Re: COFT
Simple, my friends....and you are talking to someone who thrilled to the Ymir, the exploits of the Argonauts and of Sinbad, and even the Gwangi.I have seen the armature of the Ymir/Cyclops at the Ackermantion.
My objection was not to Harryhausen when he was doing Harryhausen. I saw it in the theatre when it came out at the old Century Theatres in San Jose....great old Cinemascope houses. It was the mood in the room at the showings I attended (yes, I said ShowINGS). I saw this film IN CONTEXT. Here we were....Star Wars, Close Encounters, Star Trek TMP, and Alien had taken us to the next level, and we were waiting for the Master, Ray Harryhausen, to show us what he could do with the budget AND technology that had finally caught up with his vision.
The results? COFT came off as overreaching, crotchety, a little pathetic, and Worse, CONDESCENDING! The script was abominable, and there was the palpable feeling in the room that great actors (Lawrence Olivier, for God's sake!) were there to keep us from noticing the dialogue was drek! C-list dialogue comimg out of the mouths of C-list Actors worked in movies where the effects were stars. Bit it was just degrading, and I felt SORRY for the fine actors doing that unperformable script. it felt like they were ripping off some of the elements that had made Star Wars a sucess....pandering to us by traipsing out by oscar-worthy actors in robes (well, it worked for Alec Guiness!).
And NO bad movie of the period was complete without a bad R2-D2 clone.....and that f'ing owl was the worst of the lot! An audible GROAN was heard as the cutsie little f*#k bumbled its way onscreen.
(Interestingly, Disney made the same series of mistakes with THE BLACK HOLE when they tried to cash in on that sweet Star Wars moneycake!)
And what did Ray deliver? Ray, who guarded his "tricks of the trade" like WMD secrets? Did he deign to try some of the new toys that Speilburg, Lucas, Dykstra, and Winston had made available. NO!!!!! What could have been his crowning glory arrived on the doorstep as the same old tricks (mind you, very good tricks!), wrapped in condescention, tied up with a "they won't know any better" Mylar ribbon, and set onfire at our doorsteps, ripe for us to step in.
He committed the most unforgiveable sin....he underestimated the standards and intellegence of his fan base.
The crowd left San Jose's Century Theatre sullen, and feeling like we'd been had. A repeat showing a few days later just made me feel worse. I won't say I felt screwed over, but I do know my butt still hurts....and I don't think I am alone in that.
A few years later, a close friend, now the editor of a premiere print magazIne about Genre film, had done their mag's harryhausen interview for CLASH, a v ery detailed piece about the FX, and he was a real tool to deal with, more a dinosaur than the Gwangi. His bitterness, secrecy, and egotism had made him a pariah in the genre he had pioneered. After that sad report, Ray Harryhausen was dead to me. I mourn him still.
So THAT'S how you can hate a Harryhausen movie and still love Harryhausen. I love him for what he did, what he gave us, his place in the lineage of great FX masters, but NOT for that film. Ever. There were great moments, but taken as a whole, it was, I repeat, the turdball-cherry atop the delicious ice cream sundae that was his carreer, when it could have been a big fat marachino cherry. And sprinkles.