ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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More stock-footage from "One Million B.C.". This time the dinosaurs are on a comet which grazes the Earth during the 1800's and picks up two men (Cesare Danova, Sean McClory).

The basic concept comes from Jules Verne's "Off on a Comet". The action includes an attack by a semi-giant spider and an interesting scene in which Morlock-like cavemen attack the heroes!



Joan Stanley (Playboy's Miss November 1958) and Danielle De Metz ("Return of the Fly") are two of the cavewomen they meet when they encounter two opposing tribes. As cavegirls go, these two are delightful!

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This one is actually fun to watch and reasonably well done. I was pleasantly surprised when I DVRed a few months ago.

Directed by Edward Bernds ("World Without End, "Queen of Outer Space") — which of course explains the giant spider. It's his trademark.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Gosh a'mighty, I wish I'd seen this movie back in 1961 when it played at the East Point Theater. I would have been thirteen years old, and between the fun sci-fi elements and the hot cavegirls, I'd have sat through it at least twice!


______________ Valley of the Dragons (trailer)

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[17 Oaks]

There are some HOT HOT women and their rather small coverings you can get some glimpses of skin...LOVE this movie...

[Phantom]

I saw this back in '61, after which it seemed to fall off the planet. It was about the time I purchased the Classic Comic edition of Verne's novel.

Wasn't too impressed with the film then and felt the same way when it surfaced on a cable channel a couple of years ago.

The plot involving antagonistic pre-historic tribes coming peacefully together through mediators may have been novel in Verne's time, but the idea has been used more than once on film and you pretty much know the drill when you buy your ticket. (Correct me if I'm shady on plot details.)

The low budget and stock footage from One Million Years B.C. doesn't help.
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What Is Essential Is Invisible

[Bud Brewster]

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Sir, I had a more enjoyable "first experience" with this move.

I'd never seen it until it was shown on TCM a few years ago, and since I was thoroughly convinced that there were no more 50s/60s sci-fi films I hadn't already watched to death, this one was a pleasant surprise!

After all, it had a lighthearted story about two charming gentlemen whose "duel of honor" was rudely interrupted by a passing planetary object which (somehow) gently transferred them to its surface!

Was this in any way possible? No.

Was this whimsically appealing? Hell yes!

These two courtly gentlemen manage to meet lovely ladies, encounter fearsome creatures, and unite two warring tribes of primitive people.

I can't think of movie that did a better job of presenting such a pure Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure than this one — in spite of it's low budget and shameless use of stock footage!

And yet . . . it was supposedly base on one of the lesser Jules Verne novels! Go figure, eh?

I have a fine download of it which you can acquire for the next seven days from WeTransfer, with my compliments. After that it's gone. Let me know if you ever want to watch it in the chat room.
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VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS (Link is now active!)


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

From Keep Watching The Skies!

Perhaps too often, the major source of satisfaction for directors of low-budget films lay not in the quality of the finished work, but in bringing in anything under difficult conditions, on or under budget.

Director Edward Bernds told an interviewer about his pleasure in finishing Valley of the Dragons: "I had the satisfaction of thwarting the Columbia brass, who were waiting for us to go over budget."

I'm pleased that Mr. Bernds was happy in completing the film on budget. However, the film isn't any good at all, so his own satisfaction is about the only pleasure he's given anyone with this picture, which he also wrote.

The 1877 Jules Verne book was published in England under two titles, the original French, Mr. Servandac's Arc, and The Career of a Comet. Under any title, it's one of Verne's oddest books.

The storyline of Valley of the Dragons is that of One Million B.C.

The film was a business deal, not a creative enterprise, a way to make a Verne movie without spending much money.

But, of course, the film is an abortion. The use of stock footage from One Million B.C. fooled almost no one.

Bernds used a big mountainside set left over from Devil at Four O' Clock for all his cave and rocky-area scenery. The film was made entirely in the studio, and looks it.

None of this borrowing of stock footage would have mattered overly much if the movie had been an exciting, well-paced film, but Valley of the Dragons is a lethargic, uninteresting mess.

Cesare Danova is a dull hero; Sean McClory, generally amusing, is much better, and would have been even more entertaining if he'd been allowed to be a little shifty, something at which he excels.

The trade reviewers recognized the film for the patchwork piece it is, and reviewed it accordingly.

Variety: "A corny caveman spectacle that is shopworn even by 20-year old cinema standards....Even the story here related is astonishingly similar to that fossiliferous fricassee of two decades ago."

Parents: "For the first time a movie has not been done right by author Jules Verne!...This is a slipshod sex and horror film with a few scientific theories mouthed by the actors....Poor."
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IMHO: Haven't seen this gem in many a year. What I do recall about it was my terrible disappointment over how the prehistoric creatures were executed visually.
O'Bie, Ray, this film desperately needed your stop-motion wizardry. Desperately.

But that was never gonna happen with this meager budget.

However, even if the $$$ had been plentiful for O'Bie and/or Ray to perform their splendid movie magic, the scripting was just atrocious.

The science in this film is more fantasy than science fiction. Something Irwin Allen would have done for one of his movie or television productions; he never gave a hoot about scientific accuracy at all.

I doubt that an updated movie based upon this Verne novel with a lavish budget would be worth attempting. Would it have any appeal for anyone?

Some ideas are best left at the Dead Letter Office.

[Bud Brewster]

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Excellent post, Michael. The movie has a few things to enjoy, but they're overwhelmed by the bad aspects of the production.

I managed to praise it in my thread-starting post above, but only because I didn't even know about it until seeing in TCM a few years ago, and the fact that it was brand new (to me) made me cut it a great deal of slack.

But, of course, the movie is a fine example of the low opinion Hollywood used to have of science fiction . . . and the people who went see sci-fi movies.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)