A Tale Of Two Dojos - The Dojo Strikes Back!

And just like that the old Rip Jagger's Dojo is back in business. The comments functions which so mysteriously vanished a week ago have returned. So I'll be scuttling back to the old place posthaste for normal regular updates. I know all this whipping around might be a bit confusing for folks, this place has served its role as a lifeboat well. I'm going to keep it open for a while to experiment perhaps with some ways it might be useful on a regular basis. Stay tuned. 

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Creatures The World Forgot!

This 1971 Hammer effort is a very odd movie. Creatures the World Forgot is the last of Hammer's dinosaur and dame movies. Some count Prehistoric Women in the mix but that film's more like She than anything else. One Million B.C. and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth preceded this one and with each film the budget got a bit smaller. This movie has the same director as One Million B.C. and so we get a more serious feel than the somewhat sillier When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth but without a budget there was not much he could do. There are extensive scenes of an earthquake used from One Million B.C. and given the difference in the looks of the characters are very jarring. 

One of the biggest problems with this movie is that the main characters don't arrive until fully halfway through the flick. This movie shows us a few generations of primitive peoples and the core story is about two boys born to a leader of the tribe, one dark haired and resentful and clumsy, and the other blonde and competent and prudent. We only get to this story after watching the tribe trudge through the desert for forty minutes or thereabouts. The slow pacing and unclear narrative is hurt further by the decision to use no dialogue. Now both the previous movies had very little dialogue but this last feature doesn't even give us names to hang onto our characters who are further burdened by some of the worst wigs I've ever seen in a feature film. 

There are no dinosaurs in this movie either. Other than the attributes of Raquel Welch and Victoria Vetri the presence of dinosaurs was a major attraction for filmgoers. This movie has its own bombshell actress in Julie Ege, but she shows up at an even later part of the movie. And the movie doesn't really do any job at all of showcasing her talents. She won a search by Hammer to win the role. 

But that said the movie does have a minor hypnotic effect after you've watched it for an hour or so, you feel compelled to see it come to some sort of conclusion. I just wish that had made more sense along the way. 

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When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth!

When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. was produced hot on the heels of the successful One Million B.C. which introduced the world to Raquel Welch in her delightful fur bikini, this one gives us Victoria Vetri in an even more revealing sliver of clothing. The overarching plot of the movie (and there is a mild spoiler here) is that in some mythical moment in the deep past when man and dinosaurs somehow held sway together on the planet it did not yet have its Moon, but it would get one. That's pretty much the plot if you ignore all the scrimmaging around various and sundry actors do as they rush around trying to finish off Vetri's character named "Sanna".

She was to be a sacrifice to the Sun, but she escaped and the rest of the movie is about how the Cliff People try to find and kill her though she has come under the protection of the Beach People. Sanna escapes again and finds herself reborn (sort of) and in command of a pretty neat dinosaur in a King Kong-ish moment. Her lover Tara finds her a few times and eventually after many very long minutes of scampering about they get together as Earth gets its Moon, in rather violent fashion.

The movie is handsomely done and offers up some pretty cave dwellers (who almost never go into caves) but spend time mostly on the beach. There are a few different dinosaurs, some stop-motion and some not who really don't seem to be much of a threat to people unless the people insist on walking right in on top of them. The stop-motion work is by Jim Danforth who worked with Harryhausen and was nominated for an Oscar for a second time, for his special effects work on this flick.

This movie seems mostly to be about Vetri and other pretty actresses strutting about in nearly the all-together, and to be fair there's quite a bit of skin for man fans too. The movie hasn't enough plot twists of sufficient variety though to keep me on my toes throughout. Slash out about twenty minutes, maybe a few more and you might have a movie which earns its prehistoric keep.

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One Million Years B.C.!

One Million Years B.C. is not Raquel Welch's first movie, but it is the one that made her the sexual icon of my generation. This image of the gorgeous Ms. Welch in her patented fur bikini dominating a scene filled with cavemen battling dinosaurs speaks effectively about this Hammer Films remake of the 1940's caveman classic starring Victor Mature. John Richardson is the caveman Tumak who falls out with his father the leader of the Rock Tribe, and must seek his own destiny only to fall into the caring hands of the Shell People and specifically Loana played by the stunning Ms. Welch. 

Aside from the very special effects that the lovely Raquel brings to the big screen we also enjoy the work of Ray Harryhausen and his stop-motion magic. Thanks to him we get to enjoy an Allosaurus fight with humans and a battle between a Triceratops and a larger than ought-to-be Ceratosaurus. There's also an enormous turtle and some good old Pteranodons. We see a brontosaurus as well as a few tricked up Iquanas to fill up screentime., Suffice it to say there are lots of dandy creatures to juice up the eyeballs of any monster fan. And still it's hard to take your peepers off of Welch as she prances in the water and across the rocks. 

There is very little dialogue in this movie, and communication is made for the most part by meaningful glances and intense actions. Beside his problems with his father Akhoba, Tumak has issues with his brother Sakana. The Rock Tribe is a violent bunch with a every-man-for-himself approach to living that makes it difficult to create a true tribal cohesion. Threat and intimidation are what make keep the order and no one seems to trust anyone else. Contrasted with that is the Shell Tribe which has found some semblance of civilization such rudimentary farming and even schooling. This group work together and that lesson is the critical one that Tumak tries to bring to his people when he and Loana return to the sharp mountains. 

One of the my favorite sections is the lair of the Ape Men who exist inside a vast cave with a tree in the middle. The tree is made possible by a hole in the rock ceiling and the Ape Men seem to worship it. We never get a really good look at them and that makes them all the more mysterious and threatening. The viewer is forced to work hard to piece together the motives of the characters and watching closely is the key.

 

It's a good movie which uses its time effectively and succinctly, and each time I watch it again I'm reminded of how entertaining it can be on all sorts of levels. 

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