Dinosaurs!

 

I was going to have a completely different theme but, I was watching PBS, which had a couple of interesting shows about dinosaurs and I had my 25watt bulb go off, so decided to write about this theme instead. I am purposely straying away from the Jurassic Park franchise because, they’re just too easy, plus after the 3rd one, they just got boring and stupid. Even the last one, of the first 3, with the pterodactyls, makes no sense. The group escape, terrified but, as they are leaving on helicopters, the kid and Sam Neil smile in Wonder as they watch the big, nasty birds fly beside them. First, I’d still be terrified because, they tried to eat me and, second, they are flying away from the island toward civilization. WTF is wondrous about that? Oops…I’m ranting, so, here are my 3 dinosaur movies.

1. THE LOST WORLD-1925

I do love silent film and this is a classic, believe it or not, which freaked out people who went to see the movie. It was considered wondrous for its day in special effects and even Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the book, was part of the film where he introduced it, unfortunately, some prints don’t have this part. Bessie Love plays the daughter of a missing explorer who brings her dad’s journals to the head of British museum, played by Wallace Beery. He sees the drawings and it convinces him that dinosaurs exist, so he decides to take some people to South America to explore the mysterious plateau. Once there, the group end up on the plateau needing to fend off some hungry dinosaurs and a jerk of an ape man. This film is 100 years old and it’s pretty cool to watch this. I can’t help but think how the people from 1925, must have felt. This was their Jurassic Park film for that time. Stop motion was used to great effect and the actors did a great job acting against these beasts. It’s fun to watch  an old film and transport oneself back to that time.

2. KING KONG-1933

I hope most of you have seen this game changer of a beast movie that stars, Canadian, Fay Wray, who has the best scream ever, as sexy Ann Darrow. It starts off with Ann looking at food and fainting because she is so hungry. Carl Denham is a film director who see her, feeds her and  tells her  he will make her a star and she will star against a dark and hairy man. She says yes and before you can say, Epstein and Trump party, she is on board a ship of men, much to the chagrin of the running mate, played by Bruce Cabot. Of course, he falls for Ann and so do the Natives when the ship finds Skull Island. The natives kidnap Ann, tie her up and summon Kong. In enters, tall, dark and hairy, Kong who decides not to eat her but bring her to his lair.  We watch as he protects her from all sorts of baddies like the tyrannosaurus, a giant snake( get your minds out of the gutter) and a pterodactyl. Of course, the men from the boat go to rescue Ann with most meeting their fate in very bad  ways. Good ole Cabot frees her and they escape with Kong hot on their trail. This is when the dumb ass Producer decides to bring Kong back to NYC. This is a classic with a capital C and I remember watching this on “Movies for a Sunday Afternoon” on ABC. He wanted all of us to sit and watch the movie which we did, and it made a big impression on me. Decades later, I realize my dad was one of the many, many people who were dumbfounded by how realistic it looked( obviously, back in the day). My dad was only 20 at that time and it must have throw him in awe at the revolutionary stop motion method used to make King Kong come alive.

3. ONE MILLION BC-1966

Oh, we all know how famous this film is because it stars the voluptuous Raquel Welch in her fur bikini which gained further fame when her poster was shown to full splendour in the gret film, “The Shawshank Redemption”. This is …not a great film, maybe not even a good one but that’s what makes it fun because it is rather dumb. John Richardson plays Tumak( not Tupac, although that could be his Rapper cousin) who is banished from his dark haired, primitive tribe to the desert where he must fight some bad dinosaurs, he ends up meeting Loana, yes, fur bikini Raquel, part of the blonde, more sophisticated ( aka intelligent) tribe. He learns from them but fights ensues when another blondie wants Tupac..er Tumak for herself so enter 2 women fighting in their skimpy outfits. All you need is some jello and you have all the boys go to heaven. Anyhoo, it ends up the tribe cast Tarmac..oops, Tumak out and Leona decides to go with him. Before you can say, “birdie!” a pterodactyl snatches Leona, of course, to bring her to her hatchlings for a morsel. Will she be saved in time, by Tupac..Tarmac…sorry, Tumak? Will those little critters pick off her fur bikini?  This is, actually, a remake of the 1940, film starring Victor Mature and Carole Landis which was a big hit in its day as well. The dinosaurs in both movies are fun to watch with the usual fights between 2 dinosaurs and the tyrannosaurus hungry for some humans. It’s a cult film that one should see, at least, once.

Which dinosaur movies, aside from Jurassic Park, come to your mind?