Willis H O’Brien was born on 2 March 1886.

Before there was Ray Harryhausen, there was O’Brien. In fact, the two men worked together. And if you look at Harryhausen’s work, it isn’t any better. The main difference is that there is more of it.

He got his start on a silent short in 1915, The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy. It’s a silly comedy using stop-motion animation. He made several others, including The Ghost of Slumber Mountain in 1918. It was the first film to combine stop-motion animation and live action footage.

O’Brien became something of a star with the release of The Lost World in 1925. It is a silent film with animation that isn’t any better than his earlier work. But there is far more of it. It is way more detailed. And it is crystal clear. It is available at full length for free on Wikipedia.

And then, of course, came King Kong. And then the silly but fun Son of Kong. After these, he didn’t get the opportunity to do much similar work. For the next 15 years, he did other kinds of special effects — especially matte painting. And that’s cool! That stuff allowed people to present stories they simply could not afford to otherwise.

But 1949 was a big year. He was Technical Creator of Mighty Joe Young. O’Brien hired Ray Harryhausen as First Technician. ARKO Productions got the Academy Award for Best Special Effects for the film. O’Brien certainly would have won for King Kong but the catagory didn’t exist at that time.

So, let’s celebrate Willis H O’Brien’s birthday by watching Mighty Joe Young. It’s a good film and the special effects stand up really well today. Harryhausen used some of the same techniques almost two decades later in One Million Years BC.

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Willis H O’Brien via Oakland Library under Fair Use.