by STEVEN A. REMOLLINO, M.A., M.S.

When I was thirteen years old, I saw a film that would forever change my life and the way I perceived the world.

It was 1975, and I was the typical junior high kid, with one notable difference. I was obsessed with monsters, and not in a good way. My parents had subjected me to many horrific nights at the Bayou Drive-In, and I had reoccurring nightmares involving vampires, demons and assorted creatures that inhabited the subconscious of my thirteen-year-old mind.

So intense were these nightmares that I found myself sleeping on the floor next to my parents’ bed night after night. It was not their fault--they were not trying to scare me--I wanted to see the films, but I could not deal with my fears.

That December, however, everything changed. My father bought me a copy of Denis Gifford’s history of horror films, and I began to figure out that the monsters were not real; in fact, I knew how they were created--through a combined process of special effects and makeup. The special effects technique that intrigued me the most was what had brought that all-important 1975 film to life, stop motion animation, and the film, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.

Sure the film had been released seventeen years earlier, but that made no difference to me. It was all new, enthralling and exciting. I had watched the trailers in the preceding weeks—seeing the Cyclops emerge from the magician’s cave, marveling over the sword-wielding skeleton and the strangely beautiful four-armed snake-woman. It was all too much. Then the fateful Friday arrived, and my father took me to the local multiplex (two big screens!) to see the film. It was everything that I had hoped it would be and more.

From the moment that the first three notes of Bernard Herrmann’s rousing score rang out in the auditorium to the final battle between Sinbad and the fire-breathing dragon, I was mesmerized. The next day, I asked my father to take me to see it again. "But you just saw it!" my mother groaned. It did not matter--I had to see it again. In fact, I have watched the film well over one hundred times in the ensuing years. I recently purchased the film on DVD and watched it all over again, and I never tire of it. The Cyclops’s roar still raises my pulse; the clattering sound of the skeleton (and Bernard Herrmann’s passionate score) still inspire, and I can still utter those wonderful words that summon the genie from the lamp: "From the land beyond beyond; from the world past hope and fear; I bid you genie now appear."

Just as those brought up on Star Wars longed for a light saber, I prayed daily for a magic lamp that would bring me all I ever dreamed of. From that point on, I was a Harryhausen groupie.

I walked Harryhausen, ate Harryhausen, slept Harryhausen and bought all things Harryhausen, which in 1975 was not much. My first task was to acquire all of Ray’s films, which in the pre-videotape seventies was not easy to do. I had a Bell and Howell Super 8 silent projector, and I proceeded to order as many Harryhausen titles as I could find, with the first being The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.   Super 8 black and white, silent was definitely not 35mm sound and color, but at the time it was all I could afford and all I could use. The film, which was severely condensed, was available on four 200-foot reels, so much so, in fact, that the entire snake woman scene was missing.

I sent a letter to Columbia Pictures asking if I could buy the sequence, but I received a very polite (not to mention very formal) no. I then ordered some of the other Harryhausen titles which were available: The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, Jason And The Argonauts (both of which were four reelers), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers and Twenty Million Miles To Earth. I did not even know that other Harryhausen films such as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Mysterious Island, First Men In the Moon, The Valley Of Gwangi, The Three Worlds Of Gulliver and One Million Years B.C. existed.

By 1977, I had crossed the line from obsessed to maniacal and was buying stills, posters, magazines (thank you Forry Ackerman) and anything else I could locate. I scoured the local flea markets and began to focus on one-sheets since they were massive, and I could, literally, wallpaper my walls with them. It just so happened that Ray’s newest film, Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, was debuting that same year, and I got to see it as a first-run feature--twice. My parents still could not understand my wanting to see it two days in a row, but I had given up trying to explain my monster fascination to my parents.

By this time I was buying not only Harryhausen memorabilia, but also tons of items, including those from my second favorite monster obsession--Godzilla.

I had been a Godzilla fan since my (albeit slightly twisted) youth when I used to rush home to watch The Million Dollar Movie on the local ABC affiliate. The station used to have monster weeks, and Godzilla was one of the popular themes. To date I had only seen one Godzilla film in a theater, and that was 1972’s Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, but it was on a triple bill with Yog, Monster from Space and another film whose title escapes me.

The night I saw that film was particularly memorable. My mother decided not to attend this particular screening, so my father had the great task of taking me to the drive-in to see my first Godzilla film on the big screen. As usual, my mother prepared food for us to take (I was not allowed to eat any theater food—my mother envisioned food poisoning growing within every hot dog, hamburger and dill pickle)—so we had Italian cold cuts, chips and that ever-present gallon of Borden red fruit punch, a beverage which proved exceedingly useful as the night wore on. We did make one purchase from the snack bar: a mosquito coil that was necessary for the swarms that always descended upon Texas drive-ins during sultry summer nights.

As we were watching the first film, my father lit the mosquito coil. I soon noticed an exceedingly large amount of smoke wafting up from the floorboards of the car and realized that the mosquito coil had toppled over and set the rug of my dad’s Ford ablaze. "Fire!"I yelled; "we’re all going to die at the Bayou Drive-In during a Godzilla movie—what an ignoble end!"  My father, always the most unstressed person on the planet, picked up the gallon of Borden fruit punch and doused the flames.

We would have many more nights at the Bayou Drive-In--dusk ‘til dawn Clint Eastwood westerns, all five Planet Of The Apes movies back to back—but no night after that matched what had happened—maybe it was seeing the Big G on the big screen for the first time, or perhaps it was my near brush with death in the Ford inferno—whatever the case, my love of monsters grew, changing from fear of the unknown to worship of the fantastic.

Today, I am in a position to introduce new generations of people to the films that fired my imagination. I teach film history to high school and college students, and one of the questions which constantly comes up is which do I prefer—Harryhausen stop motion monsters or the suitmation employed in Japanese monster-on-the-loose flicks.

It is a hard question to answer, harder still because I love both types of films for different reasons. First of all, Harryhausen is a master craftsman, an artisan unparalleled in the history of motion pictures. One only has to look at the credits of any modern special effects extravaganza to see that it literally takes hundreds of special effects technicians to do today what Harryhausen did himself in the forty years he was doing special visual effects. His patience, expertise and imagination are without equal among special effects artists, with the possible exception of his mentor, Willis (King Kong) O’Brien, or protégées such as Jim Danforth.

The trait about Harryhausen’s films that I find particularly satisfying is his ability to give life to inanimate, three-dimensional objects. He takes puppets composed of latex and metal and turns them into living, breathing creatures with personalities that distinguish each from the other. One has only to look at some of his creations—the Ymir from 20 Million Miles To Earth, Joe from Mighty Joe Young and Trog from Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger to see a master in his element.

Godzilla films, on the other hand, do not require the painstaking stop motion animated effects that the Harryhausen films employed. True, some of the films, most notably King Kong Vs. Godzilla, Godzilla Vs. Biollante and Godzilla Vs. Destroyer did use some stop motion footage, but the bulk of the effects work in these films is commonly called "suitmation," the use of an actor in a rubber suit. This type of effect requires the building of complex miniature sets, a skill that the Japanese were masters of from the beginning.

To compare and contrast the effects work in both types of films does neither of them justice. I find it sufficient to simply say that I love them both—Harryhausen’s for the amount of patience required for the shots, and Tsuburaya’s for his wonderful miniature sets.

I look back on all these films with a sense of wonder and lament the passing of the age, and an important chapter in my life. I can only hope that the films being made today will affect people in the same positive way they affected me. We all still need our magic lamps.

(Steven A. Remollino was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1962. He moved to Texas in 1968 and makes his home on the Gulf Coast. He received his BA in literature, MA in humanities and MS in teaching middle through high school from the University of Houston. Steven teaches English and Visual Media at Dickinson High School, and English composition and literature at College of the Mainland and Galveston College. He is an avid filmgoer and collector of movie memorabilia, including a collection of Japanese Godzilla toys.)

Thanks, Steven for such wonderful memories of childhood monster-mad days and for your "take" on the animation versus "suitmation" debate.  As you say, just sit back and enjoy them both!

Article copyright ©  Steven Remillino

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