Dinosaurus!

Dinosaurus is one of  those movies I've always wanted to see since I learned of it but somehow never found on TV nor ever ran across otherwise. It's the third collaboration between producer Jack H. Harris and director Irvin Yeaworth, the first two being the very famous The Blob and the less famous 4D Man.

The cast is literally no one you've ever heard of. As I watched the cast show up at the beginning of the movie I recognized not a single save maybe perhaps for supporting actor Paul Lukather who had a role in This Island Earth I think. But the actors aren't the show here, it's the dinosaurs which are given life of sorts by means of the tried and true stop-motion technques refined to an art form by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. Neither is on this show, and the dinos are minimal at best and wisely used rather sparingly.

Some screen time is taken by Greg Martell who portrays a caveman who is incredibly revived alongside the dinos themselves. He's funny and tragic and all sorts of things and arguably the best performance in the show. The sight of him and a young boy (who you want to strangle very other minute) riding atop a Brontosaur immediately made me think of Dino Boy from Hanna-Barbera.

The movie attempts to off a blend of danger and humor and I give it credit. But the plot is so daft that there's little to hang onto here. While poking under a Caribbean island some guys find two intact dinosaurs which they drag to shore and leave there until lightning just so happens to revive them. Also a caveman floats ashore and starts to investigate his new world. A lot of time is spent talking about a fort and then we have construction equipment being used to fend off a T-Rex. That's what I think the movie was about, getting to that delightful scene, but the getting there could be ragged.

Rip Off