Fans of Jim Henson are always waiting for the next pebble of gold about the beloved creator of the Muppets and other fantastical creations on the big and small screen. Whether via a retrospective image or a story from someone who worked with him, it’s as if we need to make up for the time stolen from us by his untimely death by seeking out every snippet of his life we can find. The latest treasure chest of Henson memorabilia is Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann’s beautiful hardcover, 30th anniversary celebration Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History, published by Insight Editions. Labyrinth, the 1986 fantasy classic that starred rock star David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly decades before she’d be awarded an Oscar, is in a small class of cult classic fantasies that came out of the 1980s that included The Princess Bride, Willow, and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal.
Like so many of those “vault” books published for big genre franchises, Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History is not simply a book of high quality photographs of behind-the-scenes views of the cast, creatures, and crew and images of concept art, it’s all that plus more. Like more than 20 inserts reproducing treasures from the Henson Archives, including a pull-out of the full-color, theatrical one-sheet movie poster created for the film by Ted CoConis. You’ll find classic style tipped-in concept art, draft script pages, and memos from Henson, with many items showing his hand-written notes.
I streamed the digital edition of Labyrinth (available here) to re-familiarize myself with the film before reading this new work, and was pleased to see every human character, every creature (all those goblins!), every scene, and every magical effect discussed in detail in this volume. Three key images came to mind from viewing the film years ago: Bowie walking the M.C. Escher room in the show’s climax with a crazy upward, almost Michael Jackson-inspired move (turns out a stuntman worked the scene), Bowie’s flawless contact juggling of crystal balls (we learnit was a professional juggler’s arm actually doing the trick), and the masked ball (a pre-Star Trek Gates McFadden helped coordinate the scene). Each of the scenes and production steps are described through contemporary or recent interviews with Jim Henson, Brian Henson and his siblings, Brian Froud (whose incredible concept art is sprinkled through the book and incorporated into its layout design), Toby (the striped baby) Froud, creature makers and players Kevin Clash and Dave Goelz, executive producer George Lucas, and actors Connelly and Bowie, among many others.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Jim Henson fantasy classic Labyrinth, Fathom Events has joined with Sony Pictures to bring the movie back to theaters for one night only. And a new book about the film is on its way from Paula Block and Terry Erdmann and we have some preview pages below. The fantasy-musical stars David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly.
Connelly plays Sarah, a 16-year-old who wishes her brother away, a wish granted by the Goblin King. In fine fairy tale style, Sarah must rescue her brother before midnight strikes, or he, too, will become a goblin.
The film was co-produced by The Jim Henson Company and Lucasfilm. You’ll see the work of plenty of legendary muppet performers, including Dave Goelz. You won’t see the work of several actors in make-up from the original Star Wars trilogy, including Warwick Davis, Kenny Baker, and Jack Purvis.
