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Mighty Joe Young (1949) Original Production Script With Notes & Drawings Signed By Ray Harryhausen/B

Currency:USD Category:Memorabilia / Movie - Memorabilia Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:800.00 - 1,000.00 USD
Mighty Joe Young (1949) Original Production Script With Notes & Drawings Signed By Ray Harryhausen/B
Mighty Joe Young (1949) Original Production Script With Notes & Drawings Signed By Ray Harryhausen/Ben Johnson/Terry More & Joe Young Head Castings - After the staggering success of the original "King Kong" (1933), Merian C. Cooper who produced the beloved classic, as well as concaved the story and directed many of the action sequences, continued to try to find a new "Kong" for the ages. He finally came up with another classic character, "Mighty Joe Young", in 1949. Borrowing heavily from the successful formula of "Kong", in "Mighty Joe Young" a baby gorilla is raised by Jill (Terry Moore), a young girl in Africa and is later discovered by an Oklahoma cowboy, Gregg (Ben Johnson), who has been hired to find attractions to bring back to a nightclub in Hollywood. Gregg persuades Jill to come with him to keep her "baby" (now the size of a mountain) company. Of course once the gigantic Joe Young is introduced into the modern world, all hell breaks loose. The difference here is that Joe Young is portrayed with enormous emotional range. This was due mostly to the brilliant stop-motion special effects work of the legendary Ray Harryhausen. Ironically he was inspired to make stop-motion special effects his life's work after first "King Kong" as a boy, and being mesmerized by the special effects of wizard Willis O'Brien. "Mighty Joe Young" is a deeper felt story, with an extended Orphanage building fire rescue sequence (which is specially dyed in red) at the climax, in which Joe Young saves children from the massive inferno of the crumbling building. This stunning edge-of-your-seat sequence is considered to be one of the greatest, and most brilliantly executed stop-motion effects sequence in film history. This is an extremely rare original production "rainbow" script with its original title of "The Mighty Joe Young of Africa". The is an actual used on-set script. It comes from Ray Harryhausen's Special Effects Unit from the production, and includes fascinating hand-written notes as well as original storyboards drawn directly onto the script pages that were made at the time of the production, including the famous Orphanage sequence. The script includes the actual revision colored pages, and also has an addendum "Pick-Up Shots for Chase Sequence" script (with the secondary title of "Mr. Joseph Young of Africa"), of shots that were added right after the first previews and before the official release. This was legendary actor and Academy Award winner Ben Johnson's first film. Director John Ford began to use him as a wrangler and stuntman, and soon realized he had a star on his hands and when he became one of the Executive Producers of the film, he convinced Merian C. Cooper to use the unknown Johnson in the lead. Terry Moore was a classically trained actress who had both looks, intelligence and talent, which gave the film a strong foundation. In fact, she still works today, and has just completed her 96th film to come out in 2015! This remarkable script has been personally signed by Ben Johnson, Terry Moore and Ray Harryhausen. It also includes the official studio stamp. One special note is that the back of the card stock title page reads "Earnest Hemmingway One Trip Across". This is actually the script cover for the Bogart/Bacall "To Have and Have Not". "One Trip Across" was a short story by Hemmingway that inspired the novel and famous film. In the days during and right after WWII studios would re-use script card stock over again. Also included are three reproduction castings of Joe Young, from the original maquettes and production models, showing the progression from early design to actual iconic expressing Joe Young face. This magnificent "Mighty Joe Young" original script and set of castings comes from legendary Jerry Neeley's collection. Neeley was the well known film historian, writer, collector and owner of the famous "Jerry's Video" in Los Feliz, CA. Customers, collectors and throngs of directors, writers and industry people would come from around the world to talk to Jerry, whose knowledge and memory of film, especially when it came to Sci-Fi, was encyclopedic, and also to visit his famous collection. Also included is a Letter of Provenience from Jerry Neeley's widow and co-owner of his various video and memorabilia shops. The three castings are approx 3"z5", 4"x6" and 2"x4".