Willis O'Brien vents natures' fury for THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII

Among effects master Willis H.O'Brien's more atypical film credits would have to be the big Merian C.Cooper Roman-disaster epic LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935).  Whereas O'Bie was the specialist in stop motion animation as witnessed in a number of classic films, most notably KING KONG his skills in special visual effects were less often utilised elsewhere, with LAST DAYS OF POMPEII being a prime example.

I get the impression from all of the articles I've read on O'Bie that he never reached the degree of fulfillment in the field of special effects that he'd have desired - with often considerable gaps between assignments and many projects which never got off the ground such as GWANGI (pictured here with O'Bie posing with a Jack Shaw pre-production oil painting).  As if his stuttering film career wasn't impediment enough, the numerous personal tragedies that befell O'Bie were enough to sink the strongest of men.

Vernon Walker and Linwood Dunn

POMPEII is a fascinating film on a number of levels.  It's a film that tries hard to give the big studio look to an apparently modest budget film from a minor studio at the time.  It's pretty well written and well paced with several set pieces that shine through.  Of course it's the climactic eruption of Mt Vesuvius that was the selling point for the movie, and even though we have to wait until the last reel to see it there is enough drama and spectacle throughout to not leave one wanting.

Naturally to achieve such a setting as ancient Rome and Jeruselem photographic effects were required, and these are for the most part plentiful and well executed.  O'Bie surrounded himself with many of his tried and true crew from the two KONG films, and some even from THE LOST WORLD - all names familiar I'm sure to anyone who reads this blog - Byron Crabbe, Vernon Walker, Clarence Slifer, Harry Redmond, Marcel Delgado and Linwood Dunn to name but a few.  Many of these key figures also worked on the excellent SHE (which is covered elsewhere in detail in a previous blog here), with both films coming out in 1935 the workload at RKO must have been considerable indeed.

As this blog is primarily dedicated to glass shots I've assembled all of these here but not at the cost of overlooking the many miniatures and travelling matte composites, so these are here too.   Sadly I'm unable to locate an old magazine article I have from the thirties about this film which has photos showing before and after of some of Crabbe's glass shots.  If it turns up I'll add to shots to this blog. *(it did show up and it's now added just down this page 28/8/10)

I must say that the Warner Home Video DVD is up to there usual high standards and looks superb indeed.  Some of the matte shots are extremely grainy but that isn't due to the visual effect necessarily - more so down to the fact that many of those key narrative glass paintings occur during dissolves, which in themselves are optical dupes.  This isn't an uncommon irritation, for many older films had awful optical dissolves employed during matte painted shots, thus almost destroying the integrity of the visual effect that the matte artist and cameraman were trying to achieve.  I remember matte artist Rocco Gioffre once telling me of his utter annoyance at this exact phenomena, as the carefully painted and composited rooftop to an existing castle he had done for the movie ROB ROY being ruined by excess optical tampering to add a dissolve to the shot in the final film - an effect he said he could have facilitated quite easily at his end while making the composite, thus saving the image quality.  Of course this sort of 'wrecking' of such shots was dominant throughout the 30's and up until the early 60's where the optical transition such as the fade in or dissolve was orchestrated on separate elements altogether and spliced into the printing negative, with always obvious and distracting results - change of colour hue, grain and the rest of it.

Anyway, on with the show....

Director of Special Effects  Willis H.O'Brien

Matte Artist  Byron L.Crabbe

Production Illustrator  Mario Larrinaga

Photographic Effects  Vernon L.Walker

Miniature Process Projection  Carroll Shepphird

Model Makers Marcel Delgado and W.G 'Gus' White

Matte Cameraman  Clarence W.D Slifer

Optical Effects  Linwood G.Dunn

Mechanical Effects  Harry Redmond, jnr

The opening effects shot - a Byron Crabbe glass painting with separate smoke and sea elements, with studio mock up boat and people added via travelling matte, presumably the Frank Williams modified blue screen method.

As with all of the film, it was a soundstage shoot with extensive use of glass shots to open up the scenes.

A closer view of the same setting, presumably with a separate glass painting.

Nice subtle use of matte art to realistically extend a confined set.

More of the same with Byron Crabbe matte art.

A particularly nice matte composite.  Matte cameraman was the great Clarence Slifer who's career in effects cinematography would extend from the original KING KONG and GONE WITH THE WIND right up to BEN HUR, NORTH BY NORTHWEST and THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD and many other films.

Iconic image of glass painted Jeruselem.

A large miniature palace and a painted backing with separate volcanic smoke elements and water.

Possibly a painted backing in this shot?

I suspect a process plate of a miniature as in a later sequence it all collapses.

'she's ready to pop her cork'

'thar she blows' - Some Harry Redmond pyrotechnics at play.

What appears to be a miniature split screened into a stage set.

The aforementioned process miniature, now collapsing onto extras.

Lot's of fireballs and pyro elements added to production shots.

Willis O'Brien seen here on the miniatures stage shooting the lava flow scenes.

Very steady matte comp with actors split screened into lava flow miniature set.

Pompeii in flames - probably a miniature set due to camera movement.

One of the numerous blue backing matte sequences, with frequent bleed or show through of the background plate, particularly on the outside edges of the frame where horses appear translucent briefly and wagon wheels are invisible.

Collapsing senate building with travelling matte for foreground extras, and optical overlays of flames and smoke etc.

The giant statue collapses onto the running crowds in an optical composite.

Extras run from approaching river of lava by means of another blue screen optical composite, presumably using the updated Williams technique developed and improved upon during the making of KING KONG.

The arena in a view never properly shown to it's best advantage in the film, with matte artist Byron Crabbe seen here painting the glass shot for the stadium and crowds - which again is not well used in the final edit unfortunately.

A terrific studio promotional paste up that caught my eye when I was a 9 or 10 year old in a book and had me utterly transfixed.  Sadly no shot such as the grandeur or wonder of this ad-man's retouched still exists in the movie, which disappointed me no end!!

Creator of visual effects Willis H.O'Brien seen here with a MIGHTY JOE YOUNG puppet, and matte artist Byron L.Crabbe.

Upper picture - Crabbe and O'Bie looking over the very large model palace, and lower picture of the model as depicted in the film.

Linwood Dunn teaches Fred Astaire how to dance? SWING TIME optical effects revealed.

Everyone knows that Fred Astaire was 'the man' when it came to dancing on screen.  Even pal Gene Kelly acknowledged just how easy Fred made it look.  Whereas Gene would spend many months rehearsing and perfecting his routines, by Kelly's own account Fred could just 'wheel out' a fantastic routine and dazzle the pants off everyone.

 Among Astaire's catalogue of gems is a little 1936 show made by RKO titled SWING TIME in which he starred with his frequent on screen partner Ginger Rogers.  The centrepiece of SWING TIME is the classic and beloved 'Bojangles of Harlem' sequence where Fred performs on stage with three huge shadows of himself, with occasionally each shadow taking on some individual personality quirks of it's own.  The sequence at first would appear to be just an ingeniously lit and photographed dance number with a semi translucent backing and three dancers off camera supplying the requisite shadows.... however, this is not the case at all.
A complicated series of multiple exposures, moving split screens and blue backing matting were involved

I don't expect younger readers (if there are any?) to be the slightest bit intrigued by this posting - for they are spoiled (and battered into mind numbing over-indulgence) by the over use of MTV styled graphics of the modern era and wouldn't appreciate the work that would have been required to assemble this vintage sequence.
My interests are primarily matte art, though SWING TIME had none (that I could detect) I have a passion for old time opticals and compositing technology, hence the inclusion of this Astaire show with NO apologies.

 Enter one Vernon L.Walker - long time head of camera effects at RKO and one of the pioneers in the field of photographic effects cinematography going back to the silent era.Walker had already contributed much to the setting up of the RKO effects lab with KING KONG, SHE and many more.  Under Walker's supervision, in- house optical effects maestro Linwood G.Dunn coordinated, photographed and composited the aforementioned 'Bonjangles' number - a number that was somewhat more involved than first appearences might suggest.  Pictured at left is Walker, who passed away in 1948, and below is Dunn with his Acme-Dunn optical printer - the workhorse of the optical jigsaw side of the film industry for several decades with many modified variations therein being in use up to the advent of the digital era.

 From an interview with Dunn by David Everitt for the excellent book Film Tricks - Special Effects in the Movies the optical wizard described RKO as being "a tight knit corporate family that placed great importance on cooperation between departments".  Everitt writes that although the Shadow Dance was such a team effort, effects chief Walker gave all the credit to Dunn for the classy execution of the sequence since it was Dunn who put together all of the elements in the optical printer.

As Dunn explained to author Everitt "The first images filmed were the shadows. Astaire danced in front of a blank screen while a sun arc lamp cast his sillouette.  "Once one of the shadows had been photographed and isolated, Astaires' foreground dancing could be filmed to coincide with the shadows steps.  To do this, Astaire was positioned in front of a blank screen once more with the processed footage of the dancer's shadow projected off screen while the camera rolled so that Astaire could keep an eye on the shadow's movements and time his new dance steps accordingly.  Now the effects crew had one shot of Astaire and another shot of his shadow  -the two figures dancing complementary parts of the same routine.  Dunn's printer handled the rest.  The shadow was printed three times to make a sillouette dance line of three dancers, and over this image was printed the foreground footage of Astaire by means of a travelling  matte".  Author Everitt continues "The different elements were precisely coordinated to create a complex interaction between the dancer and the shadows to his rear".

As much a tribute to Astaire as to Dunn, with the coordination of elements both practical physical action from Fred and the acute timing required by Dunn in the printing stage with the results being truly wonderful and spectacular.

To the modern MTV generation this would hardly seem the least bit impressive, nor of interest I'm sure - but for a 1936 film it's a really impressive and for the most part invisible optical puzzle which only on repeated close examination could I detect fleeting frames of translucency through Fred's head on certain turns - possibly through blue spill or density matting issues.  Moving split screens were a Dunn specialty, with much use of the method two years later in Howard Hawk's BRINGING UP BABY to put the leopard in the same moving camera shots as Cary Grant, and also of course utilised in Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE to invisible effect.

Special photographic effects - Vernon L.Walker

Optical cinematography - Linwood G.Dunn

Optical unit - Bill Leeds, Cecil Love and Russell Cully




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