The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

224 John Landis
That’s funny, because in a lot of Harryhausen films, he ends up overshadowing
the director.
Landis: Well, he doesn’t overshadow the director so much as he is in a
unique position as a craftsman, because Ray is probably the only special
effects technician who has his own body of work.
He is the auteur of his films—not the director, not the producer. He did a
lot of pictures with producer Charles Schneer, but nonetheless every movie
that Ray has ever worked on (except a couple where he was a hired gun, like
One Million B.C.), he generated. They were his conception; he did lavish storyboards
that sold the properties. When they built the sets, the art directors
copied the storyboards. Ray always directed any sequence that involved any
of his puppets. It’s interesting—the best Harryhausen film is probably Jason
and the Argonauts, because it is by far the best written and wonderfully cast,
for the most part, except for the lead.
It really has the best Hercules in movies, Nigel Green. It’s just a really
smart screenplay, as is Clash of the Titans, although there’s some horrible
shit in Clash of the Titans where they were trying to compete with Star Wars
to keep up [see Bubo, the mechanical owl —ed.].
When I made An American Werewolf in London, I actually went to visit
Ray, and he was shooting Clash of the Titans. He was animating the Pegasus.
He and Jim Danforth—I remember them in this little garage animating
away with their little puppets.
Ray has become a really good friend of mine and has acted in three of my
movies. Ray is a great artist, and when I was twelve I wrote a letter to “Ray
Harryhausen in care of Famous Monsters in Filmland Magazine,” which
Forrest J. Ackerman actually forwarded on to Ray, and he sent me back a
signed 8x11 glossy of him animating the dragon from 7th Voyage. He wrote
on it: “To John Landis, Best wishes for your success—Ray Harryhausen.”
And it really meant so much to me, that thing. That’s why whenever anybody
ever asks me for an autograph, I always give it.
Where is it now?
Landis: In my library. It’s between my signed photos of Billy Wilder and
Groucho Marx. And above them is my autographed Stan Laurel and Oliver
Hardy photo.