King Dinosaur

First of all, let me clear up a frequently sighted misconception: only two brief scenes were taken from the 1940's "One Million, B.C.". The scene with a wooly mammoth trying to shake off the fake fur and another bit with a Komodo dragon sticking it's tongue out for the camera. THAT'S IT! All of the iguana scenes were filmed especially for "KING DINOSAUR".

This is an unbelievable time capsule of a movie. It has all of the popular science fiction elements: Space travel, dinosaurs, and atomic bombs. Filmed during a weekend at Bronson's Canyon in Hollywood, this bit of cinematic tripe should give hope to any aspiring film maker. The fact that it was produced and actually released in theaters is an amazement.

It only has a cast of four people (the other glimpses of humans are from military stock footage). The dialogue is ridiculous. The acting is poor. The handling of animals is cruel. The entire plot doesn't have a single thread of reality in it. If you view a particular scene with the salamander you'll see a human hand holding onto the reptile's tail. If you view the scene where the iguana is first encountered, you'll see the actress get her head shoved into a rock and wince in very real pain. You'll find dozens of contrived scenes and numerous examples of impossibilities that are shrugged off by the scientific quartet.

I love this movie! This film ranks up there with the Marx Brothers "Duck Soup" as one I could view repeatedly and not get bored. There is just something about it. It's the equivalent of a ten car pile-up on the freeway. You are dumbfounded by the carnage. You want to look away, but you can't. You see so much in such a brief time.

This is a perfect example of the "So bad it's good" movie genre. You'll catch small errors in continuity and fact through repeated viewings. Completely silly from start to finish without intending to be. The final line is bloated with irony. Did the lead actor mean for the line to be interpreted sarcastically or with pride? You be the judge!

A new planet moves into our solar system and four scientists (two couples) are sent to explore Planet Nova. In between romantic interludes, the cast faces an iguana masquerading as a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

This is just bad, no bones about it. With the poster art, and the title, you would think this would be about a dinosaur. But it is not. Nope. Somehow a planet identical to Earth is near the real Earth, so four people wander it while stock footage of different animals play in the background. Then, when you think there might be a dinosaur, it is just an iguana with Gordon's usual silly tricks of making animals look big.

Although the lemur was cute, that hardly redeems this stinker.

OK, never mind that this film seems to be 30 minutes of actual movie time, padded with another 33 minutes of stock footage (some of it swiped from 'One Million BC') process shots and traveling mattes. Never mind the 'emotional scientists', especially the blond housewife who goes to pieces so often she should have come pre-assembled like a box of Legos. Never mind the brain-dead science on display, where Planet Nova appears to be exactly like Wisconsin, except for the lemurs, giant bees, rubber alligators, and a lake with an island full of dinosaurs. Never mind that at one point, the blond lady says, "Maybe we don't need to keep watch. Joe (the lemur) seems to be pretty good at shouting alarms!"

I can get past all that, in the name of 50's sci-fi conventions and low budgets.

But 5-6 minutes from the end, after one couple has rescued the other from the cave where they were trapped, and the two 'dinosaurs' are wrestling with each other, the blond towheaded guy says, and I am pretty sure I got this right: "I brought the Atomic Bomb. I think this would be a good time to use it!"

So not only do the scientists nuke the island and kill everything on it for no good reason (the friggin dinosaurs never leave the island, and the party could have simply rowed away from the island and never seen the dinos again)...they set the timer for 30 MINUTES and trust they can get across the island ON FOOT past all the other dangerous wildlife, get into their rubber rafts, paddle them across the lake to the other shore and find shelter. In THIRTY FREAKING MINUTES!?!?

I realize this is just an excuse to try to inject some suspense into the ending, but for crying out loud! That timer clearly could have been for several hours, and the scientists could have STROLLED back, instead of running in a panic for their lives. (There is a hilarious shot in the rubber raft as they near shore where the towhead appears to be repeatedly shoving the blond lady back down on her face for no coherent reason.)

I feel bad for the four actors in this silly exercise in White Manifest Destiny. A couple of them went on the do a lot more work, but working on this thing must have seemed like a death-knell to their careers at the time. And if there was any justice, Bert Gordon wouldn't have had a career after this movie either.

1 star added to the deserved 'awful' rating for sheer goofiness, and also for the naiveté and optimism that permeates the film.

"King Dinosaur" takes place on a new planet that has entered our solar system. Four astronauts are sent from Earth to explore it. The plot is about what happens to them during this exploration. The science that the kids saw while watching this movie must make science teachers cringe. Everything about this new planet is laughable and the explorers are a joke. It's just like being in the woods on Earth. The monsters are ordinary earth animals and insects. Some are enlarged, some have fins or other things put on them to change their appearance and some are just the way they look on Earth. Throw in some stock footage and you have "King Dinosaur". The astronauts are more on a camping trip than investigating a new planet. The two men are macho and the two women scream a lot. The so called special effects were bad in 1955 and are just laughable today. The main attraction to this movie is the humor you can find in it. The only entertainment value I found with this film was seeing how naive the characters were and how badly done the dinosaurs were. Oddly enough, it is bad enough to make it worth watching. It's good for laughs and to see what was around in the 50s. I wouldn't count on much more.

The movie starts with the narrator rattling off dates like they matter. That's the best thing about this movie.