In Passing

Stop-Motion Animator David Allen Dies. David Allen, one of a handful of truly great stop-motion animators, died of cancer on Monday, August 16. He was 55. Allen's work in commercials includes animating the Swiss Miss and early Pillsbury Doughboy in the 1960s, and his feature work includes Caveman (1981), Q-The Winged Serpent (1982), Willow (1988) and Freaked (1993). For ten years he had been working on an independent project, a feature called Primevals. (The film will be finished at Full Moon Studios where the film was being animated before Allen's death.) Allen began his film career as an assistant to stop-motion master Jim Danforth on When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1970). He worked with Danforth again, as well as with special effects pioneer Dennis Muren, on Equinox (1971), before contributing to the infamous X-rated Flesh Gordon (1972). Recently, he recreated King Kong for the IMAX documentary, Special Effects: Anything Can Happen (1996).