If the Ray Harryhausen fan on your shopping list already has the legendary stop-motion master’s lavishly illustrated autobiography, An Animated Life, another great gift idea is the new five-disc collection Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen: Legendary Science Fiction.
The Columbia TriStar release includes the timeless favorites First Men in the Moon (1964), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), Mysterious Island (1961) and It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955). These are the films that inspired all of the top visual effects artists working today.
The set represents a diverse sampling of Harryhausen’s talents. In First Men in the Moon, he tackles Jules Verne with giant caterpillars and creepy-looking, ant-like moon men. Extraterrestrial life takes on another form in 20 Million Miles to Earth, in which an expedition to Venus brings back a creature that grows to monstrous proportions, much like the giant Octopus that attacks the Golden Gate bridge and terrorizes San Francisco in It Came From Beneath the Sea. Harryhausen took a break from animating monsters to bring UFOs to the big screen like never before in the innovative hit Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers.
Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen: Legendary Science Fiction carries a suggested retail price of $57.95.
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