Ray Harryhausen is, along with Willis O'Brien, the movies' most celebrated master of stop-motion effects, in which models sculpted to scale are manipulated one frame at a time to create the illusion of living beasts including giant apes, dinosaurs and aliens from outer space. Born in Los Angeles in 1920, Harryhausen was inspired as an adolescent by O'Brien's work in King Kong (1933) and prepared himself for a similar career by studying photography, art and film editing.

After an apprenticeship with George Pal and his "Puppetoons," Harryhausen got the chance to work with his idol by assisting O'Brien on Mighty Joe Young (1949). Like King Kong, this is another amazingly realized tale of a giant gorilla who is captured and put on display with disastrous results. It has been estimated that Harryhausen, under O'Brien's supervision, did 85 per cent of the movie's stop-motion effects. (In a 1998 remake of Mighty Joe Young, Harryhausen makes a joint cameo appearance with actress Terry Moore, star of the original film.)

Harryhausen continued to amaze with his stop-motion animation in other films including Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), in which his depiction of flying saucers became the definitive look for UFOs in the movies. For 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), he created a creature from Venus who grows at a fantastic rate after being brought to Earth by a spaceship. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Harryhausen's first feature in color and his first pairing with composer Bernard Herrmann, moved the special-effects master to a new level of recognition with its unforgettable images including a Cyclops, a two-headed flying Roc, a miniature princess and a dueling skeleton.

Fantastic creatures also abound in Mysterious Island (TCM premiere 1961), in which prisoners of the Civil War travel by hot-air balloon to a land of oversized creatures including a giant octopus and crab. Often considered Harryhausen's masterpiece, Jason and the Argonauts (1963) is a breathtaking account of the hero's search for the Golden Fleece and the incredible creatures he encounters along the way. In presenting an award to Harryhausen in 1992, Tom Hanks called Jason "the greatest motion picture of all time."

Harryhausen also made memorable visits to the world of mythology in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) and Clash of the Titans (1981). The Tortoise and the Hare (TCM premiere, 2002), a stop-motion animated short, uses puppets originally created by Harryhausen and his parents for a project the young artist had abandoned in the 1950s. Richard Schickel's documentary The Harryhausen Chronicles (TCM premiere, 1998), narrated by Leonard Nimoy, offers a fascinating look at the career of this special-effects wizard.

The films in TCM's tribute to Ray Harryhausen are The Harryhausen Chronicles (1998), The Tortoise and the Hare (2002), Mighty Joe Young (1949), Mysterious Island (1961), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981).

by Roger Fristoe