When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Theatrical release poster
by Tom Chantrell
Directed by Val Guest
Produced by Aida Young
Written by Val Guest
Story by J.G. Ballard
(Treatment)
Starring Victoria Vetri
Robin Hawdon
Patrick Allen
Imogen Hassall
Music by Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography Dick Bush
Edited by Peter Curran
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
  • 25 October 1970 (1970-10-25) (UK)
Running time
 100 minutes (UK)
96 minutes (USA)
Country United Kingdom
United States[1]
Language Aboriginal languages
English
Budget £566,000[2]

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970 British prehistoric monster film from Hammer Film Productions. The film, which was produced by Aida Young, was written and directed by Val Guest. It starred Playboy Playmate Victoria Vetri. This 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).[3]

Plot

A tribe on a cliff are about to sacrifice three blonde women. Three priests, wearing dinosaur hides, are about to kill them for their Sun God, but one of them, Sanna, escapes and jumps off the cliff. She is rescued by Tara and some men on a raft.

Tara takes Sanna to his seaside tribe, who also worship the Sun God. After building a hut for herself, She joins them at a feast and celebration of a successful hunt. An Elasmosaurus attacks the seaside tribe until it is lured to a store of oil and burned to death. The feast continues, and a brunette woman, Ayak, is interested in Tara, but he is too fascinated with Sanna. He brings her food. After a ritual fight between Sanna and Ayak in the water, Sanna's former tribe arrives, looking for her. She flees, and her former tribe gives chase. Hiding in a tree, a large Gigantophis sees her, but attacks and kills one of the men instead. They think Sanna is in a nearby cave, but a Chasmosaurus makes its lair there, and disembowels one man before injuring another with a deep gash. Vultures, drawn by the carcasses, attack the wounded man. When Tara seeks Sanna, he finds the one man dead and, after the Chasmosaurus charges him. He is chased to a cliff, where he hides on a small ledge as the Chasmosaurus loses its footing and plunges to its death.

A funeral pyre at the shore is followed by a tribal frenzy during which an enraged Ayak burns down Sanna's hut. Sanna meanwhile, running through a rainforest, sees a reptile, and runs before it notices her. She becomes trapped by a carnivorous plant, and cuts off a portion of her hair to escape.

Sanna sleeps in a large Megalosaurus eggshell. The other egg hatches, and the Megalosaurus (of a nonexistent species of quadrupedal predator — all predatory dinosaurs are bipedal by default) thinks Sanna is its sibling. The parent, thinking Sanna is one of its own, brings her a deer carcass. Sanna, enamored by the beast, plays hide-and-seek with it, and teaches it to sit. She dives into a nearby lake and catches a fish in her teeth. She returns and finds the mother Megalosaurus in a fight with two men, but she distracts it so they can escape.

While Tara is hiking back to his tribe after getting a drink of water, he is carried off by a giant Rhamphorhynchus with a thirty-foot wingspan. At its nest, he kills it by ripping its wing, and then knocking it off its nest when it lands. Tara sees Sanna being followed by the dinosaur and assumes she is being chased, but he runs to her and finds she has domesticated it. They reunite at Sanna's cave, where they express their love for one another and have passionate sex.

They are seen by a lookout, however, and when Tara returns to the tribe, he is sacrificed to another Elasmosaurus. Ayak cries as he is set adrift on a burning raft to the animal, held in place by another woman and forced to watch. However, when they are gone, he re-emerges from the water, still alive. Seeing they have left and somehow having evaded the beast, he escapes to Sanna.

The tribe is still searching for Sanna, and see smoke from her fire. The two run away into a forest, where Sanna's Megalosaurus "parent" rescues her, but as for Tara they prepare to burn him again. Giant fiddler crabs kill a few people as the weather grows ominous again. The Moon seems to be forming, and a tidal wave looms. Sanna arrives to save Tara from one of the giant crabs, and a raft escape begins to take shape. The tribal leader tries commanding the water to heel, and is swept away and (presumably) drowns. While Ayak is running on the sand, she steps into a trap of quicksand and is sucked down to her death. Giant waves hit the shore, but Tara, Sanna, and a few others survive on a raft. As the waters calm, the survivors stop to witness a lunar eclipse, as the Moon exists.

Cast

Production

Writing

Director Val Guest's screenplay was based on a treatment by J. G. Ballard (author of Empire of the Sun). But like Hammer's other prehistoric films, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth anachronistically portrays the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era from about 252 to 66 million years ago living alongside Homo sapiens of the late Quaternary period (±200,000 years ago). The film's characters use a language that was specially written for the film, albeit of only a dozen words or so, a frequent one being "neekro", which means "kill".

Filming

Exteriors were shot on Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. Locations included Maspalomas beach, Ansite Mountain, Amurga, and Caldera de Tejeda.

The stop-motion creature effects were created by Jim Danforth, assisted by David W. Allen and Roger Dickens.

Reception

The film was popular at the box office.[4]

Award & nominations

The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 44th Academy Awards in 1971. It lost to the Disney film, Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Home media

The film was released on DVD as an exclusive from Best Buy with a G-rating but was quickly recalled because it was the original uncut version and contained nudity; it is now a collector's item.

Homage and Tributes

The special effects are considered a benchmark in realistic stop-motion animation. The film is referenced in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park with a streaming banner in the visitor's center that plays a visibly prominent role in the final action scene of the film.

References

  1. ↑ "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth". American Film Institute. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  2. ↑ Bruce G. Hallenbeck, British Cult Cinema: Hammer Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Hemlock Books 2011 p204
  3. ↑ McKay, Sinclair (2007). A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films. p. 105.
  4. ↑ Marcus Hearn, The Hammer Vault, Titan Books, 2011 p111
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