Ray Harryhausen's CONAN movie

A little VERY INTERESTING trivia; Harryhausen thought about making a CONAN MOVIE!!!!!!!!!, circa 1970.

Instead he made a Sinbad one:

Quote :

In late 1969, Ray harryhausen considered the stories of Robert E. Howard, The Hyborian world seemed perfect for Dynamation. Perhaps of the rights situation or maybe because the idea was not right for them the whole thing was dropped, and he started to write the basics of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD

http://theseventhvoyage.com/goldenvoyagereview.htm

Sinbad and the "Eye of the Tiger" was very Conan-like.

From www.rehupa.com

Quote :

Jim Keegan (Adventures of Two-Gun Bob) happened to mention Robert E. Howard to Ray Harryhausen a few years back. Turns out Harryhaused tried to get some interest in making a Conan movie back in the 1950s! The animation would have been great but Kerwin Matthews as Conan would have been lame.

So, Kevin Matthews -(who happened to be Sinbad in the 1958 Harryhausen's "7th Voyage of Sinbad" movie) would have apparently played the part. Conan would have been less frazettian and more 20's pulp romantic "prince valiant" like.









Not too much berserker rage, there...

Jim Keegan, who mentioned REH to HARRYHAUSEN, is the guy who draws the superb comic strip "Tales of 2 Gun Bob".

Matthew's was in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad", , not the "Golden Voyage".

Matthews was also in "Jack the Giant Killer" which CONAN THE DESTROYER seemed to have been partially influenced on. I spoke to MightymcT about that one some time ago in fact.

Ups, yeah, my mistake. I think I got confused because the guy in "www.rehupa.com" said that HARRYHAUSEN was going to make the picture in the 50's, but the offical Haryhausen page said it was in the 70's.

I wonder if the "www.rehupa.com" info about Matthews is correct, or just a guess.

I couldnt say for sure, but my guess is that it may be fan casting, Matthews was a B-movie actor too back then. So if he was cosidered for CONAN, it had to be mid to late 50's early 60's tops.

David "Vader" Prowse was considered for the role in a CONAN during the 70's, think possibly for Harryhausen's monster fest version, but not sure.

Speaking of "what if...?" and big guys, I recently stumbled across this Richard Kiel interview from some old (1979) UK movie mag called "Starburst", where he is asked whether he was approached for Conan or Thongor, but his answer is quite elusive...

http://www.golobthehumanoid.com/mag11.html

(I guess that's a No, though)

I guess he thought he couldve played Deniro parts.

Funny, so.

Darth Vader was... a CONAN with THULSA-DOOM's voice.





This David Prowse weight-lifting version of Conan has more sense as the possible real choice of the time, much more than the unmuscled Mathews "romantic pulp" one (like this, from the 1930s , one of the first pictures of Conan ever):



As the popularity of Conan grow up when the LANCER books edited the FRAZETTA covers. This seminal one appeared in 1966.



After this painting, Conan is always depicted with Big muscles and long hair. So, why would Harryhausen choose a romantic 1930's pulp version instead, when the character now was widely known by the Frazetta version?






But Conan had been pictured with big muscles and long hair BEFORE that seminal cover of Frazetta... though not black straight hair. But the body now is closer to the typical germanic image of a comicbook athletic superhero, SUPERMAN-like.

So, now the character begins being related to a body-builder actor.

1950's- Book covers.





1959- This came from a Mexican comic book called "La Reina de la Costa Negra", first Conan comic ever. Here, Conan had body-builder muscles BUT WAS BLONDE.




Also, I guess the image of Tarzan influenced the changing depiction of Conan -(weight-lifting Mr. Universe body and long straight hair).

1918-1920's- Elmo Lincoln, the first Tarzan



1930's- Hal Foster



1930's- Weissmuller



1930's- Herman Brix



1950's- Gordon Scott



1964-

Well, what we know is the actor chosen for SINBAD in the "Golden Voyage" was John Phillip Law.



Would he have also been a possible choice for the Conan movie?

Much better for the role than Mathews, I think. I can even imagine a bearded Conan with pleasure.

CONAN shouldve always been well muscled and extremely rugged looking. I like the Frazetta painting best.

Some images of Richard Kiel possible imaginary Conan -















Richard Kiel would have been just too too shocking as the main character...

He looks like an uglier and zero muscular, Schwarzenegger.

There's some kinda expanded adventures of CLASH OF THE TITANS called, "WRATH OF THE TITANS:

I just had to post this... LMAO





Looks like a Bollywood Conan.

Turd, what the hell man! Even looks like he's wearing bed & bath slippers, the pissant Conan with crackhead arms.