Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2009 | Page 24

life

INTERVIEW
For that programme he went to film
Harryhausen making his last film, The
Clash of the Titans. Recalling that now he
looks rueful and says a re-make is being
done at Pinewood at the moment. “Not
sure I want to go and see it – though
perhaps I shouldn’t be sniffy!”
Harryhausen was inspired by the
1933 film King Kong, and spent his life
developing the “dimensional animation”
or “stop motion” techniques using
models which were moved, filmed,
moved a fraction, filmed. Tony is not a
fan of today’s answer, Computer Graphic
Imagery (CGI), used in the recent re-make

From the film - It Came
from Beneath the Sea

of King Kong. CGI somehow makes
animation “too real,” he says. “I loved

of a film script, he gets to meet Mason
and tells him how the film inspired him.)

home to watch.”
He started helping out with the National

stop motion before I met Ray. I was
mesmerised when I saw the fight between
the tyrannosaurus and the gorilla!”

Brought up in Caterham, Surrey, Tony

Film Theatre, which was, and still is, part

would go to the cinema with one Bill

of the BFI, volunteering his services as an

Tony and Harryhausen stayed in touch,

Nighy (Love Actually and Pirates of the

usher for the London Film Festival. “Free

and when, after 15 years at Granada Tony

Caribbean) – Bill’s parents were Tony’s

movies!” he grins. “We had all-night

was made redundant, he took up the

godparents. But this is a blind alley in

screenings, and it was a fantastic way for

invitation to look after his archive.

Tony’s story because for now that’s where

a young man to learn about movies of

the movie connections end: the boys

all eras.” Also in his spare time he went

“In 88 years, Ray has never thrown

regrettably lost touch as they grew up.

to Classic Cinemas, which showed old

anything away! – not a thing! But thank

Tony’s parents said there was no

films, and so by dint of sheer enthusiasm

money in film so steered him towards an

became able, as he progressed through

infinitely practical career as an electrician.

the BFI, to give lectures, and began

“I hated every second of my five year

to do interviews on stage with such

apprenticeship!” exclaims Tony. “I went

illustrious names as Christopher Lee,

to movies more often than I did to work

Donald Pleasance, Charlton Heston, Peter

or college!”

Cushing, the old silent comedian Harold

He did pass his City & Guilds, (“no-one
was more surprised than me”), and that

Lloyd and the Hammer director Terence
Fisher who became a good friend.

interlude over, he set about writing to

It was at a BFI lecture in 1969 that he

everyone he could think of in the film

first met Ray Harryhausen. “He showed

industry. It was the late 1960s and the

a clip from a film he was just finishing

cinematic world was buzzing with the

called The Valley of Gwangi – about a

thrill of genres such as Hammer Horror.

dinosaur of course! We got on well.”

It was the British Film Institute (BFI) that

Tony went on to work at Granada

offered Tony a job, and his enthusiasm

TV, where he did programs with Ingrid

for film got him the role of deputy

Bergman, Vincent Price – and James

librarian in their film department. “It

Mason.

was tremendous. Not only was I learning

It was the 1970s and also, whilst at

about film – how you treat it, how you

Granada, he worked on the children’s

edit it – but also I could take movies

film-buff programme Clapperboard.

24

This was not a job for the faint hearted.

Skeleton from Jason
and the Argonauts