Sunday, April 9, 2017

'WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH'......WHEN WE WERE STILL YOUNG.....

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (1970)    Imagine the BQ's delight as we tore open the gift wrap celebrating our 147th birthday (or at least, that's how old our daughter considers us ) and found the Warner Archive Blu-Ray of this long forgotten  gem.......another Hammer films excursion into that never-happened age when sexy bikini cavegirls and stop-motion dinosaurs co-existed.

           Although it lacks the truly campy spectacle of the studio's 1966 pre-hysteric romp 'One Million Years B.C.' (with Raquel Welch fending off Ray Harryhausen's dinos). there's more than enough cave-babes, monsters and apocalyptic weather to hold the interest of any entranced fanboy. We'll admit it....we stayed entranced.

            The Hammer Flintstones in this one are yaba-daba-dazzled by a still forming moon in the sky.....so like any rational collection of people in loincloths, they take to throwing hot blondes off of cliffs to appease the sun God...or whatever.

             One blonde who doesn't appreciate the cliff business escapes to the tribe who lives at seashore level, seeking diplomatic immunity.  They don't much like her either, except for the hunk who's fallen for her. Much running around ensues, sometimes on the striking Canary Islands location, but most often on the mis-matched soundstage sets.

             And to the delight of little children of all ages (the BQ included), much beloved stop motion dinosaurs pop up regularly, brought to life by animator Jim Danforth. One of them mistakes our very own cave-blondie for one of its babies and affectionately carts her away in its teeth when she's in danger.  Hey kids, you don't get to see this stuff in the Natural History Museum's dioramas.

              Meanwhile the entire human cast grunts and snarls at each other in a 27 word cave-speak.  After about ten minutes of listening to this jibber-jabber, you can sort of figure out what the words mean,,,,,,,but honestly, don't strain yourself. "Akita' is the most often used word.....as far as we could tell, it means 87 different things, sort of similar to Trumpty-Dumpty's use of "Believe me..." and "let me tell you..." (as in "this pterodactyl's chewing my foot off, believe me...")

             You bet Jurassic it's all good fun, but the BQ must issue a TOT DANGER WARNING before you consider exposing your dino-crazy kiddies to this particular blu-ray. The Warner Archive disc plays the "International" version of the film.......translation: the girls get naked, even if it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.  So we'd recommend watching it without the kids first to take note of the fifteen seconds you have to skip over.....(or for you childless, hopelessly crude, politically incorrect bachelors, the fifteen seconds you want to skip to immediately. The BQ disavows ever writing this last sentence.....if the White House can pull that stuff, so can we...)

            Like any....uh....mature adult, we have a voluminous collection of Hallmark birthday cards that joking allude to our advancing age.....(you know the ones, pictures of dinosaurs with the caption, "Hey, remember us from Homeroom?")....so we accepted the ribbing of the BQ's beloved wife and daughter as they announced that their birthday gift blu ray served as an accurate chronicle of our youthful days.   We'll paint on our  man-cave wall 3 stars (***) for this Dino-mighty adventure.  If this was our early life, we certainly don't remember rescuing any skimpily clad blondes from giant lizards......maybe it'll come back to us.....

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