Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 24, 2016

Is there anyone who has gone to a movie, let alone anyone who considers themselves an out and out film lover, who hasn’t been entranced by the iconic work of Ray Harryhausen? I personally have yet to meet one, and I don’t think I’d want to, should such a person (idiot?) exist. Harryhausen’s achievements are appropriately legendary, but what’s also so remarkable about this completely unique artist is how influential he’s been for several generations of subsequent filmmakers. That influence is repeatedly on display throughout the interesting if at times perfunctory Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan. Think of a list of directors or special effects mavens who have made a name for themselves over the past few decades, and chances are at least some of them show up in this documentary, offering not just well earned kudos to Harryhausen, but demonstrating how Harryhausen’s work informed their own films, with out and out aping often being the norm. Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan takes a more or less chronological path through Harryhausen’s vaunted filmography, and if it doesn’t offer much in the way of actual insight, it’s filled to the brim with archival footage, good interviews and a wealth of examples that prove Harryhausen’s influence will probably continue to be felt for untold generations to come.

When I was a little boy (like, maybe 4 or 5) I watched King Kong on television and couldn’t stop talking about it. In the weird but true department, a guy who worked for my Dad happened to be over at our house during one of my frequent excited blatherings about the film, and rather unbelievably it turned out he had actually worked with Willis O’Brien, the stop motion artist whose work on Kong initially sparked Harryhausen’s interest in the technique. This former collaborator of O’Brien’s sat with me at our dining room table and showed me (I think with my GI Joe, if I’m remembering correctly) how O’Brien would just slightly move his articulated figures, snap a picture, and then do it again, slowly but surely stitching together 24 still photographs to create one second of film. I was, in a word, gobsmacked. As I detailed in our Mysterious Island Blu-ray review, my childhood town of Salt Lake City had a neighborhood theater where old movies played on Saturday, and it was there, soon after I had been let in on the “secrets” of King Kong, that I first relished in the delights of a Harryhausen film. Once again—gobsmacked.

As evidenced by a gaggle of interviews with such luminaries as James Cameron, Peter Jackson and John Landis, I was not alone in my reaction to Harryhausen’s work. While there’s a “scientific” aspect to stop motion, what’s so notable about Harryhausen’s work in particular is its artistry. Over and over again these directors who followed in Harryhausen’s wake talk about the personality with which he invested his stop motion spectaculars, managing to (to cite just one example) actually make UFOs seem “sentient” in films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. When Harryhausen actually animated quasi-human and/or quasi-animal (or indeed hybrid) figures, that aspect was only magnified, as any number of film clips (unfortunately typically sourced from trailers, I assume because of their public domain status) prove.

While there’s nothing too earth shattering in the information doled out in Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, there are pleasures to be found in a lot of the interview segments, as well as some charming archival footage and/or stills. Some of the relatively rare footage of Harryhausen’s childhood or early adult attempts in stop motion are incredibly charming, as are a few snippets of Ray with his dad Fred, an engineer who manufactured many of the articulated figures Ray used in his films. Also quite interesting are several examples from contemporary filmmakers who are not shy about stating how they more or less “stole” from Ray, with montages of scenes showing that these thefts are pretty unmistakable even if “confessions” weren’t involved.

One of the interesting subtextual elements that ultimately accrues as more and more contemporary interview subjects enter the fray, many of whom work in a purely digital arena, is how Harryhausen injected so much personality into his films. His technique may have been “old school” (charmingly so, some would argue), but his psychological impetuses are still cogent and can serve as object lessons for SFX gurus who have every bell and whistle known to Man, but who still fail to connect emotionally with their animations, and therefore with their audiences.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly, or at least often) in 1.78:1. As should be expected with a documentary like this, there's a rather heterogeneous look about things, with a variety of source material and at times pretty widely variant quality. Some of the video, unfortunately including the main interview with Harryhausen himself, looks a bit ragged, with a blanched palette and pretty fuzzy levels of detail. Other, perhaps more contemporary, interview segments with a glut of talking heads can look at least incrementally sharper, but I'd hesitate to say any of the interview segments really pops with any kind of overwhelming detail. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, quite a bit of the film snippets have been sourced from trailers, and so quality is again not optimal. Archival footage, including some great historically important views of Harryhausen at work at various stages of his career, shows the vagaries of time. Everything here is certainly watchable, but this is not the sharpest looking collection of elements for a relatively recent documentary.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan features a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 track that capably supports the many talking heads sequences, as well as brief forays into aspects like Bernard Herrmann's music. While this not an overly showy track by any stretch of the imagination, it gets the job done with a minimum of fuss and bother, and aside from a somewhat boxy sound to a lot of the trailers, there's no real damage of any kind to report.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary features Gilles Penso (Director), Alexandre Poncet (Producer), Timothy Nicholson and Tony Dalton.


• A Treasure Trove (1080i; 13:36) is a fascinating tour through the Harryhausen Archives.


• Interviews (1080p; 15:43) feature Edgar Wright, Peter Lord, Rick Baker and Simon Pegg.


• Interview Outtakes (1080p; 55:24) is a generous assortment of segments with around a dozen participants that didn't make it into the final cut of the film.


• A Message to Ray (1080i; 2:16) is a sweet group of homages.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 8:19) features footage that was excised due to pacing concerns.


• On the Set of Sinbad (1080p; 2:59) are some sweet home movies made during production of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.


• Paris Cinematheque Q&A (1080p; 18:39) features some of the documentary's principal crew.


• London Gate Cinema Q&A (1080p; 8:58) is graced by the presence of Harryhausen in addition to several others.


• Original Trailer (1080p; 2:48)


• Ray Harryhausen Trailer Reel (1080p; 22:15) is a fun trip through many of Harryhausen's most iconic films.

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan is a great generalist overview that is buoyed by some wonderful commentary by Harryhausen himself, as well as the obviously adoring comments from a gaggle of contemporary film giants and perhaps slightly lesser known SFX specialists. Some of the archival footage is fantastic, and while not very innovative in design or how it imparts information, this documentary should easily delight Harryhausen fans. Video is okay if underwhelming, audio is fine and the supplementary package enjoyable. Recommended.