Producer of Magick Dies

As you may know I love all things stop motion which means I love the Harryhausen movies. Charles H. Schneer, the man who made all those films possible has died after a long illness. Schneer came up with a business model that really made stop motion practical during the dark ages of animation.

Willis O`Brian, Harryhausen`s mentor and the father of Hollywood Stop Motion, never really made Stop Motion work on a business level and his career suffered because of this fact. O`Brain`s 1933 King Kong saved RKO from bankruptcy and was one of the first blockbusters if not the first. (But what have you done for the studio lately?) When Mighty Joe Young didn`t make the same kind of money at the box office the suites blamed Stop Motion and O`Brian and his career was never the same again.

Schneer hit of the plan. He made a cheap drive-in movie crafted around brilliant stop motion effects and critters by a master and made a profit that no B movie could hope to make. There was a time that I blamed Schneer for the non actors that peopled his movies. But the movies never would have been possible with another business model.

Charles H. Schneer, I salute you as the facilitator of my childhood dreams. I forgive you for the poor actors in your films even the female lead in 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Hey, maybe some day they can remake all the Harryhausen movies keeping all of his stop motion models and replacing just the cut rate actors. I can always dream. I bid you Genie to appear!