Ray Harryhausen Early Years Collection Review

Before I commence with the review let me drop this little bit of advice: If you happen to live in the LA area plan on spending some time at Golden Apple Comics on Wednesday. Ray Harryhausen will be there signing copies of this new DVD release from 4-6 pm. All the details are at that link above.

Commercial over, on we go. Ray Harryhausen is one of a handful of men who can justly be termed a living legend. His best known works - Jason and The Argonauts, Clash of the Titans - has pretty much always been available in some form or another but the man also had a vast catalog of older, lesser known material that has slowly gathered dust. No more. Sparkhill's Early Years Collection is, quite simply, the definitive edition of the man's early work, immensely valuable both as a cultural document and a work of art.

So, how early is early? How about the first dinosaur tests Harryhausen shot in his back yard in the late thirties on a camera that wasn't even equipped with a single-frame mode? Yep. This goes all the way back.

The set is divided into two discs. Disc one is devoted to his work on camera - completed shorts, commercial work, and early tests - with disc two devoted to an ample set of documentary features dealing with the man himself. We'll focus here on disc one.

What've we got? Four Mother Goose stories; five fairy tales - including The Tortoise And the Hare, a film begun by Harryhausen in the 50's and not completed until 2002; a handful of commercial and military films; and a healthy range of early test footage. The bulk of the material here has been greatly restored by The Academy Film Archive so while not pristine - much of it is pushing seventy years old, after all - it looks as good as it is ever likely to.

Most will come into this for the completed short films, particularly the fairy tales and Mother Goose but, surprisingly, I found myself far more interested in the military training shorts and, particularly, the test footage. Each of the test segments are introduced by Harryhausen himself who explains the time frame and origins of the project before showing the original conceptual art and then the final film. It's a fantastic glimpse into the process and also happens to dig up a good amount of never before seen film.

The temptation with something like this is to treat it purely as an archival piece, something I likely would have done myself if not for my son. Other than the occassional sideways comment when he's been explosively vomitting upon me I don't mention Will much here but I do have a three year old boy and his reaction to Harryhausen's work had a lot to say about its endurance. We're so in love with our newer animation techniques that stop motion is largely treated as a curiosity. There's not a single major film studio that deals in stop motion and only two major name stop motion directors currently working in the world. We've largely forgotten about the form and assumed that it can't stand up to the wonders of CGI. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. A sample of my afternoon with Will: "Show me the dinosaur one again. Now the alien. Show me the bridge one. [he also had a strange fixation on the military ones] Now the bat. Now the alien one three more times ..." If not for the arrival of some guests we probably would have gone on like this all afternoon and, believe me, if there's a child in this world who is well acquainted with the full range of animation styles from around the world it's Will. He was completely locked in.

This really is an important DVD release and Sparkhill has done a flawless job. They've brought the work of a master back into the light and it's fantastic to see not only what a solid job they've done with the material but just how deeply Harryhausen himself has been involved in the process. If you're at all a fan of animation, this one's pretty much required.