By John Walsh

Titan Books, out now

John Walsh, Trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, takes us through a staggering collection of movies that Dynamation master Ray might have made if circumstances had been different.

It’s fair to say that most film-makers have tales of abandoned projects – those that never got past concept or storyline, or even as far as pre-production or casting – and Ray Harryhausen is no exception. The introduction by the likes of Guillermo del Toro and John Landis references unrealised or ‘shadow’ movies, but often there’s little to show of these ‘films that weren’t to be’. Luckily for us, the Harryhausen Foundation holds over 50,000 items in its collection, from hand-written notes to bronze busts to cassette tapes, meaning that there’s a lot of material to draw from.

Harryhausen was interviewed extensively by Walsh in his latter years, tipping him off on projects that he was tangentially involved with. The author has done a fine job in sifting through the treasure to find relevant artefacts to support his copy. Harryhausen was directly involved in 16 completed movies, and this book looks at 70 projects, each falling in to one of three categories – Ray’s self-originated but unrealised projects, projects where a third party brought a proposed project to him, and deleted or unmade scenes from completed movies.

The full-colour book, printed on typically high quality stock paper, breaks down into seven chapters, chronologically running from 1939 to 2007. It’s a fascinating read, if only for those moments where you daydream what a project might have been like with the added Ray Harryhausen touch. It’s no surprise that he was approached for The Land that Time Forgot and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, but think how different the creature would have been if he’d taken on Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon.

Imagine what the AT-AT Walkers and Tauntauns might’ve been like with Harryhausen animating them (as excellent as they already are) or if he’d got the opportunity to make a Victorian-set War of the Worlds in 1949, ahead of George Pal’s contemporary version. Consider what his Conan movie would have been like, the Cimmerian fighting a host of impressive beasties, or if Mark Gatiss had been able to convince Ray to come out of retirement to animate their Homunculus in The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse.

Unfortunately, the bottom fell out of the stop-motion/Dynamation market at the time of 1981’s Clash of the Titans, meaning that follow-up Force of the Trojans wasn’t to be. There’s lots of material on that project, and the news that a deal is now in place to finally produce the movie – exciting times!

Verdict: I like to that we exist in a multiverse where some people are currently enjoying the movies that in this dimension didn’t come to pass. But in the absence of inter-dimensional travel we can pore over the lavish illustrations and notes on Ray Harryhausen’s films that got away. Whether you start at the front and work through or just dip in as you fancy, you’re guaranteed to find some new gem. 9/10

Nick Joy

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