Mighty Joe Young is remembered fondly by fans of Ray Harryhausen as the very first feature-film he worked on. Working under the guidance of 'Kong' animator, the late, great Willis O'Brien.

Mighty Joe Young tells the story of Jill Young, a girl living on a farm in Africa, hand-rearing a baby gorilla she names 'Joe'. As Joe grows, and grows, he becomes a gentle, yet powerful simian.
He soon attracts the attention of American nightclub owner and entrepeneur Max O'Hara, {Played with relish by Robert 'Carl Denham' Armstrong}. Convincing Jill, he takes both her and Joe back to the States to perform in his nightspot 'The Golden Safari'.

Joe is railroaded into performing for drunken nightclub patrons, to the groing annoyance of Jill and her boyfriend Gregg{Ben Johnson}. There are wonderful scenes though as Joe holds a platform over his head, upon wich Jill is seated at a grand piano playing 'Beautiful Dreamer' Joe's favourite song. Also the tug-o'-war with ten strongmen, climaxing in the comical fight Joe has with heavyweight contender Primo Canera.

Co-erced into drinking a bottle of whiskey in his cage by three drunken patrons of the club, Joe shows his dark side. Going on a rampage, he breaks out and totally destroys the club whilst patrons flee for their lives.

Given orders the kill Joe on sight, the police are despatched to bring Joe down. Escaping in the back of a flatbed truck, aided by his human friends, Jill, Gregg and a repentant O'Hara, the fugitives come across a burning orphanage. Urged on by Jill, Joe risks his life to save several of the youngsters from the blaze.

Seeing this act of heroism, the police orders are reversed and Joe is permitted to go back to his home in Africa with Jill and Gregg, and to live out the rest of his life in peace.

Although O'Brien had several animators to assist him, including Harryhausen, Buzz Gibson and Pete Peterson. It is Ray Harryhausen, who estimated he animated perhaps 80% of the finished film, that is credited with giving Joe his personality.

This was a triumph for Willis O'Brien, for he won the 1949 Oscar for special effects. Ray Harryhausen was masterful in his execution of the stop-motion of Joe, and it surely guaranteed this master of fantasy a long, and very successful career. Thank you Ray Harryhausen.

Creatures to look out for:

Trivia:

• A budget of $1.5 Million was allocated, and in May 1947 RKO and Argosy formed ARKO for the sole purpose of making this one picture.

• Under Obie's supervision Ray designed the first armature from which Harry Cunningham (who had made all the Kong armatures) machined the intricate jointed mechanism.

• To help with assessing the movements of gorillas the production sent a cameraman to the Chicago Zoo to film Garagantua, one of the only large gorillas in captivity at that time.

• For a while there was talk of a follow-up to Mighty Joe Young. Cooper had talks with producer Sol Lesser, who had begun filming a Tarzan picture at RKO/Pathe' while Joe Young was being made. However due to the box-office results of Joe, the whole project was forgotten.