The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) • 60 Years Later

When a princess is shrunken by an evil wizard, Sinbad must undertake a quest to an island of monsters to cure her and prevent a war.

Ray Harryhausen is revered as a pioneer in the world of visual effects. If his name’s at all familiar, chances are he needs no introduction. George Lucas, Nick Park, and Peter Jackson are just some of the many filmmakers that cite his work as a major inspiration that drove them to make the kind of movies they do.

When he saw King Kong (1933), 13-year-old Ray Harryhausen was captivated by Willis O’Brien’s ground-breaking VFX. The sense of wonder they evoked spurred him on to learn how that kind of movie magic was wrought. 16 years later, he was an animation assistant to Willis O’Brien, learning from the master and helping his childhood hero bring another giant gorilla to life in the form of Mighty Joe Young (1949). Around this time, he was also making his own series of stop-motion adaptations of some Mother Goose and Brothers Grimm fairy tales for television. After these half-dozen shorts, he would never again be credited as a director during a long…