i don't have a nose: The Life of Ray Harryhausen (Part Two): Career Inception

Harryhausen’s first commercial job was working on George Pal’s Puppetoons (1940-1942), and he was one of the first animators to have a job under Pal’s direction. The wooden models utilised by Pal were limiting, in that they had to be animated using replacement techniques, involving the constant detachment and reattachment of pre-made body parts – a technique which Harryhausen found altogether rather frustrating and creatively stifling. Willis O’Brien briefly joined the teams behind the animations, which he, too, found to be extremely constricting. O’Brien left Puppetoons, followed not long afterwards by Harryhausen, who had completed work on thirteen Puppetoons films. For more information on George Pal and his series, click here: Felix's Fact File: Animation Pioneers (6) - George Pal (1908-1980)

In 1941, Harryhausen produced a stop-motion film entitled How to Bridge a Gorge (also known as How to Build a Bridge), which served as an example outlining how stop-motion animation might be used for propaganda purposes. He then joined the Army in 1942, and was assigned to the Army Signal Corps. Having impressed director Frank Capra with his film, he was assigned to Colonel Capra’s Special Service Division, where he worked on a number of US propaganda films. He was eventually discharged in 1946, having earned the title of Technician Third Class, as well as several medals.

It was around this time when Harryhausen decided to create his own short films. This first batch of films was known as the Mother Goose Stories, based on a collection of nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Old Mother Hubbard. For this collection of films, he used armatured models, designed by himself and made by his father, while the costumes were created by his mother. He distributed the finished products to schools, and they were warmly received.

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Following this breakthrough, he was contacted by O’Brien to work on Schoedsack’s Mighty Joe Young (1949). While O’Brien worked on model designs in the early stages, Harryhausen animated the majority of the picture, while fellow animator Pete Peterson added the finishing touches. O’Brien won the Best Special Effects Award at the 1950 Academy Awards, and was proud to call Harryhausen his protégé. Harryhausen worked on several other projects with O’Brien, many of which were unrealised. These include Valley of the Mist (1950), another dinosaur flick that never became anything more than an idea, and an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1950), which, again, remained a mere concept that ignited little interest. Harryhausen understood that, in order to accomplish what he wanted to do, he had to begin to work independently again.

The Story of the Tortoise and the Hare (1952/2001)

In 1950, he started working on more short films based on fairy-tales, including The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1950) and The Story of Hansel and Gretel (1951). He also began work on The Story of the Tortoise and the Hare in 1952. The film was abandoned until it was resurrected in 2001, and finally completed. The final film, The Story of King Midas, was completed and released following his first feature-length project, in 1953. By this time, Harryhausen was beginning to realise his true potential and veering more so towards working on feature films, the first of which was entitled The Beast of 20,000 Fathoms (1952), distributed by Mutual Films, run by Jack Dietz. This was the first film to utilise a split screen in order to seemingly juxtapose live action alongside stop-motion figures. The beast itself was a dinosaur, and marked the first of many monster movies that Harryhausen was to work on. Sadly, due to budgetary restraints, he did not earn much from his first work on a motion picture.