Ready for another Jurassic World? Michael Klossner has just the answer: Dinosaurus!
Arkansan Klossner is the author of Prehistoric Humans in Film and Television (McFarland, 2006). Jurassic World is "really an inferior remake" of Dinosaurus!, he says, favoring the 1960 lizard bash.
In both movies, people try to keep from being eaten by dinosaurs on an island. For $150 million, versus the $450,000 budget for Dinosaurus!, Jurassic World has more dinosaurs.
But the old film is better in several ways, Klossner says, notably that "Dinosaurus! has the Neanderthal Man, played by Gregg Martell. I consider this the best performance of a prehistoric person in any film." His favorite Neanderthal stands out for being "brave, strong, funny and chivalrous."
Science generally holds that people never lived with dinosaurs. But movies show they did -- and do -- as sure as Fred Flintstone and Dino.
"Otherwise, it's really hard to get audience interest," Klossner says. "Somebody has to do the talking."
He cites another three among the all-time best dinosaur movies:
• King Kong (1933): The gorilla goes monkey-a-mano with a T. rex.
• Gertie the Dinosaur (1914): One of the first animated cartoons starred a dinosaur that flings an elephant for the fun of it.
• One Million Years B.C. (1966): The movie poster centered on Raquel Welch in her cave-cutie fur bikini, but Klossner points to Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animated dinosaurs.
For even more expert know-how on dinosaur movies, Klossner recommends Kentucky author Mark F. Berry' s 509-page The Dinosaur Filmography (McFarland, 2005).
Style on 07/19/2015