For the past few weeks, I've been reviewing various films done by stop-motion animators Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, and producer Irwin Allen in chronological order as I will continue to do after this review. I previously reviewed O'Brien and Harryhausen's work on Mighty Joe Young so now this is their second and last collaboration of which O'Brien did the models and Harryhausen did the animation. What they built was some dinosaurs and their surroundings from during the time they lived which Allen-as director and writer as well as producer-put in his movie as part of a documentary of various animals from the past and present doing what comes naturally to them. While the animation and models are obvious, they're no less entertaining. In fact, Harryhausen later revealed he later got some guff from the Production Code people about making the dino fights so violent even though he argued that the real animal fights in the rest of the film were no different! There's also plenty of good humor having various actors doing voices of the animals as if they were communicating with each other as if they were actual human beings! So on that note, I highly recommend The Animal World.
