When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Encyclopedia
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970
movie starring Victoria Vetri
, set in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Britain's
Hammer Films
.
Like several of Hammer's previous films, such as One Million Years B.C.
(1966), the film portrays dinosaurs and humans alongside each other. Directed and scripted by Val Guest
, it was based on a treatment by J. G. Ballard
, and nominated for an Oscar
for its visual effects.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066561/awards
The special effects are considered a benchmark in stop-motion animation believability, and the film is referenced in the movie Jurassic Park
. Stop-motion effects were created by Jim Danforth
, assisted by David W. Allen
and Roger Dickens.
The landscapes (Earth during the Quaternary) were filmed in Gran Canaria
and Fuerteventura
(Canary Islands
). Locations included Maspalomas beach, Ansite Mountain, Amurga and Caldera de Tejeda.
The film was released on DVD as an exclusive from Best Buy with a G-rating, but was quickly recalled because it was the uncut version and contained nudity. The original is now a collector's item.
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth was the third in Hammer's "Cave Girl" series, preceded by One Million Years B.C. (1966) and Slave Girls (1967). It was followed by Creatures the World Forgot
(1971).
that was roped, escapes temporarily, but is recaptured and burned to death. At the feast afterwards, we learn that a brunette woman, Ayak, is interested in Tara, but he is fascinated with Sanna who has set up a hut. He brings her food. After a fight between Sanna and Ayak in the water, Sanna's former tribe arrives, looking for her. She flees and is followed by pursuers. Hiding in a tree, a boa
tries to wrap itself around her but attacks and kills one of the men, whom the three other men can't help. They think Sanna is in a nearby cave, but a Chasmosaurus
attacks instead, wounding the men. Vultures, not content as scavengers, take swipes at the wounded. When Tara seeks Sanna, he finds the one man dead and, after the triceratops charges and runs off a cliff, rescues the others.
A funeral pyre at sea is followed by a tribal frenzy during which Sanna's hut gets burned and Tara runs away. Sanna meanwhile has faced a vicious prehistoric long-tongued lizard and is nearly eaten by a plant. She cuts off her hair to escape the plant. Tara unfortunately thinks Sanna has been eaten by the man-eating plant.
Sanna sleeps in a large dinosaur eggshell. The other egg hatches and the dinosaur imprints. The parent, thinking Sanna has hatched, brings her a deer carcass. Sanna plays with her new sibling. She dives and catches fish in her teeth. She finds her dinosaur involved in a fight with a few men, and she call off the dinosaur.
After an incident involving Tara vs. a giant Rhamphorhynchus
, he and Sanna reunite and go to her cave, witnessed by a lookout. When Tara returns to the tribe, he is challenged, tied to a raft, and set to sea with the raft burning. A Mosasaur knocks over the raft; Tara escapes and staggers back to Sanna. But the tribe is still searching for Sanna, and see smoke from her fire. The two run, swim, climb, and witness some dinosaur fights, but are captured. Sanna's dino sibling rescues her, but Tara they prepare to burn again. A giant crab kills a few men as the weather grows ominous again. The moon seems to be forming, and a tidal wave looms. Sanna arrives to save Tara from the giant crab
, and a raft escape begins to take shape. The tribal leader tries commanding the water to heel. Ayak gets sucked into quicksand, and the leader is drowned. Sanna and Tara and two other people survive and witness an eclipse, as now the moon exists.
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
movie starring Victoria Vetri
Victoria Vetri
-Biography:Vetri was born in San Francisco, California to parents who were immigrants from Italy. She attended Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California between 1959 and 1963 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modelling in her teens. Vetri is a singer and...
, set in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Britain's
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Hammer Films
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
.
Like several of Hammer's previous films, such as One Million Years B.C.
One Million Years B.C.
One Million Years B.C. is a 1966 British adventure/fantasy film starring Raquel Welch, set - loosely - in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions, and was a remake of the 1940 Hollywood film One Million B.C., and it recreates many of the scenes of that film...
(1966), the film portrays dinosaurs and humans alongside each other. Directed and scripted by Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
, it was based on a treatment by J. G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
, and nominated for an Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for its visual effects.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066561/awards
The special effects are considered a benchmark in stop-motion animation believability, and the film is referenced in the movie Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
. Stop-motion effects were created by Jim Danforth
Jim Danforth
Jim Danforth is a stop-motion animator, known for model-animation and matte painting. Danforth is known for his work on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth , a sequel of sorts to Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years B.C....
, assisted by David W. Allen
David W. Allen
David W. Allen was a film and television stop-motion model animator.Considered among the finest stop-motion model animators, Dave Allen has contributed some of the best stop-motion sequences to many feature films, rivaling the work of other premier model animators Ray Harryhausen and Jim...
and Roger Dickens.
The landscapes (Earth during the Quaternary) were filmed in Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria is the second most populous island of the Canary Islands, with a population of 838,397 which constitutes approximately 40% of the population of the archipelago...
and Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura , a Spanish island, is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. It is situated at 28°20' north, 14°00' west. At 1,660 km² it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife...
(Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
). Locations included Maspalomas beach, Ansite Mountain, Amurga and Caldera de Tejeda.
The film was released on DVD as an exclusive from Best Buy with a G-rating, but was quickly recalled because it was the uncut version and contained nudity. The original is now a collector's item.
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth was the third in Hammer's "Cave Girl" series, preceded by One Million Years B.C. (1966) and Slave Girls (1967). It was followed by Creatures the World Forgot
Creatures the World Forgot
Creatures the World Forgot is a 1971 Adventure film directed by Don Chaffey and produced and written for Hammer Films by Michael Carreras. The film concentrates on the daily struggle to survive of a tribe of Stone Age men...
(1971).
Plot summary
Tara takes Sanna to his seaside tribe, who worship the sun, where a plesiosaurPlesiosaur
Plesiosauroidea is an extinct clade of carnivorous plesiosaur marine reptiles. Plesiosauroids, are known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods...
that was roped, escapes temporarily, but is recaptured and burned to death. At the feast afterwards, we learn that a brunette woman, Ayak, is interested in Tara, but he is fascinated with Sanna who has set up a hut. He brings her food. After a fight between Sanna and Ayak in the water, Sanna's former tribe arrives, looking for her. She flees and is followed by pursuers. Hiding in a tree, a boa
Boa
The Boidae are a family of nonvenomous snakes found in America, Africa, Europe, Asia and some Pacific Islands. Relatively primitive snakes, adults are medium to large in size, with females usually larger than the males. Two subfamilies comprising eight genera and 43 species are currently...
tries to wrap itself around her but attacks and kills one of the men, whom the three other men can't help. They think Sanna is in a nearby cave, but a Chasmosaurus
Chasmosaurus
Chasmosaurus is a genus of ceratopsid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Period of North America. Its name means 'opening lizard', referring to the large openings in its frill . With a length of and a weight of , Chasmosaurus was a ceratopsian of average size...
attacks instead, wounding the men. Vultures, not content as scavengers, take swipes at the wounded. When Tara seeks Sanna, he finds the one man dead and, after the triceratops charges and runs off a cliff, rescues the others.
A funeral pyre at sea is followed by a tribal frenzy during which Sanna's hut gets burned and Tara runs away. Sanna meanwhile has faced a vicious prehistoric long-tongued lizard and is nearly eaten by a plant. She cuts off her hair to escape the plant. Tara unfortunately thinks Sanna has been eaten by the man-eating plant.
Sanna sleeps in a large dinosaur eggshell. The other egg hatches and the dinosaur imprints. The parent, thinking Sanna has hatched, brings her a deer carcass. Sanna plays with her new sibling. She dives and catches fish in her teeth. She finds her dinosaur involved in a fight with a few men, and she call off the dinosaur.
After an incident involving Tara vs. a giant Rhamphorhynchus
Rhamphorhynchus
Rhamphorynchus may refer to:*Rhamphorhynchus, a genus of pterosaur*Rhamphorhynchus, a former monotypic genus of orchid, containing only the species now called Aspidogyne mendoncae...
, he and Sanna reunite and go to her cave, witnessed by a lookout. When Tara returns to the tribe, he is challenged, tied to a raft, and set to sea with the raft burning. A Mosasaur knocks over the raft; Tara escapes and staggers back to Sanna. But the tribe is still searching for Sanna, and see smoke from her fire. The two run, swim, climb, and witness some dinosaur fights, but are captured. Sanna's dino sibling rescues her, but Tara they prepare to burn again. A giant crab kills a few men as the weather grows ominous again. The moon seems to be forming, and a tidal wave looms. Sanna arrives to save Tara from the giant crab
Crab
True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
, and a raft escape begins to take shape. The tribal leader tries commanding the water to heel. Ayak gets sucked into quicksand, and the leader is drowned. Sanna and Tara and two other people survive and witness an eclipse, as now the moon exists.
Cast
- Victoria VetriVictoria Vetri-Biography:Vetri was born in San Francisco, California to parents who were immigrants from Italy. She attended Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California between 1959 and 1963 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modelling in her teens. Vetri is a singer and...
as Sanna - Robin Hawdon as Tara
- Patrick AllenPatrick AllenJohn Keith Patrick Allen was a British film, television and voice actor.-Life and career:Allen was born in Nyasaland , where his father was a tobacco farmer. After his parents returned to Britain, he was evacuated to Canada during World War II where he remained to finish his education at McGill...
as Kingsor - Drewe HenleyDrewe HenleyDrewe Henley is a British actor. He had a variety of roles in film, television and theatre including as Red X-Wing Squadron Leader Garven Dreis in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He retired from acting due to manic depression, from which he has since recovered...
as Khaku - Sean CaffreySean CaffreySean Caffrey is an actor.He is best remembered for his performances on television. Credits include: Coronation Street, Z-Cars, Sutherland's Law, Oil Strike North, Survivors, Doctor Who , The Professionals, Minder, Bergerac and Edge of Darkness...
as Kane - Magda KonopkaMagda KonopkaMagda Konopka is a Polish former model and actress. She was born in Warsaw.-Filmography:* Becket * Thrilling * Sette monaci d'oro * Pleasant Nights...
as Ulido - Imogen HassallImogen HassallImogen Hassall was an English actress who appeared in 33 films during the 1960s and 1970s.- Early life :...
as Ayak - Patrick HoltPatrick HoltPatrick Holt was a British film and television actor.-Biography:Patrick Holt's real name was Patrick G. Parsons. Some of his childhood was spent in India with his Uncle. Patrick was sent to Christ's Hospital, a famous charity school in England, UK...
as Ammon - Jan Rossini as Rock Girl
- Carol HawkinsCarol HawkinsCarol Hawkins is an English actress.Carol trained at the Corona Stage School. London stage shows have included, Sextet, Run for Your Wife, See How They Run, Wife Begins at Forty, The Undertaking also including tours such as Time and Time Again, Bedroom Farce, Wait Until Dark, Dirty Linen...
as Yani