The 1950s were all about giant monsters raging across the countryside, or at least that’s how I like to think of them, full of radioactive insects and cranky dinosaurs, but in 1957 the father of one of the greatest movie monsters of all time, the father of King Kong, stop-motion legend Willis O’Brien, would take…
Tag: Willis O’Brien
The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) – Review
In the subgenre of “Weird West” we have been treated to some truly fun stuff ranging from Billy the Kid Versus Dracula to Cowboys and Aliens but in the late 50s a film dealing with cowboys versus dinosaurs was released and credited as being “From an idea by Willis O’Brien” the man who created the…
The Valley of Gwangi (1969) – Review
When stop-motion effects artist Ray Harryhausen is attached to a film where the basic premise is “Cowboys vs Dinosaurs” one has to ask “What more could you possibly want?” The result of such a concept was the 1969 movie The Valley of Gwangi, a film based on a concept that Harryhausen’s mentor Willis O’Brien, the…
The Lost World (1925) – Review
When one thinks of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle most will simply consider him the father of Sherlock Holmes, one of literature’s greatest detectives, but what many don’t know is that he practically birthed the dinosaur adventure genre and filmmakers like Ray Harryhausen and Steven Spielberg owe a great debt to him. Published in 1912…
King Kong and Friends: A History of Giant Apes in Film
It was in 1925 when the first giant monster rampaged across the silver screen, stunning audiences at the time with amazing prehistoric creations, that film was Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World, and it heralded a new age in cinema. Close on its heels was the 1933 classic King Kong, a film that still stands today…