Giant Crab

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: Mysterious Island 1961

Crab Video Clip

 

As harding and Nugent investigate the island they stumble upon this monstrosity, by accident they walked on top of it (he was underneath the sand.) The crab attacks them and in the midst of the commotion it takes Nugent on one of his giant claws and tries to take him away.

The crew hears the screams of Nugent and Harding and rush to help them out, they struggle to free Nugent but the creature is too strong. Pencroft finally manages to tie a rope around one of the crabs legs to prevent it from getting away, still the creature is too strong.

 

 

The creature crawls away to a small rock formation by the beach and releases Nugent, the crew flip the crab over and toss the crab over a small cliff landing in a pool of very hot water. After the creature dies they eat it an begin to wonder how it got so big, this was only a precursor of the things to come..

 

 

Giant Crab Facts

from Ray Harryhausen

 

• The crab was an actual living crab that they bought at a store called Harrods Food Hall, it was humanely killed by a lady at the Natural History Museum. She took it apart and showed Mr. Harryhausen how it actually fitted together. He later put it back together by mounting the pieces around the actual armature.

• The close up shots of the crab's mandibles where shot using four smaller living crabs but by the end, the film crew actually had them for supper.

• A three to four inch model of actor Dan Jackson (neb) was used for the long shots when he is trapped in the crab's claw.

• The creature was first conceived by Ray in some notes back in 1958 in which he described it as 'a crab-like monster'.

• In animating the crab roping sequence, the height and which the off-screen crew member was pulling the rope had to be carefully measured so that it would correspond with the actual model.

Credit: An Animated Life

By Tony Dalton

 

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