The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) in '50s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)

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Andrew Kidd	Re: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)	#21	[-]
Jul 2 05 9:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Waldrop story was in the anthology Dinosaurs! edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. I'm also fond of Waldrop's "The Ugly Chickens", and he does occasional film reviews (usually in conjuction with fellow Texan Lawrence Person) for Locus, some of which are available on-line. The paleonotologist Glut was telling you about was Baron Franz Nopsca, a Hungarian nobleman who led a fascinating and tragic life outside of paleonotology. He spent much of his life in Albania, helping it to build an armed resistance movement and eventually to secure its independence from Turkey, but lost his bid to rule the country at its throne. During World War I, he worked for Austria-Hungary as a spy, but lost his entire estate and fortune at the war's end. In 1933, in a fit of depression, he killed himself and his secretary-lover.
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Pop Ghoul	Re: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)	#22	[-]
Jul 2 05 10:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Where can one find the Waldrop stories? He's a major favorite of mine. Most of Howard's stuff is out of print and generally pretty hard to find. If you look him up on Amazon I think that his latest book (published by Subterranean Press) is still available. A Google search on his name would turn up some interesting sites. MWD
Bill Warren	Re: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)	#23	[-]
Jul 3 05 12:40 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Actually, I'm in contact with Howard. He initiated it by writing me after reading KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES, sending me photos of his condensed cream of 1950s science fiction movies convention show, a one-shot deal. I've tried to track down all his anthologies, but I'm sure I'm shy by one or two; I asked about the dinosaur stories because they don't appear in any of his books I have here. We exchange letters every now and then; he hand-writes his. He's written the introduction for the republication of KWTS. I occasionally used to post links in the AOL CHFB to websites he writes for, but have lost track of which ones those are. I owe him a letter. Anyone know which websites those are? I think his NIGHT OF THE COOTERS is highly filmable. It's about what happened in Texas during the War of the Worlds. The story appears in WAR OF THE WORLDS: GLOBAL DISPATCHES, an anthology of stories set elsewhere than England during Wells' war. Of course, they all have to overlook the point that in the novel, the Martians invade ONLY England. He once dedicated a story to Joe Dante, William Schallert--and me.
SparkieGojira	Re: The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)	#24	[-]
Jul 7 05 11:20 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'd love to see this movie again. It has a special spot in my heart as it was childhood favorite of my dad, and even before I ever got see it (Watching it on tv with my dad) he would often re-count the film's action as a bed time story for me after I had caught the dino bug! "NO BEDS!"
BijouBob8mm	THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#25	[-]
Dec 1 05 4:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A few years back I did a multi-part look at the career of Ray Harryhausen for Scary Monsters magazine. I was thinking, while prepping the piece, I read that O'Brien's original stop-motion armature for his abandoned GWANGI project was purchased by the Nassours when they bought O'Bie's story, only to strip the model down.
Squashpants	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#26	[-]
Dec 17 05 3:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I remember seeing "Beast..." several times on TV as a teen (this was back in the first half of the Sixties) and just loving it. I think it is an good example of what I call the "unnatural factor" of stop motion monsters. When I saw "Jurassic Park", I was amazed by the naturalistic realism of the dinosaurs. But curiously enough, I did not find them all that scary(!). The fact is, they were so realistic that they came across as, well, ANIMALS. Not monsters. And, believe it or not, to my thinking, they were no more scary than seeing a cinematic tiger or elephant. And let's face it, who, above the age of 6 is frightened by a tiger on film? No, the T-Rex in BOHM is creepy because of the jerky quality of the stop motion. It, at least to me, confers an unnaturalness upon the creature that is unnerving in a kind of supernatural way. Am I the only one who sees/feels about it this way? "No! You stay here. Look out for more zombies..."
opticalguy	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#27	[-]
Jan 22 06 5:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I hadn't seen The Beast of Hollow Mountain since I was a kid. The film was one of those they ran fairly often on the local (Norfolk, Virginia) TV stations. They are currently running a gorgeous (even though it's pan-and-scan) print on cable this week so I re-watched it. Boy does that film "suck great, hairy moose balls." The stop motion is clearly done by a non-professional (it looks like stuff done by a kid) and the replacement animation stuff is still pretty cool-looking but the back projection has all sorts of stationary "screen grain." That was a problem with some screens which is why Willis O'Brien had a device that moved the screen during and exposure to keep the patterns in the back projection screen material from showing up. Still the monster stuff is cool in spite of all the defects. You first see the monster as a pair of rubber monster legs. they are out of scale and don't match the other versions of the monster. You then see the monster as a standard stop-motion puppet. Alas, none of these photos on this site do justice to the critter's astounding tongue action. Some call him "frenchie" for some reason. Displacement animation (or a jointed puppet which is moved a little each frame) is what we're used to seeing and that is what is the worst animation in the film. Mind you they do a lot of fun stuff like having the monster slide down a cliff after our hero and the ever popular having it try to get our hero while he's in a narrow crevasse in a rock which as a kid I really liked. It's the replacement animation that's really interesting. Usually in this sort of animation many casting of the puppet are made in wax and the castings are re-heated and repositioned for the various stages of movement. The castings also get a considerable amount of re-sculpting so that the puppet can "squash and stretch" rather like cartoon animation so the puppet looks more life-like. It's a colossal amount of effort but the multiple figurines can be reused a lot to repeat the same action. I don't think the identity of the guy who made the replacement models was ever known. The replacement animation model is seen here and it's pretty lively. In earlier scenes the fairly rapid run cycle is slowed down by double and triple framing and it looks pretty bad and it emphasizes the differences in the paint job from one monster figurine to the other. opticalguy1954@yahoo.com (Spencer Gill) Last Edited By: opticalguy Jun 6 10 6:18 PM. Edited 2 times.
Bill Warren	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#28	[-]
Jan 22 06 6:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Its a colossal amount of effort but the multiple figurines can be reused a lot to repeat the same action. One scene in BEAST using replacement animation that looks a bit wonky is when the allosaurus walks in a circle. The cycle was clearly just straight-ahead walking or running so the beast pivots awkwardly with each step. I'm very curious about the idea of the individual sculptures being made of malleable wax. Where can I find more about this? I had a vision of something like 50 individual statuettes. I don't recall seeing stop-motion animation referred to as "displacement animation" before. The sculptor was probably Henry Lion, and the replacement animation most probably the work of Jay Baylor Who, I read, also did the stop motion under the supervision of Edward Nassour. Have you heard of a DVD of RING AROUND SATURN/EMILIO AND HIS MAGICAL BULL? About a year ago, somewhere I read that it was due to be released. Good stuff about this can be found at www.stopmotionanimation.com
SparkieGojira	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#29	[-]
Jan 23 06 1:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Is it true EMELIO uses the replacement animation Beast models? "NO BEDS!"
Bill Warren	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#30	[-]
Jan 23 06 1:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Is it true EMILIO uses the replacement animation Beast models? You should check that stop-motion website; they have more info on this than I do. I know one person who saw it when it was very briefly shown at one theater in LA over 30 years ago; he didn't remember if it featured a dinosaur.
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opticalguy	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#31	[-]
Jan 23 06 6:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	On January 22, 2006 Bill Warren wrote: *Quote:* Its a colossal amount of effort but the multiple figurines can be reused a lot to repeat the same action. One scene in BEAST using replacement animation that looks a bit wonky is when the allosaurus walks in a circle. The cycle was clearly just straight-ahead walking or running so the beast pivots awkwardly with each step. I'm very curious about the idea of the individual sculptures being made of malleable wax. Where can I find more about this? I had a vision of something like 50 individual statuettes. I don't recall seeing stop-motion animation referred to as "displacement animation" before. The sculptor was probably Henry Lion, and the replacement animation most probably the work of Jay Baylor Who, I read, also did the stop motion under the supervision of Edward Nassour. Have you heard of a DVD of RING AROUND SATURN/EMILIO AND HIS MAGICAL BULL? About a year ago, somewhere I read that it was due to be released. Good stuff about this can be found at Bill usually has the best available information. The bit about wax was based on David Allen explaining how they did the replacement animation from a Mrs. Butterworth commercial. The multiple castings were made in wax so that there would be consistency in volume and of details in the sculpture not being altered from frame to frame. The wax figurines could then be heated where it was necessary to animate the Mrs. Butterwoth bottle and they could then do a quick test of the figurines to see how the animation looked and to catch any glaring errors. The various wax castings were then remolded so that the figures could be recast in tinted resin to duplicate the look of the Mrs. Butterworth brown, glass bottles with the transparent look of the real bottles. Usually only the upper torso was done and the bottom was a single piece. I assumed that the animator on The Beast of Hollow Mountain used wax since it's the easiest thing to do but I don't think there was a second casting involved since the figurines were painted an uniform gray color. The wax (or some other malleable material) figures may have been just painted and used. Judging from the scene Bill described (good job picking up on what was "wonky" about the animation, too) the replacement figurines were pretty small. It's clear that the run cycle was the only thing done in that method since when the Beast is running it looks pretty good. When they use the figurines for just walking it looks pretty bad. Usually the term "displacement animation" isn't used but when you are discussing a film where both methods are used I got out my stash of $5 words and used the term. Usually one just says "animation" and leaves it at that. opticalguy1954@yahoo.com (Spencer Gill) Last Edited By: opticalguy Jun 6 10 6:19 PM. Edited 2 times.
Ted Newsom	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#32	[-]
Jan 25 06 2:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	In an interview in FILM FAX magazine last year, the son of Eduard Nassour stated that his father actually did some or all of the animation in BEAST FROM SOMEWHERE IN THE SWAMPS AROUND HOLLOW MOUNTAIN OR THEREABOUTS, being an effects buff as well as the producer. Further, Nassour identified his father as the animaTor of the dinosaurs in THE LOST CONTINENT. Sounds pretty plausible. Both films have similar dorky if enthusiastic stop motion. Fur whut it's wurth.
luluthebeast	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#33	[-]
Feb 26 06 6:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Larry, over at SciFilm, has pointed out that this will be shown on Flix cable on March 6, 11, 15, 16, 23, and 26. Also that Vampire Lovers will be on March 12 at 3:30 AM.
Renfield	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#34	[-]
Feb 27 06 10:52 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Not a great flick by any means but I liked it as a young 'un and I wish The Beast of Hollow Mountain were avilable on factory DVD. Joe "Renfield" Meadows HORROR-WOOD Webzine http://www.horror-wood.com
BijouBob8mm	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#35	[-]
Feb 28 06 11:09 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'd like to see it get a legit, letterboxed release, too. Any ideas as to who own the rights?
Jameson281	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#36	[-]
Feb 28 06 11:52 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"I'd like to see it get a legit, letterboxed release, too. Any ideas as to who own the rights? " It's with MGM/Sony. MGM did do a new hi-def transfer of this about two years ago, but given Sony's lack of interest in catalog titles, don't hold your breath . . .
BijouBob8mm	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#37	[-]
Feb 28 06 12:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks for the update. If they've gone to the time and expense of a new transfer, maybe someone will think, "We should at least try and recoup the cost."
Renfield	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#38	[-]
Mar 1 06 12:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I hope you're right, Bob. But Sony is really dragging tail on releasing anything but big-audience mainstream stuff. Joe "Renfield" Meadows HORROR-WOOD Webzine http://www.horror-wood.com
BijouBob8mm	Re: THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN	#39	[-]
Mar 1 06 1:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe they could emphasize the tongue stuff, really hype it as cutting edge....
Bud Brewster	Trivia Note	#40	[-]
Mar 1 06 8:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Trivia note: The tyrannosaurus in "Beast of Hollow Mountain" is one of many sci-fi monsters that were defeated by actors who achieved fame in cowboy roles. In "Tarantula" the spider is destroyed by a bomb dropped by Clint Eastwood. The Martians in "War of the Worlds" are pitted against Gene Barry, star of TV's "Bat Masterson". The ants in "Them" are gunned down by James Arness of "Gunsmoke". "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" dies from a radioactive bullet fired by Lee Van Cleef, star of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugley". "The Blob" proves to be no match for Steve McQueen, star of "Wanted: Dead or Alive". Other famous cowboys in 1950s sci-fi movies include Eric Fleming ("Rawhide") in "The Conquest of Space" and "Queen of Outer Space", Michael Landon ("Bonanza") in "I Was a Teenaged Werewolf", and Ken Curtis (Festus of "Gunsmoke") in "The Killer Shrews". Sci-fi veteran Richard Carlson never achieved fame as a cowboy star, but he did get to play a cowboy in Ray Harryhausen's faithful 1968 version of the original cowboy-versus-dinosaur idea which was first thought up by Willis O'Brien back in the 1930s; "Valley of Gwangi", twenty years before "Beast of Hollow Mountain"!
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The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956)