It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955) | Classic horror movie - video Dailymotion

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A giant, radioactive octopus rises from the Philippine Trench to terrorize the North American Pacific Coast. #movies #horror

Transcript

00:00:00Hello, this is Arnold Kuhnert, and I'm here with three friends.

00:00:07I'm Ray Harryhausen.

00:00:09I'm Randy Cook.

00:00:10I'm John Bruno.

00:00:11And we're here to discuss one of Ray Harryhausen's early visual effects extravaganzas.

00:00:19It came from beneath the sea, this time for the first time in color.

00:00:24Ray, this is your first film with Charles Schneer.

00:00:28Tell us how that came about.

00:00:31Well, I think he saw the beast from 20,000 Fathom, and he had this idea of wanting to pull the Golden Gate Bridge down with a giant octopus.

00:00:40Because there was, I think they just put the atomic bomb under the water for the first time, and nobody was quite sure what would happen.

00:00:49And so it would enlarge fish, or would it cause chaos, or what?

00:00:56Nobody knew.

00:00:57So it was the unknown, basically.

00:01:00And so anything underwater could have been affected, and Charlie Schneer thought, well, why not an octopus?

00:01:06Yes, because an octopus is supposed to have eight tentacles.

00:01:10That's right.

00:01:10But we'll talk about how many it really has.

00:01:12Now, Kenneth Tobey, who's in this, was in your previous film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathom.

00:01:17Yes.

00:01:18And he was also in The Thing in 1951.

00:01:20He was a wonderful actor.

00:01:22Faith DuMerg, we'll talk a little bit more about her later.

00:01:25And George Worthing Yates had previously done a screenplay for The Story for Them, the giant ant movie, a year earlier.

00:01:32So you had a lot of interesting people on this, and there's your name, of course, in glorious color.

00:01:38Music conducted by Misha Bakalanikoff.

00:01:40Misha Bakalanikoff.

00:01:42And this film is composed principally of clips of other film music.

00:01:46Not much original here, but Misha Bakalanikoff was a genius at taking pieces from Max Steiner and other composers and putting them together.

00:01:57Not to mention being the master of the music sting.

00:02:00And, yes.

00:02:00The lurid music sting.

00:02:01That's right, the lurid music sting.

00:02:03This is another one of those films that, well, actually, all three of your black and white movies now colorized have a semi-documentary feeling.

00:02:10They all have little prologues that go before the titles, and they all tend to have a scientific bent, don't they?

00:02:17Yes, it was very popular at that time.

00:02:19We wanted to make it seem more realistic by having a semi-documentary concept.

00:02:26Right.

00:02:26As John and Randy and I were talking before we started this, there are a number of stock shots in this film, as there are in your other black and white films from Columbia, because that certainly saved money.

00:02:40But they're brilliantly edited in, and then you had some actual locations.

00:02:44This was actually in a submarine, wasn't it?

00:02:46This was, yes.

00:02:46They had a unit down in the submarine down at Long Beach, I believe it was, but very tight, almost claustrophobic.

00:02:57Now, was this indeed the atomic submarine of the script, or was this a subatomic?

00:03:01No, I don't know whether it was the actual atomic submarine.

00:03:05It probably was another submarine, but similar.

00:03:10Yeah.

00:03:10They had a number of World War II subs docked down Long Beach, I guess.

00:03:15But here's Kenneth Tobey's wonderful red hair.

00:03:19Yeah, right.

00:03:20Make sure he looks like he always did.

00:03:22He was a wonderful actor, wasn't he?

00:03:23He was easygoing, I'm sure.

00:03:28He'd make a wonderful Dick Tracy.

00:03:30Yes, yes.

00:03:32Great profile.

00:03:35I was watching this earlier, and I was wondering who was the technical advisor on the submarine.

00:03:40When you come to the guys when they're moving, they're just moving these knots.

00:03:44Yes.

00:03:44There must have been a technical, somebody advised them.

00:03:48They just continually do the same thing.

00:03:50They don't do anything.

00:03:51You know whether it went up or down when they pulled a certain lever.

00:03:56They never stopped moving the levers.

00:03:59That was the director saying, let's keep moving something.

00:04:01I don't care.

00:04:02Nobody will notice.

00:04:04And probably in the 50s, nobody was that concerned anyway.

00:04:07Today, you'd have people who would be very technically worried.

00:04:10They count everything.

00:04:11There you go.

00:04:13Here's the guy.

00:04:14That's one of them.

00:04:15This claustrophobic effect, I think, is good.

00:04:18He never stops doing that.

00:04:19Just keep moving.

00:04:20Now, up and down.

00:04:21Okay.

00:04:22Uh-oh.

00:04:22Something on the...

00:04:23Now, would that be the first special effect in the picture?

00:04:27No, I didn't do that.

00:04:29That was done...

00:04:30I've forgotten who did it, but that was...

00:04:33Sort of an insert department thing.

00:04:35Yeah, insert department.

00:04:37Looks like you can be following it.

00:04:39Whales sometimes get playful out of it.

00:04:40It's so long ago.

00:04:41It's very difficult to remember.

00:04:43In 1955.

00:04:44Well, actually, you started on this film in late 53 or early 54, so...

00:04:48I think it was, yes.

00:04:50It's quite a long time ago, but it's remarkable how well this little movie holds up.

00:04:55I think that's something all of us would agree.

00:04:58Well, that's the beauty about doing the documentary style.

00:05:02Mm-hmm.

00:05:03It doesn't seem dated.

00:05:03It doesn't seem dated then.

00:05:05Right.

00:05:05And we all remember, those of us of a certain age remember how important the atomic bomb was in the 50s

00:05:11and how influential it was on our thinking.

00:05:14We were not quite sure what it was all about.

00:05:17Absolutely.

00:05:18It was terrifying as well as interesting and fascinating.

00:05:24Particularly underwater.

00:05:25I mean, what would it do?

00:05:27Does it pollute fish or what?

00:05:30All ahead, Frank, sir.

00:05:32Get those atoms opposed.

00:05:33Give me everything you've got.

00:05:34Well, I actually have to say the color's good here.

00:05:37Isn't it nice?

00:05:38It is.

00:05:38I just don't need to realize that it's really good.

00:05:40You get to the point on these films that the colorization process is so well advanced now

00:05:44that I've had people tell me that they have forgotten that it was originally shot in black and white.

00:05:50It's that good.

00:05:51But the technology...

00:05:52It looks like it was shot in color.

00:05:53Yeah, and that was your intention originally.

00:05:55If you had the budget, you would have done these in color.

00:05:57We would have done them in color, but we just couldn't afford it at the time.

00:06:01And this is the sort of film that was not on everybody's menu at the studios.

00:06:05They didn't...

00:06:06But see, shooting things in color takes much more time.

00:06:09Yeah.

00:06:10You can't do it as quickly as you can a black and white film.

00:06:13No.

00:06:15You'd have to go...

00:06:16That's why I fought color for quite a while because it would take...

00:06:20We were making low-budget pictures, and it would take twice as long, three times as long.

00:06:25Because you had to wait for overnight...

00:06:27Yeah, you had to send your rushes to the lab.

00:06:31We couldn't develop them in our little homemade booth, so not in color.

00:06:39No.

00:06:39And so you'd have to wait sometimes two days.

00:06:43Well, and also there are all kinds of problems with the duping process in color that you didn't have in black and white, weren't there?

00:06:49Yes, and at that time, it was very difficult to dupe color, particularly on the little miniature rear projection,

00:06:55because the reds and the greens would all go a little different color.

00:07:00And when you tried to intercut it with the original negative, it hit you in the face.

00:07:07The little rear projection that you mentioned, rather too modestly, is the Harryhausen innovation, which came to be called Dynamation.

00:07:16And do you want somebody else to toot your own horn on that?

00:07:20Yes.

00:07:21Would you believe...

00:07:21Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

00:07:22Basically, the projectors were made for Mighty Joe Young.

00:07:27Right.

00:07:28By cunning them.

00:07:29But instead of optical compositing your creatures and your effects together in an optical printer,

00:07:37which was pretty much industry standard, what Ray came up with was a method of using miniature projection,

00:07:43which were in the live action, which was shot first, would then be projected behind the puppet that he used.

00:07:51I guess it's no secret that we're giving away by saying they were puppets.

00:07:55Yes, but that suggests that they're dull string.

00:07:58No, no, no.

00:07:59Well, actually, they are puppets, but a special kind of puppet.

00:08:04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:08:05They're just not very immature puppets.

00:08:07Articulated effigies.

00:08:08You could put it.

00:08:09That's very good.

00:08:10I love that.

00:08:11Let's keep that in.

00:08:12That's a good term.

00:08:13But anyway, he put these puppets in front of a screen, rear projection screen, which was on, not moving, but which was stopped on a still frame.

00:08:27And he would pose the puppet, which had a poseable armature, in an appropriate posture to that still frame.

00:08:35And then he would advance, he would photograph that, advance the still frame of the projector of the live action and animate the puppet.

00:08:43So he'd, you know, and then photograph that.

00:08:46Matching the background.

00:08:46Right.

00:08:46Matching the background.

00:08:48Was this on ones or on twos?

00:08:50This was much of the time on ones, wasn't it?

00:08:52Most of the time.

00:08:53Almost all the time.

00:08:54Always on ones.

00:08:54Except I cheated a bit when we saw the octopus underwater.

00:08:59I had to move it in such a microscopic movement in order to make it look like it was underwater.

00:09:06So I shot some of them on twos.

00:09:09And it has a tendency to give a little jerky effect, but I think you can get away with it if you put a ripple glass in front of you.

00:09:17Yes, yes, yes.

00:09:18But anyway, it was a huge innovation that was not only budgetarily advantageous to them, but the stuff looks better.

00:09:29The comps, the dupes, look better in general than the much more costly optical printed composites.

00:09:38Optical printing can cost quite a bit.

00:09:41Now, who shot the rear projection plates?

00:09:43Did you supervise that?

00:09:45Well, the ones that were involved with my octopus, yes.

00:09:48Even with the actors in it?

00:09:49And I had pictures, photographs of the particular scene that I would show the matte line, and so they would line it up according to that photograph.

00:09:59The directors who worked on your films didn't always understand that you had to be there with the actors.

00:10:04They often thought you were interfering with their auteur approach.

00:10:08Oh, yes, we did have some problems, yes.

00:10:11One tried to get you fired, I remember.

00:10:15But we all know that Charlie Schneer backed you 100%.

00:10:19Oh, yes.

00:10:20This is a Harryhausen movie.

00:10:21We're not worried about your name on this.

00:10:23You're just a worker.

00:10:23And the director's main job on our type of film is to get the best out of the actors.

00:10:28And one journalist even mentioned, said, it's a pity Mr. Harryhausen didn't animate the actors, which was, I think, very cruel to the actors.

00:10:39But we've always had very competent actors.

00:10:42Yes.

00:10:42Well, not star names, but competent.

00:10:45No, Kenneth Tobey was always a reliable presence.

00:10:49Whenever you saw Kenneth Tobey's name on a movie, you knew you were going to have a good film.

00:10:53He was just never considered in the A category, although he deserved to be.

00:10:57He just never seemed to be approached from that point of view.

00:11:01He did three or four films as a lead, but they were low-budget films, and then he worked primarily in support.

00:11:07But he was always reliable and always interesting to watch.

00:11:11I think he was well-respected for that.

00:11:14Yes.

00:11:14I'll look at home in a uniform like this.

00:11:17Yeah.

00:11:18Now, as far as your animation of the octopus, you've mentioned that because you had eight tentacles to deal with,

00:11:23you decided to reduce your time by reducing the number of tentacles.

00:11:31Tentacles.

00:11:32Tentacles.

00:11:32Certainly, because one less.

00:11:34It's just like the basic concept of Mickey Mouse.

00:11:37He only has four fingers.

00:11:39That's right.

00:11:39And so, why animate an extra one that you'd hardly ever written?

00:11:43No.

00:11:44Nobody counted them.

00:11:45I didn't think anybody would count them.

00:11:48And unfortunately, one time, I was interviewed by a certain magazine, and I let it be known that octopus was actually a sextopus.

00:12:00Only six tentacles.

00:12:01Oh, it was Forrey Ackerman's magazine, wasn't it?

00:12:03Yes, it was.

00:12:03Famous Monsters.

00:12:05And that got the reputation.

00:12:07Finally, it came down to five tentacles.

00:12:10And what would that be?

00:12:11A syncope?

00:12:13A pentopus.

00:12:14A pentopus?

00:12:14Would that be a pentopus?

00:12:16And then you thought it would be going down to a tripod eventually.

00:12:19If we cut the budget anymore, yeah.

00:12:20But you had six on this one.

00:12:22We had six, but it's supposed to have eight.

00:12:24That's why it's called an octopus.

00:12:25But we wouldn't be able to see all of them.

00:12:27So what was the scale?

00:12:29I mean, how big was the actual puppet?

00:12:32The puppet was very small.

00:12:34Did you have a scale worked out?

00:12:35About this big?

00:12:37I never counted scales.

00:12:39Now, Ray is putting his two hands together, just so you out there who can't see us are wondering how big this big is.

00:12:47If you have normal hands, it's about that big.

00:12:49I mean, I'm trying to get to the scale eventually of the ship that it attacks,

00:12:56and then the bridge.

00:12:57And what was the size of those miniatures?

00:13:00Yes.

00:13:00You mean the ship that he...

00:13:01Overall.

00:13:02It's coming up here.

00:13:03The ship I got at a five and dime store, and I modified it a bit.

00:13:07So it was like a foot long?

00:13:09It was probably longer than a foot.

00:13:11Right.

00:13:12I think it was a foot and a half.

00:13:13Well, that's amazing.

00:13:15And the octopus's head was probably around three or four, five inches, four or five inches.

00:13:22Like a softball?

00:13:22Like a softball, then.

00:13:23Okay.

00:13:23And then the tentacles from there.

00:13:25So we're looking at something that might have been, what, 18 to 24 inches in length total with the octopus?

00:13:30If you spread the tentacles out.

00:13:32Spread the tentacles out.

00:13:33And although this was black and white, what color was the octopus?

00:13:36Did you actually paint it?

00:13:37Well, you know, octopuses can change their color.

00:13:41Right.

00:13:41Whatever background.

00:13:43They can camouflage themselves.

00:13:46Oh, these are oranges.

00:13:48Isn't that lovely?

00:13:49Yeah.

00:13:49And that was, of course, the color they chose.

00:13:51We have no idea.

00:13:52But it looks appropriate.

00:13:53It looks appropriate.

00:13:54Now, the octopus in this film is leaning more toward the green, the dark green, a little more...

00:14:01Well, they can change color.

00:14:02They can change color.

00:14:03But I'm just curious as to the color based on photographing it in black and white.

00:14:07Did you pick a specific color?

00:14:07Yes.

00:14:07Well, it was sort of a mauve, lavender mauve.

00:14:11A lavender mauve.

00:14:15And I painted the tentacles lighter colors.

00:14:18I'm curious to see what it actually comes out to be.

00:14:20Well, I can guarantee you it's not lavender.

00:14:22We're not going to go lavender.

00:14:24In fact, when they were talking to us about the color that came up, I said,

00:14:27do we want to do this as Ray might have done it if it were shooting?

00:14:31And I said, that would be lavender.

00:14:33No, we're not going lavender with this octopus.

00:14:36That's going to reduce the terror.

00:14:38No, we call it a mauve.

00:14:39A mauve, but still.

00:14:41And so, and I'm looking at a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:14:44Is that orange?

00:14:48Underneath the tentacles are a lighter color than...

00:14:51Well, the Golden Gate was just painted.

00:14:53It was black and white for the film.

00:14:54That's what I'm asking.

00:14:55So it would be grayish.

00:14:56Did you pick a particular color to photograph?

00:14:58Well, we painted it like the original red.

00:15:00So you did?

00:15:01Yeah.

00:15:01That was, okay.

00:15:04And, of course, it was a miniature that was matched to the real, built very carefully.

00:15:11There's a lobby card on this film that is strictly a black and white photo that was tinted.

00:15:17And the Golden Gate looks pink in there.

00:15:22And although the octopus has a greenish texture or color, the Golden Gate is definitely not the Golden Gate we all know from San Francisco.

00:15:31Well, they put a color to prevent rust, I think.

00:15:34Oh, on that, yes.

00:15:35But on this lobby card, it's not accurate.

00:15:37It's just for theatrical display.

00:15:40But it wasn't pink.

00:15:41No, definitely not pink.

00:15:43Although that would go well with Lavender.

00:15:45It would go well.

00:15:46We're talking about a complete remodel.

00:15:48Here's Faith DeMorgue, who was one of Howard Hughes' protégés in the late 40s and early 50s.

00:15:53This was after she left Hughes' RKO.

00:15:58This was when she was freelancing, I believe.

00:15:59She did two or three movies around the same time in different places.

00:16:04Pretty hot.

00:16:05Very attractive.

00:16:06Even today.

00:16:07Even today.

00:16:08She looks a little professorial.

00:16:11Well, yeah, just keep watching the movie.

00:16:13She's very liberated.

00:16:15She actually was, her starring vehicle for Hughes was called Vendetta, which was originally slated to be a Max Ophuls picture.

00:16:24He started working on it.

00:16:26Hughes fired him and got Preston Sturges to rewrite and begin directing.

00:16:32And he fired Sturges, with whom he had a business partnership.

00:16:36And a couple of other people.

00:16:38I think it was eventually credited to Mel Ferrer, if I'm not mistaken.

00:16:43But it was a really typically troubled Hughes production with all the interference that would imply.

00:16:49And so that didn't do terribly well for her career.

00:16:52And she went on to...

00:16:56She made This Island Earth.

00:16:58She made This Island Earth.

00:16:59That's true.

00:17:00That was the same year.

00:17:00This film was released the same year as This Island Earth.

00:17:03It was released the same year.

00:17:04I'm sure she probably did this earlier.

00:17:06But she was freelancing at this point.

00:17:09She wasn't under contract to Hughes or anybody else.

00:17:12By that time, I think he had sold RKO or was about to sell it.

00:17:14But she had four or five years with Hughes and some good films.

00:17:20It's funny.

00:17:21The color on this, you know, I'd never noticed him.

00:17:24I've seen this a couple of times.

00:17:25I'd never noticed Ken Toby asleep over there before, in black and white, you know.

00:17:30But your eye certainly goes right to him.

00:17:32It's the red hair, I think.

00:17:34I think I became aware of Ken Toby's red hair in one of the Disney programs he did back

00:17:43in the 50s, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates.

00:17:46He was one of the supporting actors.

00:17:48And when they released the film, made a feature film out of it, out of two or three hour-long

00:17:53shows, and they released it in theaters.

00:17:54And that was the very first time I realized he had red hair.

00:17:57Up until then, we'd only seen him on black and white television because color TV wasn't

00:18:01prominent at that point, and ABC certainly wasn't showing it.

00:18:05But here, for the first time.

00:18:06And then from then on, I was aware of his hair color.

00:18:12So, where was this film shot?

00:18:15Los Angeles?

00:18:16On the set in the studio.

00:18:19What was the studio?

00:18:21Columbia.

00:18:22Here in Los Angeles.

00:18:24That one was the Sunset Gower brand.

00:18:25It wasn't the main lot.

00:18:27It was the smaller lot.

00:18:28The B lot.

00:18:29This is a B unit.

00:18:30Is this a set, or was this an actual place?

00:18:32No, this was a set, I think.

00:18:35Well, I'll tell you.

00:18:36I'll forgive you.

00:18:37I can't remember that far back.

00:18:39They're all mixed, you know.

00:18:40Sorry.

00:18:41This is too many years ago.

00:18:44Only 57 years ago, right?

00:18:45Is that all?

00:18:4653 years.

00:18:53So, you remember this as well as if it were yesterday?

00:18:57It's probably a set from a previous film.

00:18:58It looks like a warehouse.

00:19:01It doesn't look like a set, but it might have been on this Columbia lot anyway.

00:19:04Yeah.

00:19:05Probably a back room or something.

00:19:08But no smoking, please.

00:19:11There's a sign prominently displayed there.

00:19:14Leave that to Benny Davis.

00:19:16He's a rule breaker.

00:19:17There he is smoking away.

00:19:19He has a cigarette lit.

00:19:21I'll tell you.

00:19:22He doesn't respect science.

00:19:23Human romance.

00:19:27Now you tell me something, Commander.

00:19:29I like what she does with her hand.

00:19:30Yeah, I know.

00:19:31Oh, I know.

00:19:33Couldn't they have gotten a bigger test too?

00:19:36Yeah, that's right.

00:19:37Yes.

00:19:37That's right.

00:19:38Do you have much time?

00:19:39This is the first of the three romantic interludes before the octopus.

00:19:47Now, Sam Katzman, you said, Ray, that Sam Katzman, who was the head of the B unit, had a different image of an octopus.

00:19:55Yes, he did.

00:19:56And tell us about that.

00:19:58That's a funny story.

00:19:59Well, he had an image of, I guess, a cartoon octopus in Popeye, where they always drew him with his bulbous head upright, instead of hanging like a bag.

00:20:11And two eyes looking out.

00:20:12And two eyes with tentacles spread out.

00:20:16And it looked like a fireplug.

00:20:17Yeah.

00:20:17And so I had to make drawings.

00:20:21I went, I even brought photographs from, I went down to Long Beach to photograph the octopus in the tank there, and to prove that I'm right.

00:20:33Well, we're glad you got your way, because that would have.

00:20:35Oh, I got my way.

00:20:37Made this into a different movie.

00:20:38I couldn't bear to operate it like a Popeye octopus.

00:20:42That would have been terrible.

00:20:42So the actor on the left is Donald Curtis, who appears in what would have been your next film after this one, with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

00:20:54These people were all reliable actors.

00:20:56They were under contract, in most cases, to Columbia or available for different parts.

00:21:04Again, that just points out that these films were low budget, but they always had reliable actors who delivered the lines and didn't hold up production.

00:21:12Well, Ray said something earlier that I found interesting, that this whole story was based on Mr. Schneer saying he had the idea of the octopus tearing down the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:21:26That's where the story came from?

00:21:27Yes, basically.

00:21:29Because at that time, there was a lot in the papers about what will this unknown bomb exploding underwater, what will it do with the radiation and everything?

00:21:39And nobody quite knew.

00:21:42There were all theories about it, various theories.

00:21:45And that was published in the paper a lot.

00:21:48And he said, let's make a picture about that, which became very interesting.

00:21:54Well, he was inspired by your film the previous, well, two years before that, The Beast, which had the same basic premise of an atomic bomb setting loose something.

00:22:03So he thought, well, why not have something attacking Golden Gate Bridge?

00:22:08Because that was the first time they exploded a bomb underwater.

00:22:12That was Bikini?

00:22:14I think Bikini Atoll, wasn't it?

00:22:15Yeah.

00:22:17Oh, there's the octopus.

00:22:18Oh, he's green on this.

00:22:20Well, see, the octopuses can change their color.

00:22:23That's where we're lucky.

00:22:25Nobody's going to pick on this and say, well, that's the wrong bomb.

00:22:27It is, it is, it is lavender.

00:22:30Look at the underside of this.

00:22:32See, now he's lavender.

00:22:33You've got your way.

00:22:34Wow.

00:22:35I have here, I wrote down that because I watched this earlier.

00:22:38It says a giant octocanel brochiata.

00:22:42Oh, my gosh.

00:22:43Good heavens.

00:22:44Is that what you designed?

00:22:46Yeah.

00:22:47Well, based on the one I saw in Long Beach, where it.

00:22:51Well, it is now, John.

00:22:52If it wasn't earlier, it definitely is now.

00:22:54And that just raises, raise stock immediately in the academic community.

00:22:59He's a PhD.

00:23:00There's an actor behind, who was a star years ago.

00:23:05Between DeMurg and Donald.

00:23:06Between DeMurg.

00:23:08Donald Curtis.

00:23:08Yes.

00:23:09Oh, yes, he does look for me.

00:23:10I can't remember his name.

00:23:12He was in films, many films as lead.

00:23:15Well, we want to apologize to his family for not knowing who he is, but we remember him as a good actor.

00:23:21He was a famous stage actor.

00:23:22Uh-huh.

00:23:23He does look familiar.

00:23:23You're right.

00:23:25Uh-oh.

00:23:31No, he won't eat fish.

00:23:33No.

00:23:35He's green.

00:23:37Well.

00:23:37But we can forgive it because it's well known that octopuses can change their color.

00:23:43And it just, I think it works better overall.

00:23:46When he gets to be a huge octopus, thanks to you, it's more terrifying that way, I think.

00:23:50To have him graying.

00:23:51Against the backgrounds.

00:23:53You'll see it.

00:23:53I think it's quite attractive.

00:23:55Ah.

00:23:58This is where we get all the scientific backgrounds so that the film becomes a little bit more believable

00:24:04in some respects because they're giving us all the details of why this might sort of happen.

00:24:09This is all for exposition, yes.

00:24:11Helping the audience understand that.

00:24:13And we want them to understand why and what's happening.

00:24:18So I have a question.

00:24:22So what was the first actual scene animated?

00:24:26Do you remember?

00:24:26Oh, gosh.

00:24:27That's so far.

00:24:27How can I remember 50 years ago?

00:24:29Well, I think that I started on rear projection plates.

00:24:35Oh, you had to do that, didn't you?

00:24:36We had to have rear projection plates ready before the actors ran out of their contract, you know.

00:24:43So when the octopus attacks the boat, there's a rear projection plate there.

00:24:49So that would have probably been among the first things you did, showing the octopus coming out of the water,

00:24:54the tentacles coming out behind the deck of the ship, right?

00:24:57Yeah.

00:24:58Because you needed to have that for the actors.

00:25:00They used rear projection, and they were always shot first.

00:25:03Right.

00:25:03Because that was very important that we have it ready as a plate when the actors finish their regular stance with the production.

00:25:16Go ahead, John.

00:25:17The first unit production here went for how many weeks?

00:25:21Do you remember?

00:25:21Sorry?

00:25:22How many days was that?

00:25:23Oh, God, I can't remember.

00:25:24I mean, these are short.

00:25:2550 years ago.

00:25:26I'm just curious.

00:25:27Probably two weeks.

00:25:28Two weeks, three weeks.

00:25:29Shot very quickly, the projection.

00:25:31Then you took?

00:25:32Then I took time.

00:25:34You took six months?

00:25:35I've forgotten now.

00:25:35I think it was over seven or eight months.

00:25:39Right.

00:25:40How did we take another advice?

00:25:41Animating it all yourself.

00:25:42Because I did many scenes where it was cut up.

00:25:46I did them all in one, and then the film editor cut them up and put close-ups and whatnot in.

00:25:53The reaction shots.

00:25:54The reaction shots, yeah.

00:25:56And that, of course, lengthens it out.

00:25:58And that was standard for your three, the three black-and-white movies we're talking about for colorization.

00:26:04Your shooting schedule was probably three to four weeks tops, and then your schedule after that in post was between five and seven months.

00:26:13On the average, you think that's probably reasonable to say, right?

00:26:16Yeah, some of them took longer than others.

00:26:20So usually from start to finish.

00:26:22There was only one figure involved.

00:26:25When we got color, of course, it took longer.

00:26:27Well, Seventh Void would have taken quite a bit longer.

00:26:29But you had, your release dates on these three movies was, they're all a year apart, but you probably had a year and a half of time from the start of this film, and then you had a year and a half, but even though they were released within years of each other.

00:26:44Now, speaking of the puppets, or the puppet, did you have separate tentacles, larger ones for the close-ups?

00:26:51Well, I had three larger tentacles for the rear projection plates of it coming up over the rail of the ships and various close-ups.

00:27:01And for sniffing around in the window in San Francisco.

00:27:04Yes, sniffing around, and I made it look like it had eyes on it.

00:27:10Yeah, no, that was great.

00:27:11I mean, it's really putting a lot of character in character.

00:27:15And those were more detailed, weren't they?

00:27:17The larger ones were more detailed so they could be showing close-ups.

00:27:20But, you know, you can do a lot with the smaller tentacles.

00:27:24Now, we're about to get our first glimpse, I believe, of our creature.

00:27:29There's your rear projection plate.

00:27:42What was the technique here?

00:27:43I see the tentacle was shot with the background plate, and then the whole thing was rear projected?

00:27:48Yes, and that was projected a second time.

00:27:52Interesting.

00:27:52Now, did you have a crank that you used?

00:27:54I think your book you mentioned that.

00:27:55Yes, I have a screw mechanism.

00:27:57Screw mechanism, right.

00:27:59Frame by frame.

00:28:00And what, do you remember the format of your rear projection, I mean, the film?

00:28:12Is it full frame imaging?

00:28:14Well, we tried to, we always used a full frame, and we had a shoot when widescreen came in.

00:28:21We had a shoot for both compositions, so that if it was projected widescreen.

00:28:27Now, this was a miniature ship, of course.

00:28:29Right.

00:28:30And that was animated together.

00:28:31And I animated dry, and put the waves in the white foam afterwards, which was shot against black.

00:28:41It's remarkable.

00:28:41Against black.

00:28:42It's just remarkable.

00:28:43Looks kraken-like.

00:28:48Later to be seen.

00:28:49Or vice versa.

00:28:50Or vice versa.

00:28:53But see, I didn't have to do it in a tank.

00:28:57If you look...

00:28:57Was this whole thing moved, do you have this on rods that you moved?

00:29:01I had it on screw things so that I could screw it.

00:29:03Boy, that's very vivid.

00:29:05Up and down.

00:29:06Yeah.

00:29:06The Sunset Restaurant, presumably in Hawaii?

00:29:13Presumably, yes.

00:29:14They play Hawaiian music, I believe, right?

00:29:16A little hula music in the back.

00:29:19This is the first semi-love scene.

00:29:21Ah, yes.

00:29:23Two men after the same moment.

00:29:25I don't know.

00:29:26Just let down, nervous.

00:29:29There's nervous as a bride left waiting at the...

00:29:31Well, that tramp steamer, you're saying you bought in a store?

00:29:34In a toy shop?

00:29:35The boat, yes.

00:29:36I thought you were talking about this.

00:29:38We didn't have time to build one.

00:29:40Yeah.

00:29:41Oh, yeah, sorry.

00:29:43But Ray frequented Woolworths, I think.

00:29:46You said you bought the station wagon that appears in both The Beast and the saucer movie,

00:29:51little Dodge station wagon.

00:29:53It's about three inches long.

00:29:55That was from Woolworths.

00:29:56And other things.

00:29:57You didn't have to worry about having a mechanical shop or a miniature shop build those.

00:30:02You just bought them at Woolworths.

00:30:04Yeah.

00:30:04Kept them in business.

00:30:05And they're just sort of props that you put in the last minute shot.

00:30:10Yeah.

00:30:10They work.

00:30:11And whatever needs to be done.

00:30:12Leave it up, children.

00:30:14But you haven't even asked me.

00:30:16That's the way we do it in the Navy.

00:30:17But I haven't even had my dinner.

00:30:19Would you order another T-Bone doctor?

00:30:20There's something else about this film and actually all three of your black and white films from this period.

00:30:27The women scientists or the women scientists or the women characters tend to be a little more independent than the average actresses or portrayals during that era.

00:30:36Most of the portrayals by women during this period were just traditional romantic leads.

00:30:43They didn't have an independent life.

00:30:45And all three of these films, these women are either scientists or doctors or they're certainly...

00:30:53Well, that was popular at that time.

00:30:54Well, it was becoming that way.

00:30:55But it wasn't traditional in most of these movies.

00:30:57They tend to be a little more subversive to the male characters.

00:31:00It's refreshing to see this dialogue.

00:31:04The dialogue in these movies tends to be a little bit more sophisticated than people remembered from that era.

00:31:13You've got to live through that era to really appreciate it.

00:31:18Well, three of us here, not you, Ray, because you were doing the work, but the three of us were enjoying these movies in the theater and looking forward to them every year.

00:31:29And knowing we were going to be getting a good film.

00:31:31You're going to see the complete product, you know.

00:31:36You don't see the headaches that went with it.

00:31:38No, no, no, no.

00:31:39But I remember looking for your name on posters and saying, okay, that's going to be a guaranteed good time.

00:31:45I'm not going to worry about spending money.

00:31:46And you were never disappointed.

00:31:48Never disappointed.

00:31:48Oh, good.

00:31:49No.

00:31:49Put my 50 cents down and enjoyed a double feature.

00:31:53And it was worth every penny.

00:31:54Every penny.

00:31:55And then when these first came on television, I had a reel-to-reel videotape recorder and tried to get those on tape, never realizing that there would be something like video cassettes or anything like that.

00:32:09No, I mean, you'd have to, you know, check the schedule every week, you know, to see which Harryhausen picture would be on, you know.

00:32:17That's right.

00:32:17And I remember a lot of us would and still do watch, would watch them obsessively, you know, and just over and over again.

00:32:27I just could never get enough.

00:32:28And now we've got, we've got HD channels broadcasting your stuff.

00:32:33And I've got to, I still watch the sequences over and over again.

00:32:37Do you look for the matte lines?

00:32:40No.

00:32:40No, no, no, no.

00:32:41I look for the silver lining.

00:32:43Look for the silver lining.

00:32:44That's always.

00:32:44Always, yes.

00:32:46Now, they're so enjoyable to look at.

00:32:48And I think a lot of it has to do with recollections of when we first saw them, but also just that they're so amazing.

00:32:54What you were able to accomplish was very little money compared to what people are being given today to do.

00:33:01And a lot of ingenuity.

00:33:02I mean, that's, I mean, I think that's why I'm rather grateful for that experience, because it taught me to think carefully that there's an expensive way of doing something and there's a less expensive way of doing something.

00:33:17Well, I think that's great, because you were literally forced to create your own technique.

00:33:22I did, yes.

00:33:22You weren't just handed a contract, but you knew how expensive Obie's work had been, O'Brien's work had been.

00:33:29Yes.

00:33:29There were certain things we eliminated.

00:33:32Mighty Joe Young, we had a lot of matte painters.

00:33:35We had four matte painters, and we had four projectionists.

00:33:40Extensive miniatures.

00:33:42And extensive miniatures.

00:33:45And glass painters.

00:33:45I tried to use as few miniatures as possible.

00:33:49Well, it changed everything, because your films literally set the standard for this type of storytelling in the 50s,

00:33:57beginning with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and going right on through to Clash of the Titans.

00:34:02Your films were the ones everybody looked to for inspiration.

00:34:07Well, and Ray was the only one making these pictures.

00:34:09I mean, nobody else was.

00:34:10I mean, now everybody's making Harryhausen pictures today, you know.

00:34:14But back in the 50s, you were writing the book on it, you know, and we weren't faithfully.

00:34:20Well, I tried to keep it quiet.

00:34:22I was interviewed many times about technical things, and half of the charm when I saw King Kong was that I didn't know how it was done.

00:34:32And I rather frowned upon giving too much away, because I think it spoils the picture for people.

00:34:39Well, it's like a magician, eh?

00:34:41You know?

00:34:42Yeah, if a magician tells you how he pulls a rabbit out of a hat, you're no longer interested.

00:34:47Well, I think the fact that virtually every major Oscar for visual effects from the mid-70s or late-70s,

00:34:57beginning with, I suppose, Star Wars or a little bit before that,

00:34:59almost every single one of those artists has indicated that you were their inspiration, beginning with...

00:35:06I'm grateful we've left that legacy.

00:35:08I think John and Randy would agree with me.

00:35:11Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:35:12There are two generations of effects artists, almost two generations...

00:35:16Oh, probably more than that.

00:35:18...who are indebted to you for films like this, which were low-budget movies, programmers with double features,

00:35:26and yet they hold up remarkably well.

00:35:30They're very enjoyable, and, of course, the visual effects are stunning, even by today's standards.

00:35:34Well, I'm so grateful that eight pictures that were made around the same time have fallen by the wayside,

00:35:41and these pictures keep coming back and back to new generations.

00:35:44No, it's amazing.

00:35:45You look at something you thought you had enjoyed very much in the 50s,

00:35:49and you realize that it really wasn't that good, but you see any of your movies, and you say, well...

00:35:54Well, they seem to hold up for new generations.

00:35:56Well, and today, I mean, those of us working in the effects business today are still ripping you off,

00:36:03paying you homage, paying you homage.

00:36:06That's what I meant to say.

00:36:08That's a better word.

00:36:10Well, it's a French word, and it sounds more sophisticated.

00:36:13Like a big morgue.

00:36:14Or homage.

00:36:15A big morgue.

00:36:15Homage.

00:36:16Or homage.

00:36:18Or something.

00:36:19We'll go with either one of those.

00:36:21We don't use the word filch anymore.

00:36:22No filching.

00:36:23Filching.

00:36:24No filching.

00:36:25But I knocked over the Washington Monument before Tim Burton did.

00:36:29Really?

00:36:30I didn't know that, Ray.

00:36:31When did that happen?

00:36:32You mentioned that to Tim on more than one occasion.

00:36:35Oh, I did.

00:36:36Right to his face.

00:36:37He agrees.

00:36:38He nodded.

00:36:40And said, of course.

00:36:41Where else?

00:36:42So I'm not talking behind his back.

00:36:44No, no.

00:36:44And he would be the first to agree with you.

00:36:46I remember when you showed him the original saucers, two of the three saucers sizes, he

00:36:53practically fell over in surprise.

00:36:58Oh, my God.

00:36:58I can't believe I'm seeing the original ones.

00:37:01Because the original were designed in a certain way, and his saucers were very similar.

00:37:08Very similar.

00:37:08It went deliberately.

00:37:09He was trying to honor you and honor the film that he loved.

00:37:13Yeah.

00:37:16Now she's going to go to work.

00:37:20She's been at work for a while.

00:37:23Lovely lady.

00:37:24Very attractive.

00:37:25And we don't absolutely know what color her dress was, but I think the color is suitable.

00:37:32Yeah, I don't know.

00:37:32It's an attractive color with her hair color.

00:37:39And she's smoking.

00:37:40And she's smoking.

00:37:41And it's probably a no-smoking area.

00:37:42Again, a part of the 50s that we tend to forget, but smoking.

00:37:48Chesterfields.

00:37:48I recognize you even colorized the Chesterfields back.

00:37:51Oh, yeah, undoubtedly.

00:37:52And there's a product placement there.

00:37:53We'll probably get something from Liggett-Myers on that.

00:37:55I'm not sure.

00:37:57When we were doing the commentary track for Earth for us to flying saucers, Ray made a point

00:38:01of saying that his father designed the saucers on a craftsman lathe.

00:38:05He made the lathe.

00:38:06Yeah.

00:38:06So we're hoping that Sears will give us a little bit of a nod.

00:38:10Maybe a refrigerator, perhaps.

00:38:13Yeah.

00:38:13Be delivered to them.

00:38:14This was one there, a combination of Sears-Robot.

00:38:17Sears-Robot.

00:38:18I don't know what happened to Mr. Robot.

00:38:20I don't either, no.

00:38:22Coming up here, I don't know, to ask you, like RP screens, rear projections in the next

00:38:27sequence coming up.

00:38:28No kidding.

00:38:28That's what he's saying.

00:38:29How far back was the projector?

00:38:31It depends.

00:38:32I try to keep the picture small.

00:38:34When we see the next scene.

00:38:36Yeah.

00:38:36It depends on the scene.

00:38:38And I had it on wheels so that I could move it forward or backward.

00:38:42But I use really a long focus lens and make a smaller picture because then you get a better

00:38:51image.

00:38:51Right.

00:38:53Contrast.

00:38:53Well, and the hotspot.

00:38:55Hotspot was a very difficult thing.

00:38:57I used to use a neutral density on a wire, but then finally I got a lamp house that was

00:39:04able to disperse a hotspot.

00:39:08I saw it happen with my own two eyes.

00:39:12No one didn't.

00:39:13It was a giant...

00:39:14And this was all done on stage at Columbia.

00:39:18No.

00:39:19Not necessarily?

00:39:20Separately in my studio, an old store somewhere.

00:39:24Ah.

00:39:24Where's that?

00:39:25Down in Culver City.

00:39:28Oh, really?

00:39:29No, he always rented a store, didn't you?

00:39:31Yeah.

00:39:31You rented a store, a storefront, and then blacked out the front window so nobody would know

00:39:35you were in there.

00:39:36Right.

00:39:36And then that gave you privacy.

00:39:38Not to mention the fact that you could shoot during the day.

00:39:40You could shoot during the day, of course.

00:39:42There's that.

00:39:42There's always that.

00:39:43And probably the most important reason.

00:39:45And the store had no windows except in the front.

00:39:49But you did that on probably all of your early movies.

00:39:53You just rented a storefront so you could be by yourself and not have to have interference

00:39:56Yes, I didn't want to have to be accountable to anybody.

00:40:00And you told me once, Ray, that you tended to close up shop between pictures and you'd get

00:40:09a new space.

00:40:11Yes.

00:40:11You were sort of gypsying about.

00:40:13Well, we take our tent down.

00:40:16Take your tent down.

00:40:17That's what you said.

00:40:18Because who's going to pay for it?

00:40:19Well, sure.

00:40:19That's right.

00:40:20That's right.

00:40:20Who's going to pay for the overhead in between pictures?

00:40:23And sometimes it takes six months or a year to be between pictures.

00:40:27No, that makes total sense.

00:40:30On these three little movies, you were probably busy on one or the other, but you weren't

00:40:36necessarily animating anything.

00:40:38You were in pre-production or maybe doing some sketch work and really in conferences.

00:40:43But you couldn't afford to just keep the storefront open.

00:40:46It was just a matter.

00:40:47It wouldn't be worth it.

00:40:48So I had different studios at different places.

00:40:52Now, when you went to England, you began working inside Shepparton and Pinewood.

00:40:56Yeah, but on Golden Voyage, I worked in a little studio in a local town close to my house.

00:41:05Oh, close to where you live.

00:41:06Yes.

00:41:09Scientific demonstration.

00:41:10Yes, scientific.

00:41:11That's exactly how the octopus will behave at that balloon movement.

00:41:17Did Katzmann watch the scene and say, is that what we're going to see?

00:41:21No.

00:41:21Oh, that's good.

00:41:22That's good.

00:41:23I don't know whether he watched the rushes or the dailies.

00:41:27Charles did.

00:41:28And practically everything you see here is a first take.

00:41:32We never had time to do retakes unless there was really something wrong that was so unrepairable.

00:41:40That's true definitely with your work.

00:41:42But it was probably also true of the first unit.

00:41:45The actors probably didn't have to do more than one take unless there was somebody.

00:41:49Probably, yes.

00:41:50Because it was a rushed schedule.

00:41:52They only had two or three weeks to do everything.

00:41:54So unless one of these, there were probably some non-professional actors from the military brought in just to make it more authentic.

00:42:03But unless somebody threw a line or somebody dropped a lamp in the background, they probably didn't bother with a second take unless they needed to, you know, just to get through it.

00:42:11Maybe they did two takes just for coverage.

00:42:13But in your case, you were proud of the fact that you didn't need more than one take.

00:42:18Well, we couldn't afford it, yeah.

00:42:22So you had to know the story and what happened.

00:42:26Because you can't, in a script, you can't detail every move that you see on the screen.

00:42:33That's created.

00:42:34That's the beauty about the O'Brien technique over George Pal's or a static puppet where you have repetitious figures that you just substitute.

00:42:46Still figures, yes, substitute.

00:42:47So here, there's more creativity because you have a flexible model and one pose leads to another pose.

00:42:58I think so.

00:43:00I can be ready in ten minutes if you'll have a plane for me.

00:43:03I'll see you.

00:43:04Now, did you have, when you started work, did you have a cut of the movie?

00:43:08Or did you animate scenes as you thought they should be?

00:43:11No, I would cut the scene together so I knew where a close-up would be.

00:43:17Right.

00:43:17Just in case something went wrong.

00:43:20So you worked with editorial after they had shot the movie?

00:43:22You worked with the editorial department?

00:43:25Yes.

00:43:26As I went along.

00:43:27And you had storyboards.

00:43:28As we went along, yes.

00:43:29Yeah.

00:43:29Because I had to cut the sequences together, particularly in a certain sequence of scenes so that I know how much footage to do on each one.

00:43:40Actors would match in a wide shot in a close-up.

00:43:42Yes.

00:43:43And we usually covered ourselves with close-ups in case of an accident that we had a cut.

00:43:50That's something else about these little movies that people never talk about.

00:43:53This stock, nice stock shot.

00:43:55I like it has white walls.

00:43:56It has to be.

00:43:59But the editing on these movies was very—

00:44:03Pollution, pollution.

00:44:04Well, we're not worried about that in the 50s.

00:44:06The cutting on these movies was very good because the editors had to use stock footage and then they had to deal with your footage along with the first unit.

00:44:14So that's something that nobody ever talks about.

00:44:18But I think in this case and your other movies, the other two movies of this period, the editing is so good because they were obviously rushed.

00:44:27And yet you had so many different things to deal with.

00:44:30A traditional movie, you just had the first unit, maybe a second unit.

00:44:32But in this case, they had that plus your footage and making sure it all worked.

00:44:38And quite interesting, I think.

00:44:39This looks like Malibu, although it's a story.

00:44:41Where was this shot?

00:44:42Do you remember Malibu?

00:44:44Malibu.

00:44:44You like Malibu, Ray.

00:44:46Oh, yes.

00:44:46Well, they liked it, too.

00:44:48This is also a reprojection, so you're projecting the background.

00:44:54Now, did you have the sand blend into the screen?

00:44:57Oh, yes.

00:44:58We tried to wherever necessary.

00:45:02Now, were you in on the shooting of this kind of RP as well?

00:45:06The live action, I didn't bother with because it didn't involve me.

00:45:10Right.

00:45:10And as I said, I was busy making background plates.

00:45:15Yeah.

00:45:15So you didn't shoot these background plates?

00:45:17No, I wasn't present here.

00:45:19Okay.

00:45:20But you did probably supervise when the octopus appears on this site.

00:45:24Oh, yes.

00:45:25You were involved with that background plate, so you were aware of where they were going to shoot it.

00:45:29Oh, yes, absolutely.

00:45:30I picked the location many times.

00:45:32Because it would fit with your design.

00:45:33Because you had to have matte lines in a certain place so it would look convincing.

00:45:38Right, right.

00:45:42Is that the sand?

00:45:43Oh, I can see the pile of sand there, where it finally butts up against the screen.

00:45:49Still a good technique today, actually, if anybody's interested.

00:45:53Well, they match sometimes.

00:45:55Sometimes you can see the difference.

00:45:58Well, especially since, you know, since...

00:46:01Particularly with color film, it's very difficult to match, you know, because once you dupe it, the color changes.

00:46:09And sometime your eye isn't able to pick that up until you see it on the screen.

00:46:15Right.

00:46:16And so that's why it requires tests.

00:46:22Here's a technique, day for night.

00:46:24Day for night.

00:46:24Shot during the day and exposed differently and printed to look like night.

00:46:29Yes.

00:46:30And the same with the plate.

00:46:32Wow, that's...

00:46:33How'd they do that, Randy?

00:46:35Well, how do they do this?

00:46:37Well, they printed it down, didn't they?

00:46:41And it's magic.

00:46:43It's magic.

00:46:43Couldn't wait for night.

00:46:46Well, that's about it.

00:46:48Hadn't you better tell them I'm here?

00:46:50Yeah, yeah, sure.

00:46:53I mean, back...

00:46:54You know, I'm looking for the backlight.

00:46:56I guess there's...

00:46:56Usually that's what they...

00:46:58Since they can't really get crosslight, you know, unless you've got a...

00:47:02Unless you've got, you know, some big lamps out there for that.

00:47:06You want to simulate...

00:47:07You want to simulate moonlight so you knock down the color because your eyes don't see in color in the dark, you know?

00:47:14And they tend to have these shots backlit.

00:47:23This is the point where I probably went out for popcorn, I think.

00:47:28Oh, my gosh.

00:47:30Romantic.

00:47:30We tried to keep it at a minimum.

00:47:32Yes.

00:47:35Well, I knew I'd probably have to rush back from the counter because there would be an octopus scene very soon.

00:47:41But we knew this was a part of the story.

00:47:45Hello, Leslie.

00:47:46Hello, John.

00:47:47Hi, John.

00:47:49Any sign of that whale?

00:47:51The actor on the left is Harry Lauder, who was another good supporting actor.

00:47:57And, in fact, he appears in two of your movies.

00:48:00He was in Earth First of Flying Saucers the following year.

00:48:04But one of those reliable supporting actors that people would recognize from a lot of television shows.

00:48:09And I think he had a series on CBS or one of those networks during the 50s.

00:48:14But, again, just a typical reliable actor that the studios knew they could call on.

00:48:19Oh, there it is.

00:48:20That giant octopital rockety-yatta or whatever.

00:48:24I wrote it down.

00:48:25Yes.

00:48:26It's worth repeating.

00:48:27Yeah.

00:48:31We've got...

00:48:32And we're going to see it in a second.

00:48:33We're going to see it breathing, and you're going to see its little siphons working.

00:48:38No, I think you're only going to see a tentacle.

00:48:40Okay, you see...

00:48:41I guess you see it at the end of the sequence.

00:48:43Is that it?

00:48:43I don't want to fade out.

00:48:44I've forgotten.

00:48:46No, no.

00:48:46You've got a shot of the business end of it as well.

00:48:50Just before we go to black, I think it shows a full feature.

00:48:54Sure.

00:48:54But there's a whole new breed who feel they're just as smart, just as great as a man.

00:48:58This is a personal question.

00:48:59Did you work with an assistant or do everything yourself?

00:49:03No, I worked by myself most of the time.

00:49:07And on some pictures, I had an assistant only to help build things, not for animation.

00:49:17But, I mean, that's the amazing thing to me about Ray, is that he designed the scenes

00:49:23and directed them and did the puppets and did the animation, did the compositing.

00:49:28Now, there we have a tentacle.

00:49:30See, I had to use the...

00:49:32Now, how was this composited?

00:49:36Huh?

00:49:37How was that composited?

00:49:38Is that an optical?

00:49:39Well, it was just a mat along the top of the rocks.

00:49:43That's rear screen.

00:49:44Oh, I see that breathing on the side, yes.

00:49:50Ooh, get out of there.

00:49:51And that's probably the last we'll see of Harry Lauder.

00:49:56That was his farewell.

00:50:02There you go.

00:50:03It was breathing, yes.

00:50:06And how did you do the breathing?

00:50:08A bladder.

00:50:09I put a bladder in there and pumped it up frame by frame.

00:50:12And then release the air inside frame by frame.

00:50:17Closed it off with what?

00:50:19Did you close it off with a little clamp or something?

00:50:23No, I had what you'd call an orsop bag.

00:50:27Uh-huh.

00:50:28The kind of pump, you know, when they put a thing around your arm, take your blood pressure.

00:50:33And it has a valve on it.

00:50:36I see.

00:50:37So you can let it out frame by frame.

00:50:40Just a little out, a little out, a little out.

00:50:42Yeah.

00:50:43And then screw it back.

00:50:45You said you've done that with the little character in 20 Million Miles to Earth.

00:50:50You used the same technique with the breathing mechanism there, right?

00:50:54I did, yes.

00:50:54Our warning devices set up on Golden Gate Bridge should be more than adequate to keep the monster out.

00:50:59Now, John, we're about ready to hear your little story about the Golden Gate Bridge when you were living in Sausalito.

00:51:05We can talk about that.

00:51:06We were living in, where was that?

00:51:08Was it Sausalito or across the bay somewhere?

00:51:09Across the bay.

00:51:10Or somewhere.

00:51:11Walnut Creek.

00:51:11Walnut Creek, yeah.

00:51:13Family, my dad loved these movies.

00:51:19And every time one would come out, he'd say, you know, like, he'd try to take us to the movies into San Francisco once a month.

00:51:29And we'd do this family outing, which was take the Sausalito ferry from Richmond to Sausalito, drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, which is amazing then, as it is now, to visit some family relatives who lived up above the Presidio.

00:51:48And down in that part of town, there was a theater that would show these movies.

00:51:58And so I remember sitting watching this, had no idea what was going on when I saw, first of all, there's a tentacle comes out of the, two things I remember.

00:52:12A tentacle giant thing comes out of the water and crushes people not far away from where we were.

00:52:20And then later, you know, this thing crawls out of the bridge, from up the north pillar of the bridge and then tears it down.

00:52:30I remember being very confused.

00:52:35And you were only five at the time.

00:52:37I was about, I think I was five.

00:52:38Five or six, yeah.

00:52:39I was very, like, baffled by what that was.

00:52:42And then so we had lunch, I think with our, or it was after lunch, we saw the movie, saw my relatives, and then we were going to drive home.

00:52:50And then I remember we were going back across the bridge and it was still there.

00:52:55Oh, yeah.

00:52:56So I was not quite sure what I saw, like, did I, is this about to happen?

00:53:01Yeah.

00:53:02It was very weird.

00:53:04So that, that stuck in my, I remember being nervous, that's, you know, that is, I remember being nervous going across the bridge and then questioning for a long time, what was, what did I just see?

00:53:16And I told Ray when I met him once that I really thought this was the movie that got me interested in doing visual effects.

00:53:24Like, how, how was that done?

00:53:25And I have, I have to know, it affected me.

00:53:30In a good way.

00:53:31It kept it very quiet.

00:53:32That's right.

00:53:33So people like you wouldn't know how it's done.

00:53:36I think that's, this is the one that sort of got me interested in the next film that I, of course, I liked was, was the, the fighting, the skeleton fight.

00:53:45I recall that as being impressive.

00:53:46And then, and I asked Jim Cameron one day, well, what was your favorite Harryhausen movie?

00:53:52Because I had a real, a favorite, as far as I thought, a realistic film, which was Mysterious Island.

00:53:58And that was his favorite.

00:53:59So we, we discussed Mysterious Island for quite a while.

00:54:02Wonderful.

00:54:06Well, years later, you had a chance to do your own version of the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:54:11Yeah.

00:54:11So during X-Men, part of the, well, there was the, the main scene that was sort of developed was that Magneto basically walks onto the Golden Gate Bridge, rips it up, and floats it magnetically over to Alcatraz.

00:54:28Another homage, another homage, and then at that point, I thought that that's when I actually remembered this whole story.

00:54:35That's great.

00:54:36That's great.

00:54:37And you purged your fears with that image.

00:54:40Oh, I got, I got back at the bridge.

00:54:43How dare that bridge.

00:54:46It's wonderful things stick in your mind when you, when you're a child, you, you, you're just so impressed by what you're looking at.

00:54:52I remember when the beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released and the beast was destroying what was supposed to be Coney Island.

00:55:00It was not that, but it was supposed to be Coney Island.

00:55:02I, I was young and I remember my parents talking about going to see my relatives in New York and New Jersey.

00:55:08And I said, well, can we go see the, can we go see Coney Island?

00:55:12Because I want to see where the, uh, the roller coaster was destroyed.

00:55:17They said, no, you, you understand that was a movie.

00:55:20Well, here we had to submit our script to the city fathers, uh, you know, for, uh, approval.

00:55:27So we'd get cooperation from the police.

00:55:29And they turned it down because they said, we don't want people to lose faith in the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:55:36It was just built.

00:55:38And, uh, so they, they wouldn't give us cooperation.

00:55:42So we had to shoot out of the back of bakery trucks and various other devious ways of getting our shots.

00:55:50So all the footage, all, all, all your plates, all, all the stuff you needed was, uh, was guerrilla.

00:55:56It was all, it was all guerrilla filmmaking.

00:55:58That's right.

00:56:00Excellent.

00:56:01But they didn't object when, I guess when we, they saw the picture that they didn't, uh, it's a fantasy, obviously.

00:56:09I remember when the film was released, the San Francisco Chronicle, I used to buy out of town newspapers when I was living in Chicago.

00:56:15And I, I knew this film was, was shot partially in San Francisco.

00:56:20So I bought a copy of the Chronicle the week it was released.

00:56:24And there was an article, a full page article in their, their weekend edition.

00:56:29And one of the shots was of the octopus wrapping its tentacle around the ferry building, I think.

00:56:35And so they weren't afraid to promote the city in that respect.

00:56:39They were very proud of the fact that this movie had been made in that city.

00:56:44And I think it, isn't it, except for X-Men, isn't it one of the only movies that was ever used as a backdrop for a science fiction film?

00:56:51I don't recall too many other ones, but maybe, there may have been.

00:56:54I don't know.

00:56:56It's a beautiful city.

00:56:57It's surprising it hasn't been used for.

00:56:59It needs to be tromped on again.

00:57:01This is Chrissy Field.

00:57:02Oh, really?

00:57:03Oh, wonderful.

00:57:04When we were shooting plates, it was like, where's the, where's the, where's the, where's the runway?

00:57:08It's gone.

00:57:09It was coastal defense at that time.

00:57:11Oh, yes.

00:57:12It was built for that.

00:57:13Entering minefield.

00:57:15Number 40, stop.

00:57:17Rain, get on.

00:57:19Fire.

00:57:20Fire.

00:57:21Fire.

00:57:23Stand by.

00:57:23Number 38, mine.

00:57:25Fire.

00:57:26Fire.

00:57:27A lot of these are stock shots we bought from other pictures.

00:57:30Some of the explosions are.

00:57:3232, south sector.

00:57:34Approaching 32.

00:57:35Miscellaneous people turning dials.

00:57:38More stock footage.

00:57:39But it all blends beautifully, doesn't it?

00:57:41It does.

00:57:42That's the job of the editor, to make it look like it blends.

00:57:46We were remarking about how clear and how clean the stock footage was

00:57:50was in the saucer movie, which has even more footage than this one.

00:57:54But the fact that you were able to get such clean footage, none of this has been repaired.

00:57:58It was all just this way.

00:57:59But it was good, unscratched footage, even then.

00:58:04And that seems unusual.

00:58:07Well, some of it probably was never used in the pictures it was designed for.

00:58:12It had just been used once or never, possibly.

00:58:15And then it came into the stock library.

00:58:19See, people want to get their money back after they've invested.

00:58:23Oh, the golden game.

00:58:23Ah.

00:58:27Well, that looks like a rare projection photograph.

00:58:31Just behind him.

00:58:32Yeah.

00:58:34Behind that, yeah, it's a little wiggle there.

00:58:39Oh, there's a bird.

00:58:40Uh-oh, uh-oh, here it comes.

00:58:41So it's orange.

00:58:42Hello.

00:58:43Oh, nice.

00:58:44Wow.

00:58:45So your miniature, you built, that's a photograph of the bridge.

00:58:50That's a miniature with its tentacles, and the top part is a real bridge.

00:58:56Right, okay.

00:58:58And you said that you actually painted it orange when you were eating?

00:59:02No, it was orange.

00:59:04Uh, gray and black and white, of course.

00:59:08Yeah, but you actually painted it the color so you could, the actual color.

00:59:12Oh, yes.

00:59:13The miniature part, the section was painted the same color.

00:59:17Was that two feet, three feet?

00:59:19How tall was that section?

00:59:20The little section was about that far.

00:59:23Two feet.

00:59:24I gave it to Forey, and he had it for a long time.

00:59:27I think he sold it to Peter Jackson.

00:59:29There's a photo.

00:59:30Isn't there a photograph of that?

00:59:31That's a safe bet.

00:59:32Peter Jackson has about everything.

00:59:33There's a photograph of that section in your book, I believe.

00:59:36I think so, yes.

00:59:37I was showing the wiring.

00:59:39It's black and white, of course.

00:59:42Black and white, of course.

00:59:44So anybody watching this who wants to see the original will have to go to New Zealand, I'm afraid.

00:59:49We can't book Passage.

00:59:51So this is the Presidio of San Francisco where ILM now is.

01:00:08That's right.

01:00:09After seeing this so many times in black and white, it's a very strange experience to see it in color, because I'm very familiar with this picture.

01:00:25It is.

01:00:26It's more effective in color, isn't it?

01:00:27It is.

01:00:28Much more.

01:00:29But the color is very good.

01:00:30It keeps...

01:00:31Yeah, it's much better than the older color, all this stuff in general.

01:00:47Well, I was telling you, when we were talking earlier, I was saying that Ray was resistant to this originally because he remembered how Maya Joy Young and King Kong looked back in the late 80s, which was a very early test or early experimentation with colorization.

01:01:02So I had to show him a resume reel or a test reel from the company that would be involved, and that changes mine, understandably, because it's just a totally different experience.

01:01:13I mean, glorious black and white is exactly that.

01:01:16It's really wonderful.

01:01:17Well, originally they released the beast from 20,000 Fathom in glorious sepia tone.

01:01:23That's right.

01:01:27I saw five legs on that octopus.

01:01:29You don't count them because a lot of them are underwater.

01:01:33There we go.

01:01:34Now this particular, you have one fairly large...

01:01:39Three, he said.

01:01:40Three different scales?

01:01:42No, three different large tentacles, right, for close-up work.

01:01:46They were about that long.

01:01:48Two scales.

01:01:50A screw device so that you could push them on.

01:01:53Oh, that's great, isn't it?

01:01:54So how big was that model there?

01:01:56That model is the same, I only had one model.

01:02:00Okay.

01:02:01That was one of the big tentacles, that particular shot.

01:02:04And that car was made out of lead so it would crush?

01:02:06Yeah.

01:02:07Something like that?

01:02:08That was made specially out of lead in miniature.

01:02:10And you used the same technique you used on the beast where you had a screw below your table and you brought the lead down frame by frame?

01:02:18Yeah.

01:02:19This one, too, had to be slowly frame by frame crushed.

01:02:23And what was that made out of?

01:02:25To crush like that?

01:02:26The bridge was made out of lead.

01:02:28Really?

01:02:29Yeah.

01:02:30This is...

01:02:31Actually, that's pretty good.

01:02:33It's not bad.

01:02:34That's good.

01:02:36So what was the concrete?

01:02:38What was the...

01:02:39Do you recall?

01:02:40Plaster.

01:02:41Just plaster.

01:02:42Just plaster.

01:02:43But this, all the work on there.

01:02:48I mean, all the wires and all the, you know, keeping...

01:02:52Things falling.

01:02:54Yeah.

01:02:55Oh, my God.

01:02:56I've taken you the longest of any of your other scenes.

01:02:58This is...

01:02:59Well, when you have multiple pieces that have to fly in different directions.

01:03:03Sure.

01:03:04And how would you do a falling piece?

01:03:06Well, on a wire.

01:03:07All wires.

01:03:08Lower it a frame at a time?

01:03:09A frame at a time.

01:03:10How do you get the wires out?

01:03:12Ah, you paint them out.

01:03:15Paint them out.

01:03:17If the same wire in the same lighting condition is going in front of something light and something dark...

01:03:23Well, then you have to match the background, yes.

01:03:26Interesting.

01:03:30And that takes time.

01:03:31See, Randy was the stop-motion guy that I'm not.

01:03:34I was an animator, but...

01:03:35Yes.

01:03:36One of two.

01:03:38The junior partner in the firm.

01:03:41Excuse me.

01:03:42I'm just referring to us, not us.

01:03:44Yes, okay, okay.

01:03:46And so he probably understands this.

01:03:49I'm trying to figure it out.

01:03:51Still?

01:03:52Well, we don't do that anymore.

01:03:55We just paint them out.

01:03:56Well, you paint them the same color as the background.

01:03:59You have to look through the camera each frame.

01:04:01That's right.

01:04:02What used to be a shot is like common practice now.

01:04:05Yeah.

01:04:06You know, removing a wire out of a live action.

01:04:08Well, you can do it so easily with computers.

01:04:10Yeah, that you don't even consider it.

01:04:12They can be a big cable about a foot in diameter and they can blot it out.

01:04:17Yeah.

01:04:18So I'm very interested in how you did that, and you had to do it by eye.

01:04:23Yeah, in front of the camera, yes.

01:04:26Now, John, you're the audience watching this, so that's good.

01:04:29And the fact that you're not as knowledgeable about stop motion as Randy, because you're asking questions that the audience watching this would be asking if they were with us.

01:04:37Well, for years we adopted Ray's not only animation technique, but his compositing technique as well.

01:04:45I mean, I was, you know, taught it by Jim Danforth and Dave Allen and through observation, of course, you know, knew what you'd been up to.

01:04:54And it was and is a very versatile technique.

01:05:01And the thing that wasn't discussed earlier was that when you put the puppet in front of a rear projection screen, then you've got to put the stuff that's in front of the puppet in front of the puppet.

01:05:14You know what I'm saying? So so you Ray would Ray would paint out a match for everything that was in the foreground.

01:05:21And then. Yeah. And then that's so. So the puppet was split into the shot, basically.

01:05:27So he'd finish animating it and then take, you know, take the animation table out, rewind the projector and the camera back to frame zero and then put the counter mat in.

01:05:39So this this is all a rear projection screen except for the except for the puppet.

01:05:46The live action was shot twice.

01:05:48I mean, this was shot once, but exposed twice in anime in the animation.

01:05:53Yes, once on a rear projection and once original.

01:05:56Yeah.

01:05:57None of these techniques are blue screen here. None of this is blue screen.

01:06:03It's all projection. We couldn't afford it. It was expensive.

01:06:07So how did you do the split there with the with the tentacle in the water?

01:06:10Well, I put the split in the water with the mat in the foreground.

01:06:12With the mat. Yeah.

01:06:13And you also diffused the, you also diffused the tentacle in a number of those shots, didn't you?

01:06:18Yes. So that it looked like it was a back.

01:06:22Distance. Yeah.

01:06:23Otherwise it was too sharp.

01:06:25Which is a difficult, which is a difficult thing to do, to get, to get diffuse lighting onto these puppets in front of a screen,

01:06:34because the screen, you know, with, with non-directional light would bounce, you know, you'd, you'd fog out the screen.

01:06:40So what, what did you, what was your technique for, for diffusing the information or diffusing the light in front of the puppet?

01:06:49Did you paint on glass or did you, or do you care to talk about it?

01:06:52I don't care to talk about it. I have nothing to say.

01:06:55Okay. All right.

01:06:56Because, frankly, I don't quite remember.

01:06:58Oh, okay.

01:06:59It's so long ago, you know.

01:07:01But I did, most of it was airbrushed on a glass.

01:07:05On a glass, yes.

01:07:06I've, I've been told that by Steve, Steve Archer, one of your proteges.

01:07:11Yeah. Secrets revealed.

01:07:14Yes.

01:07:15But I think the less audience knows of the technical background, the better, because they can enjoy it much more.

01:07:23Oh, yeah, for sure.

01:07:24Yeah.

01:07:25But, I mean, that was, that was, that was sort of cut down our, that cut down our talking time, wouldn't it?

01:07:30If we, this was a miniature there combined with live action.

01:07:36No, it's perfectly blended.

01:07:37Yeah, it's a great, great split screen there.

01:07:39Yeah.

01:07:40Yeah.

01:07:41And Ray actually has that ferry station or that section in his home.

01:07:45Oh.

01:07:46In London, yeah.

01:07:47Yeah.

01:07:48Still kept that.

01:07:49Still there.

01:07:50There's a wonderful, large amount of animation in the last 20 minutes of this movie.

01:07:56Mm-hmm.

01:07:57Just every, almost every scene has a shot in it.

01:08:00Great.

01:08:01And a number of them, like what's coming up here, which is, which is not only tentacles, but architecture and lots of it.

01:08:08Yeah, I had to substitute the miniature tower clock with the, with the real one on the medium shots.

01:08:19A matte painting.

01:08:21I believe it's actually lifting itself out of the water, Pete.

01:08:24Probably the only matte painting in this one.

01:08:26That's the only matte.

01:08:27Yeah.

01:08:28That was an afterthought, yeah.

01:08:29Mm-hmm.

01:08:30But it was on screen just enough, just probably two seconds at the most, just enough to accept the stage, going through the periscope.

01:08:35Hello, Leslie.

01:08:36I'd like to find something that would-

01:08:38And so who was the actual, when you're building little miniature towers?

01:08:42Who, who built those?

01:08:43Oh, Willis Cook built them.

01:08:45And the, he was a, a, a good construction man.

01:08:50He was subcontracted.

01:08:51He didn't work for Columbia.

01:08:52Yes, he subcontracted.

01:08:53He worked on, he worked on Beast as well, didn't he?

01:08:56Yes, he did.

01:08:57Yes.

01:08:58He built the Cynic Railway and the, out of Balsawood.

01:09:02The roller coaster.

01:09:03The roller coaster, yeah.

01:09:04Did he also build the, the lighthouse that you, did he build that one?

01:09:07He built the lighthouse, too.

01:09:08He built the lighthouse, too.

01:09:09Yes, yes.

01:09:10Well, he was, he was very helpful to you.

01:09:11Oh, yes, very.

01:09:12That's great.

01:09:13And he would build it to proportion, so it would look exactly like the real one.

01:09:17That's a great.

01:09:18See, this had to be blended together and some people ran through the mat line.

01:09:27Yes, they did.

01:09:28So I had to doctor it up afterwards.

01:09:31Now, falling.

01:09:32Look at all those, look at all those things going.

01:09:35Falling is all.

01:09:36Each one on a wire.

01:09:37Each one on a wire.

01:09:38Interesting.

01:09:39But when that fellow ran in front of the, ran through the mat line, are you going to reveal

01:09:46that dynamation secret?

01:09:47We all have our theories.

01:09:49You have your theories.

01:09:51Well, some, in some cases I would make a photograph.

01:09:55This is what I remember.

01:09:57This was, I would make a photograph and, and cut the head out as a photograph and put

01:10:04on the glass in the foreground.

01:10:05And animate that along.

01:10:07Oh my gosh.

01:10:08The various techniques.

01:10:11Yeah.

01:10:12Depends on what the situation was at the time.

01:10:14Well, I believe, I believe that's what you were doing on that particular shot.

01:10:17Having looked at it many times.

01:10:19Oh.

01:10:20Oh, stop.

01:10:21Oh, stop.

01:10:22Oh, stop, sir.

01:10:25And who, who, who built the, this clearly was a metal armature for the arms, the tentacles.

01:10:30Oh, my dad.

01:10:31Your dad.

01:10:32Your dad.

01:10:33Yeah.

01:10:34Well, this is interesting.

01:10:35He was a machinist.

01:10:36And he built the ball and socket armatures.

01:10:38Really?

01:10:39Until he passed away.

01:10:40And then I, I had to get someone in London to do it.

01:10:45But he was with you on these until what?

01:10:48Golden Voyage?

01:10:49Is that when he, up to, up to that point?

01:10:51Yeah.

01:10:52Did all the, based on Ray's designs, he would.

01:10:55I would send my, my designs on tissue paper to him and he'd make them there.

01:11:02And then ship them to me and they were finished.

01:11:06And he lived where?

01:11:09Here in Los Angeles.

01:11:10In Los Angeles.

01:11:11Yeah.

01:11:12Ah.

01:11:17Now the octopus is screaming, of course, this, this had to happen.

01:11:21Well, it hurts.

01:11:22It must hurt.

01:11:23It must hurt.

01:11:24We've never heard an octopus scream and never will.

01:11:26But in this film.

01:11:27Now he's green.

01:11:28Now he's green.

01:11:29And, and the, and the animation buffs will be screaming if I don't ask about the, uh,

01:11:35the embarrassing question.

01:11:36How did you get that fire?

01:11:37I don't remember.

01:11:38You don't remember.

01:11:39Okay.

01:11:40I had to, well, I had to ask you.

01:11:41I know you didn't remember.

01:11:42Uh.

01:11:43Oh.

01:11:44Uh.

01:11:45I had to make it look like it went around him.

01:11:47Yeah.

01:11:48In the front and the back.

01:11:49It's, it's rear projection fire, but it has to go in front of the creature.

01:11:53And behind.

01:11:54And behind.

01:11:55Yes.

01:11:56Yes.

01:11:57Yes.

01:11:58But, and, and, the behind the creature isn't the problem, is it?

01:12:02Not so much.

01:12:03Yes.

01:12:04Put it in front.

01:12:05It's in front.

01:12:06I have to wind the film back and, uh, and make a matte, hand-drawn matte every frame.

01:12:11Gotcha.

01:12:12Here I cheated a bit and, and some of them I did double framing.

01:12:19Hmm.

01:12:20Well then you use ripple glass in there to cover up some of it.

01:12:25Yes.

01:12:26To give the underwater.

01:12:27Mm-hmm.

01:12:28The other was a projection plate on top.

01:12:30A projection plate of the surface of, of the water.

01:12:33That was shot from underwater.

01:12:34Oh, it was shot from underwater.

01:12:35Oh, it was shot from underwater, oh.

01:12:36Mm-hmm.

01:12:37It was a, a stock footage.

01:12:38Mm.

01:12:39This is where we came in.

01:12:40What do we do now, sir?

01:12:42We stay and explode our torpedo and get blown apart ourselves and we think faster than we've

01:12:48ever thought before.

01:12:49Uh, tension.

01:12:50Uh, will this end?

01:12:53I want a man to stand by the escape hatch.

01:12:56Break out an aqua log in some of the-

01:12:58And some of those yellow diving suits.

01:13:00Yes.

01:13:01I know I ain't myself if you're calling for volunteers, sir.

01:13:04As a personal matter, Griff, I'm reserving that pleasure for myself.

01:13:16I see all-

01:13:17Oh, they are yellow, yes.

01:13:19That's nice.

01:13:20That looks real.

01:13:30Heh.

01:13:41Where was this tank?

01:13:42Do you have any idea?

01:13:43Was it on the studio lot?

01:13:44Would they have this underwater?

01:13:45Yeah, that was shot in some tank.

01:13:47Some tank on the lot.

01:13:48They had, uh...

01:13:53Rear projection.

01:13:54So this, uh, scuba was new then, actually.

01:13:57You know, Jacques Cousteau invented the aqua log, invented this.

01:14:00Right.

01:14:01Yeah.

01:14:02This was all relatively new, I think.

01:14:03Yeah.

01:14:04For audiences to see this, uh, quite unusual.

01:14:08Ouch!

01:14:09Ouch!

01:14:10So the scale, the scale of the set, that's, that was your biggest view of the, of the octopus underwater.

01:14:21The what?

01:14:22In the dock.

01:14:23The what?

01:14:36Oh yeah, it was one of the big tentacles, yes, to get the detail.

01:14:40Yeah.

01:14:41So...

01:14:42So...

01:14:43I wanted a wrinkled effect on the skin on the outside.

01:14:46Uh-huh.

01:14:47You know how I did that?

01:14:49No.

01:14:50I, uh, took a tin foil and crumbled it up.

01:14:54Uh-huh.

01:14:55And then painted it?

01:14:56I wanted to cast.

01:14:57Uh-oh.

01:14:58And then cast it in rubber.

01:14:59For the skin.

01:15:00Yeah.

01:15:01Excellent.

01:15:06Now, young animators all over the country are gonna do that.

01:15:09They're gonna take some tin foil and, uh...

01:15:12Makes good skin texture.

01:15:13Just made a plaster mold?

01:15:14Yeah, no kidding.

01:15:15Makes good skin.

01:15:16No kidding.

01:15:17Yeah.

01:15:18No, that was...

01:15:19There you go.

01:15:22This could have been shortened a bit of it.

01:15:28Too late.

01:15:29Still editing, are you?

01:15:31I don't know that...

01:15:32I don't know that...

01:15:33I don't know that...

01:15:34That you're getting a lot of help from the composer, frankly.

01:15:36This is, uh...

01:15:37No, this is from a different film, I'm sure.

01:15:39It's a little bit repetitive.

01:15:43But will the hero survive?

01:15:46Of course.

01:15:47Will the harpist survive?

01:15:48Will the harpist survive?

01:15:49That's all I wanna know.

01:15:50But, uh...

01:15:51So this was, uh...

01:15:52Made from...

01:15:53That was just a double exposure.

01:15:55Mm-hmm.

01:15:56Hence the yellow suit?

01:15:57Perhaps?

01:15:58Or...

01:15:59Were they...

01:16:00Or...

01:16:01Is that...

01:16:02Is that the reason for the light-colored suit?

01:16:03Or is that, uh...

01:16:04Yes.

01:16:05So how big was this?

01:16:06So that you could print it over your eye.

01:16:07Now here...

01:16:08You...

01:16:09This is a separate piece.

01:16:10This eye.

01:16:11You made that separately, right?

01:16:12That was separately, yeah.

01:16:13Uh-oh.

01:16:14In turmoil.

01:16:15He's just in turmoil.

01:16:16He's in agony.

01:16:17Yes.

01:16:18What would you do if somebody shot you in the eye?

01:16:19That's probably true.

01:16:20Here's a question for you, right?

01:16:21Did you actually have a name for that particular character?

01:16:22As you were working with...

01:16:23The octopus?

01:16:24Yeah.

01:16:25No, no.

01:16:26Just a working...

01:16:27You don't name octopuses.

01:16:28Oh, okay.

01:16:29You named your gorilla.

01:16:30The mighty Joe Young.

01:16:31Yeah, that was Jennifer.

01:16:32Okay.

01:16:33Yeah, that's what I mean.

01:16:34You didn't have a pet name while you were shooting this.

01:16:35No, I didn't have a pet name.

01:16:36Wasn't it?

01:16:37That was...

01:16:38That was...

01:16:39I just didn't think about an octopus having a pet name.

01:16:43Bob or Jim or...

01:16:44Yeah.

01:16:45Nothing like that.

01:16:46No.

01:16:47No.

01:16:48No.

01:16:49No.

01:16:50No.

01:16:51No.

01:16:52No.

01:16:53No.

01:16:54No.

01:16:55No.

01:16:56No.

01:16:57No.

01:16:58Nothing like that.

01:16:59No.

01:17:00No.

01:17:01No.

01:17:02And it wasn't alluring enough to be a woman's name.

01:17:05No.

01:17:06As Jennifer had been...

01:17:07Like Clemenestra or something.

01:17:09Clemenestra, yeah.

01:17:10No.

01:17:11Agamemnon.

01:17:12Agamemnon.

01:17:13Oh.

01:17:14It blew the thing.

01:17:16It blew smithereens.

01:17:18Oh.

01:17:19And we're back to the stock footage of the sub.

01:17:23No trace of it.

01:17:25No blood.

01:17:26Yes, there is.

01:17:27There are the two heroes.

01:17:29And it's nice that both of the lead actors in this get a chance to be heroic.

01:17:33Yeah.

01:17:34Toby...

01:17:35And survive.

01:17:36And survive, yes.

01:17:37But they have become equals in that respect.

01:17:40It's nice.

01:17:41And they don't try to outdo one another.

01:17:43No.

01:17:44It's a nice balance, yeah.

01:17:45The guy gives up the girl with free will.

01:17:48You know, as we're watching a black and white TV because at that time there were no color

01:17:54photos and that was our color of television.

01:17:56So...

01:17:57That's a nice...

01:17:58They're drinking absinthe?

01:17:59What is this?

01:18:00Oh, I see this martini.

01:18:01A little martini with a little olive.

01:18:02The crossing guards and street railway employees of the city.

01:18:08Well, I guess that's it.

01:18:10The subs that ordered our patrol will be on sea duty for a few months.

01:18:13I'll be seeing you, John.

01:18:14Soon, I hope.

01:18:15I'll be seeing you, Leslie.

01:18:16You mean when I get back from Cairo?

01:18:18I mean when I get back from Cairo.

01:18:19I mean limiting change.

01:18:22Move away.

01:18:23Get married.

01:18:24Have family.

01:18:25I got interested in their dialogue.

01:18:26There is that part.

01:18:27Yeah.

01:18:28That's happening.

01:18:29That's the silence.

01:18:30Ah, yes.

01:18:31We want to know who gets together.

01:18:33Yeah.

01:18:34Well...

01:18:35This has been great fun.

01:18:37Yeah.

01:18:38And John gets a chance to relive a childhood memory of his family.

01:18:41Oh, yeah.

01:18:42Trauma.

01:18:43And we hope we've purged all the fears you may have had back in the 1950s.

01:18:47Exactly.

01:18:48Wonderful.

01:18:49Thank you, Ray.

01:18:50Thank you, John.

01:18:51Thank you, Randy.

01:18:52It was a pleasure.

01:18:53And I hope everybody enjoyed our little discussion.

01:18:55And the Columbia Lady with the Torch bids us farewell.

01:18:59Bye-bye.

01:19:00Bye-bye.

01:19:01Bye-bye.

01:19:02Bye.

It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955) | Classic horror movie

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