Call Me Stormy

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Archive for the tag “dinosaurs”

The Land That Time Forgot

One of the greatest genres of all cinema, the “Lost World” movie, took a hit in the 1970s. Ray Harryhausen, the creature effects genius behind The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and One Million Years B.C., made his last prehistoric-monster movie in 1969 — The Valley of Gwangi. And the wonders of CGI hadn’t yet revitalized the genre. The 1970s, thus, became the lost decade for “Lost Worlds” on the silver screen, with one notable exception.

That exception: A series of four films by the team of director Kevin Connor, producer John Dark and star Doug McClure based on the Caprona novels by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first, and arguably the best of the series, was The Land That Time Forgot (1975), today’s Trillion ($) Movie. Here, an American adventurer played by McClure, along with a German U-Boat crew and some British stowaways, rediscover the long-lost island of Caprona in the south seas near Antarctica. Despite its location, Caprona is a balmy tropical paradise, kept warm by hot springs, burning tar pits and belching volcanoes. Miraculously, ferocious dinosaurs still roam the grounds as well as bands of troglodytes.

It takes a half-hour before our heroes reach Caprona, and the creatures there might look a bit cheesy, but the action remains good, clean fun, bolstered by a solid script from British sci-fi author Michael Moorcock. Enjoy, and stop back next Friday for another Trillion ($) Movie.

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The Sons Of Hercules

What’s Hercules’ son Maciste doing as a time traveler? Find out in FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1962), which transports our intrepid hero back to prehistoric times to wrangle with dinosaurs and tangle with moonbat cavemen who have stolen the women of a sun-worshiping tribe. The dinosaurs don’t breathe any fire, the cavemen have underwear on beneath their loincloths, and there’s not even a Solyndra cameo!

Still, the excitement mounts as Maciste (played by Rex Lewis from SEXTETTE) leads the sun-men into the bowels of a volcano to pummel the moonbats and save the enslaved women from a fate worse than death. Today’s Trillion $ Movie offering was shot on a shoestring, in Yugoslavia, in glorious Cro-Magnacolor, more than 50 years ago. Stop by every Friday for a new Trillion Dollar Movie (T$M), something vintage from the vaults of YouTube.

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