Stop Motion Collections Lost and Found 2

I found information about another secret stash of puppets, which are actually very public - but it is not well known. The source of the information is from Amazing Figure Modeler Magazine: Issue 37 The title of the article is of Armatures and Argonauts by Mike Falcigno. In the article you learn that most of Ray Harryhausens puppets and bronze sculptures sit in Germany as part of a large collection. The curator of the collection is currently Dr. Rolf Giesen. Not much was known about this collection, but according to my chat with Mike the museum caters to German cinema. Since Ray Harryhausen is not German, they tend not to either want to promote the collection, or simply don't understand its potential. Just recently "as of October 2006" the museum was going to close part of the collection. They then got a grant and have the ability to keep it on display for about another 10 years. Another interesting bit of information is that Ray Harryhausen agreed to allow the museum to display the collection but would take it back in case of financial problems at the museum. So the next stop for the collection would have been in the UK where Ray resides. If Ray should pass, I'm assuming everything would go to his estate.

Mike also had mentioned to me that dust mites had attacked several of the puppets that have fur. The Baboon from Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and other furry puppets needed to get a professional cleaning to stop the deterioration.

Museum workers also created many back drops for the puppets on display to give the feel of real stop motion sets. They were in some cases up to 5 or 6 feet in depth. There is a colloseum, Valley of Gwangi and One Million Years B.C. display amung a few others.

Here is a list of puppets, props and fabricated sets the curator is displaying:

- 1 Miniton Puppet
- 1 Kali Puppet
- 1 Centaur Puppet
- 1 Troglodyte Puppet
- 1 Griffin Puppet
- 1 the Tiger Puppet
- 1 Calibos Puppet
- 1 Medusa Puppet
- 1 Bubo Puppet
- 1 Talos Puppet
- 2 Skeletons Puppet
- 1 Hydra Puppet
- 2 Kraken puppets
- 1 Giant Crab
- 1 Archelon
- 1 Humumculus
- 1 Dioskilos
- 1 Kassim the Baboon
- 1 Cephalapod
- 1 Perseus
- 1 Pegasus
- 1 Pterodactyl
- 1 Cyclops puppet "with missing coverings on the leg and one hand"

Partial Puppets:

- 1 Rhedosaur head
- 1 Baby Roc head
- 1 Original 1932 King Kong Puppet skull
- 1 Gargantuan Octopus head and partial armature

Displays:

- an original Dynamation camera display
- an original One Million Years B.C. set display "background made by museum"
- a Valley of Gwangi dislplay "background made by museum"

Props:

- 1 Cavorite Sphere
- A Rick Baker Cyclops animatronic head - 1 1932 King Kong Skull Island Chief Shield "from live action sequences"

Bronzes:

- 1 King Kong Bronze
- 1 Cyclops Bronze
- 1 Ymir Bronze

This collection while not complete is very large to say the least. It is possibly the one place you can go to see the most puppets from Ray Harryhausen under one roof.

According to the article you can view all of the puppets if your lucky enough to live in or visit Berlin Germany. Here is the address to the museum where it is showcased:

Film Museum Berlin:
Potsdamer Str. 2
10785 Berlin
Phone +49 (0)30 300903-28

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Visit the museums web site here:

http://osiris2.pi-consult.de/view.php3?show=53020 144

You can find out more about the Amazing Figure Modeler Magazine here:

http://www.amazingmodeler.com/

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