Fitness Quest Eclipse 2100hr

Fitness Quest Eclipse 2100hr

Fitness Quest Eclipse 2100hr

Inspiration to a generation of special effects men, Ray Harryhausen is a unique film maker, the master of stop motion animation who crafted his own individual niche in film history.

Rampaging Monsters

The prototypical 'monster on the rampage' film was King Kong (1933), a character brought to life by Harryhausen's inspiration, Willis O'Brien, and it spawned dozens of lesser films. In 1949 Harryhausen got to work alongside O'Brien on another big gorilla film; Mighty Joe Young. Nowhere near as good as King Kong (though far better than its 1934 sequel, Son of Kong), Joe Young is a fun film and it seems appropriate that Harryhausen should start his feature career alongside O'Brien, the torch passing to the next generation.

In 1952 Harryhausen got his first solo credit on The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, in which the monster was an invented dinosaur called a rhedosaurus. Harryhausen used a new front-projection technique to combine live action footage with his animation, the result had not the depth of the complex glass painting set ups used by O'Brien, but it was cheaper and enabled The Beast to become one of the year's biggest grossing films.