, in 1954. Godzilla’s sequel, Godzilla Raids Againwas retitled Gigantis, the Fire Monsterfor its US release in 1955.

Harryhausen made more realistic dinosaurs in Hammer’s remake of One Million Years B.C.[Don Chaffey, 1966]. Ray also gave us the indelible image of Raquel Welch in a fur bikini carried off by a mama pterodactyl to feed to her hungry chicks. In Harryhausen’s The Valley of Gwangi[Jim O’Connolly, 1969], cowboys discover dinosaurs in a hidden valley and capture an allosaurus, which they put on display in a bullring. It breaks free, and dies trapped in a burning cathedral.

Ishirô Honda’s Japanese dragon (or is he a dinosaur?) Godzilla[1954] was an international sensation and has been followed by countless sequels and one ill-conceived, big-budget Hollywood remake [Roland Emmerich, 1998]. Godzilla himself has had a fascinating relationship with Japan. Originally a symbol of the destruction caused by the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, Godzilla has gone from being Japan’s ultimate villain, to the country’s friend and protector. Godzilla has been joined by Rodan! The Flying Monster![Ishirô Honda, 1956], a sort of jumbo pterodactyl, and a golden, three-headed flying dragon from outer space named Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster[Ishirô Honda, 1964] among others. The great Eiji Tsuburaya supervised almost all of Toho Studios’ giant monster films, his special effects distinguished by his trademark miniatures: entire cities built to scale to be knocked down, stomped on, and blown up.

Paleontologists keep discovering new dinosaurs and I am sure that moviemakers will, too. And I for one, look forward to meeting them.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms  [Eugène Lourié, 1953]

Harryhausen’s influential dinosaur-on-the-loose movie. Tagline: “They couldn’t escape the terror! And neither will you!”

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Evil defeated 

St. George and the Dragon, a tinsel picture from the 19th century.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

The Lost World  [Harry O. Hoyt, 1925]

The first film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic book. Wallace Beery played Professor Challenger in this silent movie, with stop-motion animation by the great Willis O’Brien.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Gertie  [aka Gertie the Dinosaur, Winsor McCay, 1914]

Pioneering cartoonist Winsor McCay toured in vaudeville with his hand-drawn animation, giving the onscreen dinosaur verbal commands from the stage.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain  [Willis O’Brien, 1918]

The poster for the 19-minute-long, stop-motion animation that got O’Brien the job of animating the dinosaurs for The Lost World[Harry O. Hoyt, 1925], which led to his masterpiece, King Kong[1933].

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Goliath and the Dragon  [aka La Vendetta di Ercole, Vittorio Cottafavi, 1960]

This Italian sword and sandal epic not only features a good dragon, it also has an unexpected Broderick Crawford as King Eurystheus!

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Gorgo  [Eugène Lourié, 1961]

Lourié seemed to specialize in giant dinosaur pictures, this time it’s British. Gorgo’s mom is pictured here, trashing London’s Tower Bridge.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried  [Fritz Lang, 1924]

Paul Richter as Siegfried bathes in the blood of the dragon he has just slain to make himself invincible. However, a falling leaf lands on his shoulder, leaving one vulnerable spot. The first of the two films Lang made based on the medieval epic poem The Song of the Nibelungs.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Ilya Muromets  [aka The Sword and the Dragon,  The Epic Hero and the Beast, Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956]

Boris Andreyev as Ilya Muromets about to slay a dragon. Roger Corman recut and dubbed this Russian film and I saw it on television many times as a kid, not knowing exactly what to make of the words not matching the actors’ mouth movements. The first Soviet movie shot in CinemaScope.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Jurassic Park  [Steven Spielberg, 1993]

One of Stan Winston’s dinosaurs up to no good.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Also shown here is the incredible, life-size audioanimatronic Tyrannosaurus from the second of three Jurassic Park movies: The Lost World [1997]

“All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!”

“But, John. If the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists!”

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), Jurassic Park

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

One Million Years B.C.  [Don Chaffey, 1966]

A mama pterodactyl is about to feed Raquel Welch to her hungry chicks. Ray Harryhausen did the effects in an unusual “work for hire” at this stage of his career.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

King Kong  [Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933]

Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), high up in the tree where Kong has put her for safety, looks on as he battles a T. Rex. Brilliantly staged, with innovative use of sound effects (by Murray Spivack). A classic sequence from Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion tour de force.

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The Beast of Hollow Mountain  [Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodríguez, 1956]

From a story by Willis O’Brien, who used the name “El Toro Estrella” for his writing credit! This particular shot is too close and clearly shows the cowboy is a puppet. O’Brien did not do the stop-motion animation for this film, which is very similar to his original screenplay The Valley of the Mist, later made by O’Brien’s protégé Ray Harryhausen as The Valley of Gwangi[Jim O’Connolly, 1969].

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm  [Henry Levin, George Pal, 1962]

The lovely dragon terrorizes Buddy Hackett and Terry-Thomas in the “Singing Bone” sequence of this Cinerama movie.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Dinosaurus!  [Irvin Yeaworth, 1960]

The puppet double for the little boy Julio rides the puppet apatosaurusin this dumb movie. Surprisingly, Dinosaurus!was photographed by the great Stanley Cortez. Scenes from the film show up in Schlock[me, 1973].

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Jack the Giant Killer  [Nathan H. Juran, 1962]

The Kerwin Mathews puppet astride the flying dragon animated by Jim Danforth in this The 7th Voyage of Sinbadimitation.

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

The Valley of Gwangi  [Jim O’Connolly, 1969]

Based on an original, unproduced script by Willis O’Brien, Harryhausen finally realized his mentor’s vision and put cowboys and dinosaurs together in the Old West. Here, the captive Gwangi is being transported to be put on public display.

“It’s disgraceful to think of putting this fabulous creature on display in a cheap circus.”

Professor Bromley (Laurence Naismith) in The Valley of Gwangi[1969]

Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]

Rodan! The Flying Monster!  [Ishirô Honda, 1956]

Ishirô Honda is at it again! Tagline: “The Super-Sonic Hell-Creature No Weapon Could Destroy!” Rodan looks much less like a European dragon than the poster portrays him.

King Kong[Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933] King Kong crucified and on display for a Broadway theater audience. Left to right: Bruce Cabot, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World!

MONSTROUS APES

In King Kong[Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933], theatrical showman Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has captured the giant ape, brought him to Manhattan, and billed him as “The Eighth Wonder of the World.” The opening-night audience thrills with anticipation waiting for the curtain to rise on what promises to be the Broadway sensation of the decade. Two women wonder what Mr. Denham has in store for them this time. One remarks that she heard it was “some kind of gorilla.” As two men climb over them on their way to their seats, the other woman replies, “Ain’t we got enough of them in New York already?”

King Kongis the greatest fantasy film of all time. When Ray Harryhausen saw King Kongat Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, he was stunned by Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion animation of Kong and the prehistoric denizens of Skull Island. O’Brien became Harryhausen’s mentor and hired him to assist on the later stop-motion gorilla picture, the romantic Mighty Joe Young[Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1949].

What is it about apes and particularly gorillas that makes them the go-to monster for the movies? Even haunted-house comedies always had a guy in a gorilla suit running around.

Monkeys have obvious similarities to human beings, something that has fascinated people for centuries. But gorillas themselves are relatively new to us. When the first gorilla cadaver was stuffed and brought to Europe from Africa in the late 1840s, the ape’s massive size and obvious power shocked many people. Popular books, like Paul du Chaillu’s Stories of the Gorilla Country[1867] helped to create the myth of gorillas as ferocious raiders, carrying off women from native villages. This theme of the gorilla as rapist became a popular motif in western art: the French sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet’s bronze Gorilla Carrying off a Womanwon the Medal of Honor at the Paris Salon in 1887. Popular culture, including the movies, has continued to perpetuate the image of the rampaging giant ape, even though gorillas in the wild are the gentlest of herbivores.

Chimpanzees are known for their intelligence and “human-like” behavior. However, as adorable as baby chimps are, they grow up to be very big and very aggressive animals. Nevertheless, what audiences demanded were gorillas.

Filmmakers soon realized that putting a man in a gorilla suit was far more practical than working with a real gorilla. And soon a special breed of performer (often supplying their own ape suits) began playing gorillas in thrillers, horror films, and comedies.

Names like Emil Van Horn, Charles Gemora, George Burrows, Ray “Crash” Corrigan, and Bob Burns may not be familiar names nowadays, but their gorilla suits are, for each actor had his own, instantly recognizable one.

Gorilla suits were often more valued than the performers who owned them. The B-movie producer Herman Cohen was too cheap to fly ape-performer George Burrows to London to wear his gorilla suit for Konga[John Lemont, 1961], so Burrows reluctantly agreed to rent it to the production. The suit was worn by an unknown British stunt man.

Kongais a particularly wacky movie. Botanist Michael Webber (an over-the-top Michael Gough) injects a chimpanzee (portrayed by a real chimpanzee) with a serum that somehow changes the chimp into a highly aggressive gorilla. Webber’s jealous girlfriend/assistant injects more serum into the chimp/now gorilla which causes it to grow big enough to rampage around London, destroying Tower Bridge and Big Ben in the process. George Burrows was furious when producer Cohen returned his gorilla suit heavily damaged by the miniatures and pyrotechnics used by the British crew. But perhaps Burrows’ gorilla suit’s lowest moment was when he wore it as the space monster Ro-Man in Robot Monster[Phil Tucker, 1953]. The ape body was used, but the head replaced by an extremely silly helmet, which can only be described as a goldfish bowl with an old TV antenna on top.

Crash Corrigan (and his costume) played the gorilla in The Bride and the Beast[Adrian Weiss, 1958]. The typically weird Ed Wood screenplay concerns a woman who must chose between her husband and a gorilla! The title character in The White Gorilla[Harry L. Fraser, 1945] is Crash Corrigan again, but this time his suit was dyed snow white. With his gorilla suit already dyed, Corrigan quickly appeared in the title role of White Pongo[Sam Newfield, 1945] as an albino gorilla who might just be the Missing Link. Corrigan’s gorilla also turns up in Captive Wild Woman, The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters[Edward Bernds, 1954], and one of the few films directed by screenwriter Curt Siodmak, Bride of the Gorilla[1951].

Charles Gemora worked as a special-effects man at Paramount Studios for many years, with a sideline performing in the gorilla suits he used to design and manufacture. Gemora took care to make his suits as realistic as possible. He gives one of the great gorilla performances in The Monster and the Girl[Stuart Heisler, 1941], a peculiar mixture of mad-scientist, brain-transplant, gangster, and boy-and-his-dog movie that is one of my favorites. Gemora also played the murderous gorilla in Murders in the Rue Morgue[Robert Florey, 1932] and fooled around with the Marx Brothers in At the Circus[Edward Buzzell, 1939]. One of the crazier moments in the films of Laurel and Hardy is in Swiss Miss[John G. Blystone, 1938] when Stan and Ollie are trying to carry an upright piano across a narrow wooden suspension bridge high over a canyon in the Swiss Alps, and Gemora’s gorilla tries to cross in the opposite direction! After a struggle, the gorilla falls off the bridge, only to turn up at the very end of the movie on crutches, with his head bandaged and his leg in a plaster cast, and chase our heroes off into the sunset. Most wonderful of all is when Gemora’s gorilla lumbers onto the stage in the glamorous nightclub in Blonde Venus[Josef von Sternberg, 1932] and removes his gorilla hands and then head to reveal Marlene Dietrich in a blonde Afro wig!

Emil Van Horn was another renowned gorilla impersonator. He had a less realistic costume than Gemora, but he performs energetically in The Ape Man[William Beaudine, 1943], co-starring with Béla Lugosi. He also makes a memorable appearance in W. C. Fields’ surreal Never Give a Sucker an Even Break[Edward F. Cline, 1941].

Various studio make-up and costume departments manufactured ape suits over the years. But with “special effects make-up man” Rick Baker, the gorilla suit reached new levels of sophistication. His suit for the Bigfoot named Harry in Harry and the Hendersons[William Dear, 1987] was worn by Kevin Peter Hall, the very tall actor who later portrayed the Predator in Predator[John McTiernan, 1987]. Baker used remote radio controls to work the facial features on Harry which, combined with the terrific mime of Kevin Peter Hall, created a remarkably realistic character.

Baker himself wore the ape suit in John Guillermin’s 1976 remake of King Kongand as the gorilla named Dino in The Kentucky Fried Movie[John Landis, 1977]. His apes for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes[Hugh Hudson, 1984] and Gorillas in the Mist[Michael Apted, 1988] remain unsurpassed.

Why do apes continue to intrigue, amuse, frighten, and fascinate us? Look in the mirror.

Monstrous Apes[ Book Contents]

Mighty Joe Young  [Ron Underwood, 1998]

Charlize Theron and Bill Paxton with the amazing, full-size Joe Young built by Rick Baker for this remake.

Monstrous Apes[ Book Contents]

Stories of the Gorilla Country  [Paul du Chaillu, 1867]

Cover of the first edition of Paul du Chaillu’s book about his adventures with the gorillas of Africa. (From the Author’s collection.)