When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth-a cryptid adventure or Warner Archive goes back in time …way back!
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A Hammer film greater than ‘ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.’
From the creators of “One Million Years B.C.” their most gigantic spectacle…
Enter an age of unknown terrors, pagan worship and virgin sacrifice…
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see the Elasmosaurous, a man-eating plant & vultures plus giant fiddler crabs-What’s a girl to do?!.
A while back a shout went out to me and all my colleagues to write a review about our favorite cryptid movie/s and thanks to the timing of these this release from Warner Archive I was able to comply.
Now what is a cryptid? By definition it is an elusive animal/creature which it’s very existence has not been able to be confirmed or denied, proved or disproved by science- in other words there is not enough proof be it physical evidence-say a fossil record, DNA, real sightings with pictures and more than one witness …mainstream science has not accepted these as real. Cryptozoology is the study of these creatures or animals and which some call monsters depending on what the description details or what mischief they have been up to, for example the Chupacapra known for carting off chickens and small pets in the middle of the night…Loch Ness Monster, Dragons, Swamp creatures or the Yeti..it might even be an existing animal that somehow has produced an off shoot that is much larger than normal for instance the “Giant” Anaconda of South America, a recently extinct or presumed to be, one that may not have all together-now found among the living…the Tasmanian Tiger or the ivory billed woodpecker or simply dinosaurs alive or possibly living longer than their fossil records indicate.
Below: missing link from 1925 The Lost World ..could it be Bigfoot and Yeti are both related to our friend pictured here.
Above: 1925 The Lost World poster featuring a little bit of exploitation with native girl at top -released by First National-big Box-office draw for it’s time..
Movies and Hollywood are no strangers to cryptids and cryptozoology since before the terms were ever coined, there have been various on screen adventures for several decades. One only has to look to the original The Lost World(1925) of the silent era displaying dazzling special effects for the time from a young Willis O’Brien( a few years later giving us one the greats King Kong) which in turn inspired a chap named Ray Harryhausen) -famous for a brontosaurs making its way down the streets of London and based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s superb 1912 novel regarding the search for a great plateau guarding the whereabouts of creatures that “time forgot “- shades of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his People and Land novels again dealing with prehistoric animals in a “lost” world and these both were envisioned for the celluloid adventurers in the mid to late 70’s as starring vehicles Doug McClure and Patrick Wayne.
Above: The Land That Time Forgot-quad poster- pay close attention to the bottom half of poster -4 scenes that never appeared in the film, a submarine with underwater observation deck, a bathysphere ,giant manta ray/octopus
Below- the trailer for 20th Century Fox’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.Starring James Mason. Filmed in Cinemascope and featuring a fantastic score by Bernard Herman…
Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth published in 1864 which involved a search not on but below the surface of the Earth where incredible sights diamonds & other jewels, luminescent pools, mushrooms the size of trees and giants of the past that may have retreated instead of being completely wiped out by a tragic climate change be it natural or brought on by cataclysmic event-thank 20th Century Fox for bringing this to the big screen(1959) and James Mason for his wonderful and driven portrayal of Professor Lindenbrook. This is just to give you an idea of how long that the movie going public have been taking the challenge to find one elusive creature or another and don’t forget these stories have some basis in fact Doyle’s story was influenced when he attended a friend’s lecture who had just gotten back from an expedition to south America and stated he saw footprints of some enormous creatures and that they might still be alive! So let us join Warner Bros as they embark on a different endeavor & a period of time from these aforementioned works- by a few million years.
Just when you thought you were safe from the local neanderthal or having to duck & take cover on the way to your neighbors cave to avoid the latest attack from overhead due some low flying pterodactyl Warner Archive decides to release a classic stop motion-filled late 60’s entry in the dinosaur craze that took that decade by tidal wave. A beautiful print on Bluray … with eye popping color and that’s not all that’s popping, because Warner is serving up one with a helping heaping of cave man style bikinis featuring Victoria Vetri and the other film with cowgirls in tight jeans…well one particular cowgirl …Gila Golan of Our Man Flint fame- a flick destined to be viewed on a late nite double bill at your place…where you get to create your own menu for the refreshment stand/snack bar.Or the local Drive-In theater.
Personally I would go with a charbroiled Cheeseburger(a combo of Swiss cheese and cheddar melted together) served with Yukon gold fries covered with baked beans and side of slaw -a garbage plate hmm, hmm- a bit tasty and downright mouth-watering…I’ll be right over with the Virgil Root Beer….
Sorry to get you all hungry but that is how I saw When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth(1970)-was part of a triple feature sharing the screen with 2 other psychotronic movies-
The Neptune Factor and Prehistoric Women-also from Hammer Films. My favorite of the 3 was Dinosaurs and with good reason, 10 to be exact- one it has more than enough prehistoric creatures on screen than the other 2 combined -2nd stop motion work by the great Jim Danforth-3rd Oscar nominated special effects, 4th Victoria Vetri in a bikini, 5th the cutest baby dino, 6th incredible matte shots that belong in a museum as art…, 7th lots of eye candy, 8th awesome location shots, 9th the creatures themselves featuring Giant Fiddler Crabs, vultures and man-eating plants are exotic as well as the dinosaurs themselves Elasmosaurus, Megalosaurus and even a pterosaur and 10th elaborate sets combined with a score by award winning composer Mario Nascimbene that evokes the feeling of another time …Mario career spanned 6 decades which began with studies at “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Music in Milan and included masterful scores for over 150 films including One Million B.C with fan favorite Raquel Welch and a very quirky score popping with fun jazzy overtones of exotica for the euro spy flick Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die starring Mike Connors of TV’s Mannix and the gorgeous Dorothy Provine…
Below: this will give you an idea of how versatile Mario was in scoring music for the cinema and I thought it might be for you to count how many bananas Mike Connors munches on during the trailer…
Dinosaurs was a Seven Arts-Hammer Films production- with Victoria Vetri as the main lead and very blonde which in this era of time spells a limited life span thanks to superstition and sun worship…it was believed if 3 women with blonde hair were hurled into to the sea that food would be plentiful and provide all around good luck …too bad Clairol wasn’t available- although it probably would have been sold out all the time.
Above: an example of a seamless blend of stop motion & live action.
The film opens with 3 blonde women dressed in the stylish cave furs of the day,a bikini and a gown ,the symbol of the sun on their foreheads.. surrounded by the great and smart males of the day all with dark hair, with the very dominant leader jabbering at the sky as the girls are about their death at the hands of the violent ocean waves below a nice tall cliff and one thing to note that this tale takes place at a time when the moon was developing in the heavens above and is little by little exerting its magnetic force upon the seas below and thru out the course of the story there are scenes that show the seas, the tides becoming more menacing .. right up until the end of the film … I point this out because it is a subtle approach but very well-done-Victoria’s character Sanna manages to escape her pending doom thanks to a nearby fishing boot from another tribe Sand people … who live by the sea where as Sanna’s people live high above the seas in cliffs and a more- hilly terrain…
Above: on the set of When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth-preparing shot for camera as Victoria meets her adoptive new “mom” .
After being rescued, which does not exactly guarantee being treated much differently, remember she is blond and it is the dark haired that fare better in this very primitive and prehistoric time. Even here she is considered different and a bit of an outcast .. except for (Robin Hawdon) who fished Sanna out of the water most of the Sand tribe are superstitious and are wooed by Robins jealous “girlfriend” and the leader of the cliff people(who shows up later having recognized the fishing boat from earlier) to persuade the Sand tribe to hand Sanna over so they can make another attempt at sacrificing her again .. the film turns into a chase at this point as Sanna tries to stay ahead of her tribe bringing her face to face with a man-eating plant and a giant nest filled with eggs which she manages to crawl into one of the broken shells and when the mother-a Megalosaurus returns Sanna is mistaken for one of the young and there in mother becomes her protector. This leads into some of the most ingenious stop motion effects by Jim Danforth and one can easily see why this film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Special Effects. Sanna trains a baby dino, a very cute one at that using a homemade flute and another scene which is one of my favorites -shows the mother Megalosaurus bringing home a deer for the hatchlings dinner. The range of emotion from the dinosaurs in the film that he is able to capture on screen will bring a smile to your face or quicken the pace of your heart or even a gasp … there is also some really great miniature work and is very evident in the climax when the moon has finally cooled and formed in the heavens and produces an incredible storm, a tsunami-along with earthquakes, swelling seas and high winds that pummel the land with floods, and tidal waves and flying debris…all this is weaved seamlessly with live action and actors…a must see for film students and anyone that has a love for visual effects.
Above: she took my hair pin,I now it was her-even back then one could escape their fare share of drama…
However Dinosaurs is not just some special effects laden film, but a very well thought out story which is unique in the fact that the only bit of English spoken in the film which takes place in the first few minutes of the film helps to set the frame through a narration …after that the language spoken in the film is purely “caveman” and the only other movie I have seen since then which is done this way is the hilarious Caveman(1981) starring Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. Dinosaurs also addresses the often very difficult subject of racism and discrimination by using Sanna hair color as the focal point of the film. I appreciate this movie on a totally different level than I did when I was that 8 yr old seeing it for the first with the larger than life creatures that are sprinkled thru out. And there are ways to relate even as a kid if not for the bullying that the leader of the Cliff people personifies … very dictatorial… I think everyone has run into that at some time in their lives…as Space Ghost would say “I think there’s a lesson here somewhere”
Will Sanna be captured again, will her new protector be able to stop the onslaught from the Cliff people, will Sanna survive the harsh elements from both the prehistoric elements including all those wonderous & dangerous creatures from a land time has all but forgot plus the coming of the moon? You’ll just have to watch to find out…
Next- we dig deep in to the Valley of Gwangi!
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Ad Sheets for the original release…
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Related links and material-
Two truly amazing reference books filled with insight and trivia. A complement to any library.
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