ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Ray Harryhausen's eleventh film is yet another monster-filled adventure.

In this one, Richard Carlson ("It Came from Outer Space") is the manager of a traveling rodeo, working the circuit south of the border. His star attraction is Gila Golan ("In Like Flint") with her Italian accent covered by a poorly dubbed voice. James Franciscus ("Beneath the Planet of the Apes") is the cowboy hero.

They all join up with paleontologist Laurence Naismith ("Jason and the Argonaut") in a search for the origin of a miniature prehistoric horse.

The original story for "Gwangi" was conceived back in the 1930s by King Kong's creator, Willis O'Brien, who prepared a series of impressive pre-production drawings for the project. But he was never able to secure financial backing for the project (a sad fate that befell many of O'Brien's wonderful concepts).

Harryhausen, a former protege of O'Brien's, used these drawings to plan many of the scenes in the film -- a worthy tribute the great O'Brien. And "Gwangi" contains the most animation of any Harryhausen's film, approximately 27 minutes. Ray's first cinema solo, "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", barely had 7 minutes total!

Directed by James O'Connelly.
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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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I was in the Air Force when I saw this one on a base theater in Ramstein, Germany. It's a huge base, with three movie theaters: one at the two opposite ends of the base and one smack in the middle.

The base would get one print of each movie. They would then play it for three days at the theater located right across the street from my barracks (which was mighty convenient), and then pass it on to the second and third theater for three days each.

So, I could watch a movie three times in a nine day period, at three different theaters. And I got some exercise while walking across the base.

The trailer has a wealth of beautiful scenes from the movie — which wasn't hard to do, because this Harryhausen movie has almost four times as much animation as Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.


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However, I've never had the same kind of enthusiasm for this one that I have for most of Ray's other movies. Maybe I need to watch it on with a few other folks during one of All Sci-Fi's Friday Live Chat.


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

[Pow]

TVOG is noted as being the Ray Harryhausen film with the most amount of stop-motion animation.

Ray wanted the title for the movie to be The Valley Where Time Stood Still.

I always was impressed by the locations utilized in this film.

It was shot in Spain in Almeria & Cuenca.Tabernas was the Mexican village.

The outstanding scenery for the 'Forbidden Valley' was filmed at Ciudad Encantada.

[gofffan]

Gwangi was a little gem. The Eohippus (sp?) was a lovely touch and, of course, the roping of Gwangi was a marvel, done before in Mighty Joe Young, but more beautifully achieved.

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has some interesting trivia items.
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When this film was first conceived it was supposed to have been a follow-up to King Kong (1933), but was never made. However, an early B&W version of the "cowboys in Africa" footage was shot, and wound up being used in Mighty Joe Young (1949).

Note from me: I can't find any verification of this item. What I did find (and have known for years) was that O'Brien planned a project called Valley of the Mist around 1944, about an Allosaurus discovered in the Grand Canyon by cowboys. They rope it and bring it back to display in a Wild West show, but it escapes and goes on rampage through a small town.

Ray Harryhausen was aware of O'Brien's unrealized project and decided to do it himself.

Bit it was never supposed to be a "follow up to King Kong", and no known test footage was shot. Obviously the roping scene in Might Joe Young was inspired by the earlier idea, but O'Brien's concept did not involve "cowboys in Africa", and the scenes in Mighty Joe Young were filmed for that movie, not just test footage shot and later reused.

Leading lady Gila Golan was re-dubbed, but the voice actress remains unidentified.

Note from me: Not only was the dubbing rather badly done, Miss Golan's dialog is riddled with "Texas cowgirl" phrases delivered with an accent that makes her sound unintentionally funny, especially for people familiar with how Gila actually speaks in Our Man Flint.


~ Gila had a phenomenal figure!

The roping of Gwangi was achieved by having the actors hold on to ropes tied to a "Monster stick" that was in the back of a Jeep. The jeep and stick when filmed with Gwangi are on a back rear projection plate and hidden by his body and the portions of rope attached to his body are painted wires that are matched with the real ropes.

Note from me: The roping scene is a magnificent example of how Harryhausen creates FX the "hard way" before CGI made that kind of scene as easy as sneezing during pollen season!

The sound that Gwangi makes is that of a camel and a raspberry run backwards.

Note from me: I think maybe that claim is completely sugob! (That's "bogus" run backwards.)

Opening credits: The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred.

Note from me: Wow, this disclaimer seems about as necessary as the one in which McDonald's tells customers that the hot coffee is hot, or Clorox warns customers that bleach should not be taken internally!

What group of people were the producers afraid would be offended? Oklahoma cowboys who herd dinosaurs?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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Apparently she was also Miss Israel!


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

[Gord Green]

From THE MONSTER TIMES :














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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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I found an interesting post by CHFB member Aupperle about the history of Gwangi.
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In his book "An Animated Life" Ray Harryhausen mentions that VALLEY OF MIST was first started as an outline in 1944 by Willis and Darlyne O'Brien which they called Emillio and Guloso and later El Toro Estrella (The Star Bull). Ray gives an outline of the story that sounds very much like RING AROUND SATURN and EMILLIO AND HIS MAGIC BULL.
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Aupperle posted this picture as well.


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

[Eadie]

info on the evolution of the horse (including Eohippus) at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

The particular type used in The Valley of Gwangi is Eohippus angustidens.:


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Art Should Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

[Pow]

Some Fun Facts for TVOG.

This film was Ray Harryhausen's tribute to his mentor Willis "Obie' O'Brien.

Ray and his producer Charles Schneer were unable to sell this project to the film studio they usually dealt with, Columbia Pictures.

Warner Brothers~Seven Arts in conjunction with Schneer's Morningside Productions produced TVOG.

The unusual rock formations of Ciudad Encantada near Cuenca, Spain served as the exterior filming location for the Forbidden Valley.

I was always impressed with all the location shooting throughout this movie.

Interior scenes were filmed at a television studio in Madrid.

Tabernas Village was the Mexican town for the film. It was very authentic looking compared to some studio back lots with their replica Mexican villages.

Ray stated that in Obie's version that Gwangi was an allosaurus but Ray decided to make Gwangi a combination allosaurus and tyrannosaurus. There was only one model for Gwangi and it was 12 inches in height.

Ray dreaded the scene for animating the eohippus which was the tiny ancient ancestor to the horse.

Animating creatures that no one has seen before in real life always gave Ray a freedom of choice in its movements. However, everyone knows just how a horse moves and that makes it imperative that Ray would get the cohippus scenes done correctly and make it look natural to the audience.

Ray was never satisfied with either the full-sized version of his pterodactyl or the full-sized head for Gwangi.

The armature for the triceratops from Ray's previous movie One Million Years B.C. was reused for the styracosaurus for TVOG.

Ray did more than 400 stop-motion cuts for TVOG which was more than he had ever done for any of his films up to that time.

TVOG would be the final dinosaur film that Ray would ever do.

Vanessa Harryhausen, Ray's then 5 year old daughter, fell in love with the Gwangi model and considered it her doll. She would carry him all around and take him to bed with her.

Ray's wife Diana went shopping with Vanessa, who was in a carriage & holding Gwangi, who was wrapped up in a blanket due to the cold weather.

An older woman approached them in order to admire the little girl's doll. She was absolutely shocked to see that the doll in question was a terrifying dinosaur. The woman then proceeded to lecture Diana about letting her little girl have such a horrible looking toy.

What a great story.

TVOG is one of my favorite RH films due to the vast amount of stop-motion animation scenes we are able to enjoy.

The movie is fun and entertaining with a fine cast and wonderful scenery.

[The Spike]

Shot in Technicolor by Erwin Hillier and in Dynamation, The Valley Of Gwangi sees Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus) and a team of cowboys get more than they bargained for when they enter a hidden valley in Mexico. For here, prehistoric creatures reside and the cowboys come up with the idea of capturing a Tyrannosaurus Rex to become the chief attraction in the circus they work at.

The makers of Gwangi never hid their motivations or homages, from the off they wanted to nod towards King Kong whilst pairing the Western and Fantasy genres in the process. The result of which is an enjoyable if unfulfilled movie that again sees Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creations save the day. Directed by Jim O'Connolly with a screenplay by William Bast, The Valley Of Gwangi suffers not because of its bonkers plot (this is after all why we watch this type of genre offering), but more because of the slow first half that threatens to put the viewer into torpor. Thankfully the film is saved by the afore mentioned Harryhausen who unleashes prehistoric joys on the B movie cast (tho Laurence Naismith is considerably better than the material given him). While the ending raises the adrenaline sufficiently enough to have made the wait worth while. Jerome Moross lifts from his brilliant score for The Big Country with mixed results; it just feels out of place here, even if it's stirring and pleasing to the ears. And the Almería, Andalucía location work in Spain is at one with the material to hand.

Saturday afternoon monster fun to be enjoyed with either popcorn or something stronger from the drinks cupboard. 6/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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~ A Question for the Members: When we were kids, how many movies with dinosaurs did we watch and then endure a climax which destroyed the amazing "lost world" we loved so much?

Here's the sad list.

The Lost World (1925)

King Kong / Son of Kong (1933)

Lost Continent (1951)

The Lost World (1960)

~ My Theory: A few "lost worlds" actually did survive beyond the movie's climax, like The Land Unknown . . . and The Valley of Gwangi.

This movie ends with the T-Rex being killed in a Mexican town, and the struggling Wild West show ends up being financial ruined!

Or is it?

Let's think this through, shall we!

The discovery of the hidden valley and it's treasure trove of prehistoric creatures is more valuable than all the gold that came from the California Gold Rush!

The members of the Wild West show owned by Richard Carlson know the location of this amazing discovery! Furthermore, the existence of Gwangi, a living T-Rex, would serve as undeniable proof that the valley does exists!

A sequel to Valley of Gwangi would have been a guaranteed success. The potential story could have gone in numerous directions.

My preference would be for the Mexican government to demand their rights to be in full control of the region, and they would protect it from foreign interference at all cost!

Naturally the American government would loan Mexico millions of dollars to protect the region — knowing that the return on our investment would show a huge profit when Mexico repaid the loan by giving us priceless specimens of prehistoric life forms!

The U.S. government would also realize that this gigantic economic boom for our southern neighbor would result in much greater prosperity for us, because the global scientific community would flock to Mexico and pay them billions of dollars just for the chance to study the prehistoric valley!

This in turn would result in the Mexican government being able to greatly bolster both their own police and military forces to such a degree that they could virtually wipe out all the drug cartels!

As a result, the U.S. could significantly diminish our nation's drug problem!

Meanwhile, Mexico would experience an explosion in tourist trade because of the new economic boom — some of which would be caused by tourist attractions similar to Jurassic Park, which would be established all over the country!

I can just see the colorful posters which promoted these resorts and theme parks, using catchy slogans like these!

Come to Prehistoric Mexico — where time stands still!

Honeymoon in the land where time is eternal!

Come to Mexico and witness the Dawn of Creation!

* Gosh, folks, have I ever mentioned that from 1992 to 1993 I was a free-lance ad campaign writer? I was a paid "bullshit artist". It was a lot of fun!

Come on, guys! I’m asking a question and suggesting several interesting answers. So, now it’s YOUR turn.
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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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I've always been curious about how the unimpressive the little valley in this movie could contain a prehistoric ecosystem that contained species of dinosaurs which somehow survived the extinction that wiped them out on a global scale.

Not only must we accept the amazing survival of these animals, we never find out what kept them in that area of Mexico!

I've yet to think of way to explain the existence of the supposedly extinct creatures, but it occurred to me that in the movie we only see a small area of this valley.

On the the other hand, suppose what we're shown in the movie is just a relatively small region which is at "ground level" with the part outside the narrow cave entrance the cowboys go through.

Admittedly, the great special effects scenes do indeed show us high cliffs in several scenes.











However, the area just doesn't look lush enough to provide an environment favorable for huge herbivores and the hungry carnivores who eat the plant eaters. Therefore, I'd like to submit the following concept.

Hang on folk. This is wild idea.

According the theory, an asteroid smashed into the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Just prior to that tragic event . . .

(Now don't laugh, folks, I love this idea!)

. . . .a large alien spacecraft was orbiting Earth, and the alien scientists were having a ball studying Earth's wonderful prehistoric beasts!





But their sensors detected the approach of the asteroid which would demolish the beautiful creatures they were studying!

With just a few weeks to prepare for this disaster, the aliens selected dozens of specimens from the planet below and brought them up to their ship, where they placed them in suspended animation.

On the day of the asteroid's impact, the aliens watched in horror from high orbit as Earth's ecosystem was destroyed, and 90% of it's life forms died . . .

Reluctantly, the alien ship moved on to the next star system on their schedule — carrying with them the priceless treasure of prehistoric animals from Earth which they had been studying.

A few million years later, a starship from the same noble race came back to Earth and surveyed the newly established ecosystem which had emerged after the dinosaurs were gone. Their survey determined that the dinosaurs were now extinct . . . but that mammals had flourished!

The aliens were saddened by the extinction of the dinosaurs. But they devised a way to return the cryogenically preserved specimens to their home planet, which they still possessed in suspended animation from the previous expedition.

But they didn't want to cause an ecological crisis by simply added them to an ecosystem now dominated by mammals.

So, these clever aliens deposited the revived dinosaurs into the same giant crater in South America created by the asteroid which had killed the dinosaurs!

Admitted it, guys! Ya gotta love the irony here!

The crater was, of course, now covered by a lush jungle environment. The aliens knew that its high crater walls would prevent the dinosaurs from escaping and spreading across the planet, upsetting Earth's ecology.







And so, folks, a sequel to this Harryhausen movie would feature the discovery of the valley's lower region, in which the "Skull Island" terrain is populated by so many dinosaurs you couldn't swing dead prehistoric cat without hitting one!
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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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It occurred to me that my story above about the aliens who use the crater formed by the "extinction asteroid" to return the dinosaurs to Earth has a few things in common with both The Lost World and King Kong.

In both those cases, an isolated environment "somehow" allows the dinosaurs to survive, while all the others on the planet perish.

I've wrestled with that problem for years without ever thinking of a way to explain how Skull Island and The Lost Island managed to "dodge the bullet".

When we were kids, we had now idea why all the dinosaurs were gone. The idea that a remote island or a high plateau could save a luck few was perfectly believable!

But that's just not good enough when your a college educated adult whose been study science and reading science fiction for decades!

The best solution I've come up with is the one I described above — a group of star-traveling aliens save a few dozen species of prehistoric animals from the extinction event sto they can bring them back home many eons later — and transplant them into the same crater that killed all the rest of their kind!

Story wise, I think it rocks!

The concept's pure outlandishness is countered by its delicious irony. The very asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs created a crater in South America which provided a haven for the survivors, million of years later!

I also like the fact that a very different form of geography harbors this "lost world" than its other two famous predecessors. King Kong used an uncharted island in the South Pacific, and Sir Arthur Conan Doles' novel used a raised plateau in South America.







The fact that the alien explorers restore a prehistoric ecosystem by using the crater formed by the very asteroid that killed the dinosaurs just tickles my fancy!

I guess I'm just a sucker for a happy ending!

By the way, to make the plateau image above, I started with this picture. Note to Trekriffic: this is an example of what Paint.net can do.

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