DINOSAURS! (1960)

DINOSAURS! (1960)

Tagline: See...the battle between primeval beast and monster machine! The taming of a giant sixty-ton Brontosaurus by a small boy!

(Sci-Fi, Adventure, Lightning Can Do Anything) [G]

Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating, but it definitely would have been a [G]. There is a little bit of dinosaur blood, but nothing worse than what you would see in a Godzilla movie. 

I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw a dinosaur. 

In this one, we are taken to the Caribbean islands where construction is taking place that requires explosions beneath the coast. The explosions release two dinosaurs and a caveman from the depths that have been preserved perfectly. While the locals and contractors try to figure out how to handle the situation, the dinosaurs and caveman are brought back to life during a lightning storm. 

One thing I noticed about this movie in the first 15 minutes or so was that after Betty is scared to the point where she faints while diving, Bart tries to revive her, but she is lying flat on the beach face down. I have no idea what maneuver that is where you try and revive someone that way, but it was crazy looking. Outside of that this thing actually has some decent acting and feels like 2 different movies smashed together into an 83-minute timeframe. One part feels like a 1950’s movie with some pretty janky stop-motion dinosaurs and an okay storyline. The other part feels like they were going for a Gilligan’s Island sort of episode. It’s far more whimsical and comedic. 

As far as the acting goes we get Ward Ramsey as Bart. This was actually his first-ever acting role. I thought he was pretty good, but the way he starts to dismiss Betty toward the end of the film when she says she loves him is really rough. I felt like it was completely unnecessary to script it that way. Lucita Blain is fine in this as Chica. She doesn’t get a ton of lines, but she gets more than any other female in the movie aside from Betty. Kristina Hanson played Betty and was also pretty good in the first half. For some reason, the way she is written in the second half of the movie is far timider, if you take out the fact that she fainted after seeing the dinosaur the first time. This is also why the movie struck me as being like two different movies smashed together. I have read a few things where Steve McQueen from THE BLOB was supposed to be in this, but he was apparently too difficult to work with. 

The score for this was a bit too goofy for most of the movie for me to enjoy, but I loved the dinosaurs and the battle and the bulldozer and all that stuff. Those parts raised the score for this and I enjoyed it for what it was even though it definitely had some ridiculous elements. Pacing wise the middle was rough and didn’t seem to flow with the rest of the movie as I eluded to earlier. 

Overall I think this one was actually better than several other sci-fi flicks I have reviewed from the 60s thus far. This doesn’t mean it was a masterpiece or anything like that. So then I am looking to see if it accomplished what I think it was trying to. For me, that answer is yes. 

For those reasons, I have to give this one a 4 out of 7. Just for the effort on the stop motion and some of the performances. 

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