The Ghost of Slumber Mountain

August 18, 2011 3:05 PM

"These giant monsters of the past are seen to breathe, to live again, to move and battle as they did at the dawn of life!" The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918), by Willis O'Brien. Previously.
posted by brundlefly (4 comments total)

For a moment, I thought Joe was going to pose, and this would be a whole different sort of film, but no....

Instead we had a violent dinosaur attack, thus setting the stage for American violence over sex film making. What a different world we might have had!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:02 PM on August 18, 2011

The "action" of O'Brien's stop-motion animation in The Ghost of Slumber Mountain starts at 10:30, for those without the patience to watch an entire 93-year old silent film. But the whole thing is worth seeing. Try watching it with the eyes of an early 20th-century moviegoer, for whom the process of stop-motion animation would have been magical and mysterious.

Willis O'Brien was a fascinating and tragic figure. Cinefex #7 (1982) -- an issue devoted entirely to O'Brien -- is the best source of information about Willis O'Brien I've come across. Graham Edwards recently posted an overview of this classic issue.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 4:19 PM on August 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I imagine that seeing this when it first came out must have been stunning. No wonder it pulled in as much as it did.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:27 PM on August 18, 2011

Much better rip.
posted by iamck at 1:21 AM on August 19, 2011 [1 favorite]