KING DINOSAUR (1955)

KING DINOSAUR (1955)

Tagline: Terrifying! Fantastic! Startling!

(Sci-Fi, Adventure, Lizards, And Alligators) [G]

Note: This movie never got an MPAA rating, but it definitely would have been a [G].

I brought the atom bomb; I think it's a good time to use it!

In this one, a new planet ends up in our solar system and scientists are calling it Nova. The decision is made to send 4 people to the planet to check it out. When they get there from all appearances it looks a lot like earth but upon further inspection, the planet is infested with giant snakes, ants, alligators and a beast called King Dinosaur. Can Dr. Ralph Martin, Dr. Richard Gordon, Dr. Patricia Bennett, and Nora Pierce survive in a land of monsters? 

First off, this was the first movie that Bert I. Gordon directed. Gordon was known for big bugs, big lizards, and big spiders and he had a string of 7 of those come out from 1955 to 1959. KING DINOSAUR was by far the worst and it’s almost an insult to 1950s movie making and the intelligence of its audience. This review will go into why that is. 

Acting wise William Bryant (who plays Dr. Ralph Martin) is pretty rough in this. He was also in IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, but Bryant was far from a bad actor, he ended up in over 230 different movie and TV productions. Nearly the same problem exists with Douglas Henderson who plays Dr. Richard Gordon. We just don’t get a good effort out of him acting wise and a lot of this is on Bert (the director). Henderson was also in the comedy sci-fi flick “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars”. Wanda Curtis plays Dr. Patricia Bennett and isn’t absolutely terrible. In her defense she was also more of a singer than an actress, this is her only movie. Patti Gallagher who plays Nora is also not terrible, but not great. 

One massive issue with this thing is the fact that they just shot this in an area that doesn’t even look like another planet. At least in a desert, you can kind of pull off the effect, but this one is shot in a forest which doesn’t work as another planet unless you are going for cheese. A perfect example is CAVE WOMEN ON MARS. At least in that movie director, Christopher R. Mihm was going for an homage to flicks like this. Another major issue isn’t really that they used a giant lizard for “King Dinosaur”. It’s that they passed up effects master Ray Harryhausen and stop motion effects to give us an iguana with a little horn on its head and tried to pass it off as a tyrannosaurus rex. What the crap? That decision alone is an insult to the audience. I would rather they had just said, “look at that giant lizard”. 

Another big problem with this movie is that we get a lot of really plain dialog with not much going on. There is a bit of romance in this thing but it’s not intriguing and it doesn’t draw us in to actually relate to these characters. On top of this, a lot of this movie is stock footage with the only redeeming thing about that being the fact that the original footage is just as bad. 

One good thing I can say about this movie is that it had a honey bear in it. It’s not often you see honey bears in movies. Let alone one where the actors and actresses are interacting with it. 

Overall this is a 1 out of 7. I can’t in good faith recommend it to anyone and that sucks to say because I adore 1950s sci-fi. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ZIGMOR PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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