ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

While blasting the bottom of a bay in the Virgin Islands, a construction crew exposes the mouth of an underground river and finds a frozen brontosaurus, tyrannosaurus, and caveman. After the dinosaurs are pulled up onto the beach by a crane, a lightning bolt revives the prehistoric trio.

The construction crewmen and the local villagers band together to combat the rampaging tyrannosaurus. Meanwhile a small boy befriends the brontosaurus and the caveman, helping them escape capture by a greedy government official. The climax is a battle between the tyrannosaurus and a steam shovel.





Unfortunately all this sounds much better than it appears in the film. The script by Dan E. Weisburd and Jean Yeaworth is riddled with stilted dialogue (especially the boy's). The direction by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. (The Blob, 4-D Man) is not praiseworthy.

The film's biggest flaw is its special effects by Tim Baar, Wah Chang, and Gene Warren, especially the crude animation. Many of the dinosaur scenes are done as hand-puppets instead of animation, and the models themselves are poorly made.

Amazingly enough, they were constructed by the great Marcel Delgado, the man behind the King Kong animation models. But IMDB trivia includes this sad fact:

Marcel Delgado was given less than half the time originally agreed upon to create the dinosaur models used in the film. The studio initially agreed to give him five to six weeks, as he requested, but two weeks later he was told that they would begin production on Tuesday.

IMDB has another surprising bit of trivia with this item:

Originally, it was intended for Steve McQueen to star in this film, after he had appeared in The Blob (1958) from the same producer and director. However, McQueen had been so difficult to work with, that they didn't even bother.

Despite its faults, the film is still enjoyable. Ward Ramsey does a fair job as the handsome hero, Kristina Hanson is an attractive heroine, and Gregg Martell is enjoyable as the curious caveman.

The caveman makeup is good, and Martell has several funny scenes when he explores a house (choosing a new weapon from the tool shed, attacking his mirrored image, trying on various clothes from a closet).

The film was shot in color and CinemaScope -- amazingly enough -- and the music by Ronald Stein is effective. Producer Jack H. Harris receives credit for the original story. Filmed on location in St. Croix.
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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]

Great picture of the models from this movie.


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

[Phantom]

We thought this was a pretty cool film back in '60. The ape man rocked the house. Saw it again about a year ago. The memories don't hold up. Still, it's fun if you are in the mood.

[Bud Brewster]

The cave man steals the show!

The story doesn't deal kindle with him, and I wish that weren't true. The animation is a great demonstration of how brilliant Ray Harryhausen is — because this animation certainly wasn't done by Ray!
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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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YouTube now has a reasonably good copy of Dinosaurus, although its 225 MB version is not as sharp as the 898 MB version at a site that used to have it but is now dangerous, virus-wise. :shock
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_____________________ Dinosaurus! (1960)


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And the trailer is a great example of the wonderful "hard sell" we loved in the 50s and 60s, with outrageous claims like this one —

"Dinosaurs! The most amazing, astounding, astonishing adventure of them all!"

— delivered by the great Art Gilmore, the dramatic narrator of several thousand trailers, including sci-fi favorites like The Blob, Invaders from Mars, and I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

By gum, I'm going to start a thread for Art Gilmore and include about a dozen trailers he narrated!


__________ Dinosaurus! (1960) - Movie Trailer


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

[Bogmeister]

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___________ Dinosaurus! (1960) - Movie Trailer


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Colorful and picturesque dinosaur movie set in modern times on a tropical island (filmed in the Virgin Islands), which isn't as well known as most other dinosaur films.

A construction crew is dynamiting in the area and uncovers a couple of dinosaurs buried in the water just off-shore — a T-Rex and a Brontosaurus. These are in a frozen state, but that night there's a storm and lightning strikes thaw out/awaken the creatures.

In addition, a caveman is awoken in a similar manner. These three out-of-their-time beings go their separate ways and cause their own kind of havoc, but eventually things come together, highlighted by a battle between the T-Rex and a steam shove (there's a lot of construction site machinery around).



The FX for the dinosaurs are kind of a rough, a less-skilled version of Harryhausen's, but it's interesting to see that some scenes — notably the T-Rex's first big scene — are copied in Jurassic Park (1993).

The T-Rex lowers its head to gaze inside a tram bus with people inside and then crushes it by stepping on it. This was virtually duplicated in the T-Rex's first scene in Jurassic Park. Many of the scenes, especially with the confused caveman, are on the goofy side (of course, cavemen & dinosaurs don't really belong together) and there's the usual annoying kid character.

But there's an entertaining villain and some notable action bits, such as when the caveman attacks the T-Rex with an ax, and an amusing scene of the caveman and a modern woman in a cave.

_____________________ Dinosaurus! (1960)


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BoG's Score: 5 out of 10

Dino Trivia: the Brontosaurus also made an appearance in the Twilight Zone episode, The Odyssey of Flight 33 - the FX crew filmed the TZ scene while they were working on this film. There was brief footage from this film - of the dinosaurs - showing in a theater in a scene from the monster parody Schlock (1973), also produced by Jack Harris, this film's producer.


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]