Paleontologists keep discovering new dinosaurs and I am sure that moviemakers will, too. And I for one, look forward to meeting them.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms [Eugène Lourié, 1953]
Harryhausen’s influential dinosaur-on-the-loose movie. Tagline: “They couldn’t escape the terror! And neither will you!”
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Evil defeated
St. George and the Dragon, a tinsel picture from the 19th century.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
The Lost World [Harry O. Hoyt, 1925]
The first film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic book. Wallace Beery played Professor Challenger in this silent movie, with stop-motion animation by the great Willis O’Brien.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Gertie [aka Gertie the Dinosaur, Winsor McCay, 1914]
Pioneering cartoonist Winsor McCay toured in vaudeville with his hand-drawn animation, giving the onscreen dinosaur verbal commands from the stage.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain [Willis O’Brien, 1918]
The poster for the 19-minute-long, stop-motion animation that got O’Brien the job of animating the dinosaurs for The Lost World[Harry O. Hoyt, 1925], which led to his masterpiece, King Kong[1933].
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Goliath and the Dragon [aka La Vendetta di Ercole, Vittorio Cottafavi, 1960]
This Italian sword and sandal epic not only features a good dragon, it also has an unexpected Broderick Crawford as King Eurystheus!
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Gorgo [Eugène Lourié, 1961]
Lourié seemed to specialize in giant dinosaur pictures, this time it’s British. Gorgo’s mom is pictured here, trashing London’s Tower Bridge.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried [Fritz Lang, 1924]
Paul Richter as Siegfried bathes in the blood of the dragon he has just slain to make himself invincible. However, a falling leaf lands on his shoulder, leaving one vulnerable spot. The first of the two films Lang made based on the medieval epic poem The Song of the Nibelungs.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Ilya Muromets [aka The Sword and the Dragon, The Epic Hero and the Beast, Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956]
Boris Andreyev as Ilya Muromets about to slay a dragon. Roger Corman recut and dubbed this Russian film and I saw it on television many times as a kid, not knowing exactly what to make of the words not matching the actors’ mouth movements. The first Soviet movie shot in CinemaScope.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Jurassic Park [Steven Spielberg, 1993]
One of Stan Winston’s dinosaurs up to no good.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Also shown here is the incredible, life-size audioanimatronic Tyrannosaurus from the second of three Jurassic Park movies: The Lost World [1997]
“All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!”
“But, John. If the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists!”
John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), Jurassic Park
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
One Million Years B.C. [Don Chaffey, 1966]
A mama pterodactyl is about to feed Raquel Welch to her hungry chicks. Ray Harryhausen did the effects in an unusual “work for hire” at this stage of his career.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
King Kong [Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933]
Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), high up in the tree where Kong has put her for safety, looks on as he battles a T. Rex. Brilliantly staged, with innovative use of sound effects (by Murray Spivack). A classic sequence from Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion tour de force.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
The Beast of Hollow Mountain [Edward Nassour, Ismael Rodríguez, 1956]
From a story by Willis O’Brien, who used the name “El Toro Estrella” for his writing credit! This particular shot is too close and clearly shows the cowboy is a puppet. O’Brien did not do the stop-motion animation for this film, which is very similar to his original screenplay The Valley of the Mist, later made by O’Brien’s protégé Ray Harryhausen as The Valley of Gwangi[Jim O’Connolly, 1969].
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm [Henry Levin, George Pal, 1962]
The lovely dragon terrorizes Buddy Hackett and Terry-Thomas in the “Singing Bone” sequence of this Cinerama movie.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Dinosaurus! [Irvin Yeaworth, 1960]
The puppet double for the little boy Julio rides the puppet apatosaurusin this dumb movie. Surprisingly, Dinosaurus!was photographed by the great Stanley Cortez. Scenes from the film show up in Schlock[me, 1973].
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]
Jack the Giant Killer [Nathan H. Juran, 1962]
The Kerwin Mathews puppet astride the flying dragon animated by Jim Danforth in this The 7th Voyage of Sinbadimitation.
Dragons & Dinosaurs[ Book Contents]