Pathé Review: Monsters of the Past

A very nice contemporary movie about stop motion. Sculptress Virginia May is seen making a clay model of a tyrannosaurus rex, which is animated using stop motion, and then fights a stop-motion triceratops. Although Miss May's only known relationship with the movies is this particular short, her contemporary, Willis O'Brien and his student Ray Harryhausen certainly made the field a lively one until computer animation caught up in the 1990s -- and arguably their artistry is still unsurpassed (consider the skeletons that Harryhausen animated in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS with their characterless descendants in the MUMMY series of the 2000s).

This one is of definite interest to students of animation and special effects.

UPDATE 28 September 2017: the indefatigable Steven Stanchfield turned up another example of Miss May's work in the movies, GEORGE WASHINGTON IN CLAY. If you wish to take a look at it, it's available for viewing on the excellent Cartoon Research website.