When Tom Hanks announced to the world, during an Oscar ceremony honouring Ray Harryhausen, that he considers Jason and the Argonauts the greatest film ever made above Casablanca and Citizen Kane, the world was once again reminded of the genius of the maestro of special effects
Now another reminder has come to Manchester with an exhibition at Sale’s Waterside Centre that focuses not only his famous works but those ideas that never made it to the silver screen
The exhibition originated from a 2019 book, the lost movies that estimated eighty in total and the star of the exhibition, a video of test footage showing for the first time, some of Ray’s work
For a man of whom George Lucus once said that Star Wars would never of happening without, the footage is remarkable.A seventeen year old Ray filming in colour one of his school friends being chased and finally eaten by a T-Rex, or Ray himself fending off a terydactal with the aid of a stick through to post war footage of his idea for War of the Worlds a film he touted around Hollywood to no avail, only to see it being made just two years later
Ahead of the opening of the exhibition I spoke to Connor Heaney who is collections Manager for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen collection
Peter Jackson he reminds us described his Lord of the Rings Trilogy as his own Harryhausen movie
“Ray has a very important place as an innovator,someone who created special effects the likes of which had never been seen before”
The exhibition is an opportunity to see Ray’s work as an artist as well as a special effects creator, as well as the chance to see his artworks for films never to hit the cinema, there are also alternate scenes from films such as Jason and the Argonauts
Heemey says the exhibitions delves into some of the lost treasures of the archive which are being brought to life and seen in public for the first time
The video he says shows Ray as a filmaker who was very tenatious, ” for every film he made there were three or four that never made it to the big screen”
“Ray, like all film makers suffered professional disappontment but he was able to bounce back from”
The exhibition also features as you would expect artifacts from movies that were made, the most famous being the skeleton from the voyages of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, alongside the Cyclops and key drawings from those films as well
“Ray’s skills as an artist were really quite wonderful considering that his key drwaings were created for a very practical purpose-He would bring them into the studio and show them to film producers saying this is what I want to put on the big screen”
Ray he added would be astounded to know that 50 years later they are being displayed in an art gallery
THE LOST WORLDS OF RAY HARRYHAUSEN: CREATURES, MARTIANS & MYTHS is a free exhibition and runs at Waterside from Sat 26 Oct ‘24 – Sat 04 Jan ‘25
