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The first Disney feature filmed in CinemaScope®. Disney special-effects
wizards constructed the giant squid of rubber, steel spring,
flexible tubing, glass cloth, lucite, and plastic, with tentacles
measuring 40 feet with two feelers of 50 feet. It could rear up
eight feet out of the water, its tentacles and feelers moving with
frightening realism. It took a staff of 28 men to operate the
intricate remote controls. Using hydraulics, electronics, and
compressed air, they succeeded in giving a life-like appearance
to the squid. But there were problems. The squid fight had to
be filmed a second time after Walt Disney and the director, Richard
Fleischer, were unhappy with the initial results. It had been
filmed in a special tank on brand-new sound stage 3 at the Disney
Studio as if it were sunset on a placid sea; unfortunately this
allowed one a view of too much of the mechanics that enabled the
squid to move, and it looked fake. The scene was shot a second
time, as if it were a stormy night, with 100 backstage workers
on hand providing the needed lightning, rain, turbulent seas,
and hurricane winds, and the illusion was perfect.
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