This Month

A cult movie created before the term "cult movie" was coined, the silent short The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918) is an early work by Willis H. O'Brien, the special-effects pioneer later to win fame for his stop-motion photography in such films as King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949). After several humorous animated films made by O’Brien on the subject of dinosaurs and prehistoric men, Ghost became his first stop-motion production in which the creatures are presented in realistic fashion. It also was the first film to combine stop-motion creatures and live actors. As such, it is of particular fascination to fans of O'Brien.

Fashioning miniature models and then painstakingly repositioning them for each frame of film, O'Brien created in Ghost the illusion of live, moving dinosaurs including a brontosaurus, triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex. An advertising tagline for the film read, "These giant monsters of the past are seen to breathe, to live again, to move and battle as they did at the dawn of life!"

O'Brien co-wrote the script with producer Herbert M. Dawley, and both take leading roles in the film. Dawley plays Uncle Jack, who tells his nephews about his trip to Slumber Mountain, where he dreamed of meeting the ghost of an old hermit called Mad Dick (O'Brien), and was able to watch prehistoric creatures through a magical telescope offering a view into the past. Among the sights witnessed are a battle between a giant bird and a snake; and a fight to death between two triceratops.

The original investment of about $3,000 in The Ghost of Slumber Mountain yielded $100,000 in profits. The film attracted the interest of Watterson R. Rothacker, founder of the Industrial Motion Picture Company, which encouraged the development of special effects techniques. O'Brien joined forces with Rothacker to create the prehistoric creatures of The Lost World (1925), another landmark in stop-motion special effects.

Producer: Herbert M. Dawley
Director: Willis H. O'Brien
Screenplay: Herbert M. Dawley, Willis H. O'Brien
Cinematography: Willis H. O'Brien
Special Effects: Willis H. O'Brien
Principal Cast: Willis H. O'Brien (Ghost of Hermit), Herbert M. Dawley (Uncle Jack).
BW-16m.