Valley of the Dragons (1961) Reviews

• great memories here

  asinyne2009-10-21

  I grew up in a tiny little town that had nothing going on except a run down movie theater. I recall somebody taking me to see this movie when I was a little kid. I'm guessing that Valley hit our screen around 63 or 64, a good two years after its release. Anyhow, I loved every second of it and still have vivid memories of the movie to this day. (I caught it one or two other times on TV during the seventies) It had a very dramatic opening scene: two duelist were suddenly swept away just before they were about to kill each other. Then they find themselves on a strange world filled with huge dinosaurs doing battle with each other. As if that wasn't enough they soon are under attack by savage primates. I'm guessing it sorta goes downhill after that but this film was a major event in my very ordinary little life back in the early sixties. I will always be grateful for that no matter how this holds up in comparison to today's stuff. It was pure cinema magic back then.

• Long time, no see

  moondragon855012004-06-30

  This movie was on fairly regularly when I was a kid; my cousin and I would frequently watch it together (she didn't share my enthusiasm for the animal skin-clad women, but she loved a scene where one of the cavemen gets eaten by a dragon). It was years later that I saw One Million B.C. for the first time; I knew it was hailed as a classic, but while I found it enjoyable (I fell in love with Carole Landis), VOTD still held more of a mystique for me. I have since looked for it in various video rental places with no success. It seems that these days even the networks aim for more sophisticated fare and overlook simpler joys like this. Just because the movies have graduated to Jurassic Park shouldn't mean that we can't suspend our disbelief for a brief period. VOTD should not be allowed to become extinct!

• Nope, no elastic in prehistoric times...

  Squashpants2003-08-15

  I cannot believe you guys! All this claptrap and no mention of Joan Staley's infamous underwater swimming scene?!? I saw this movie when it was first released and I was barely pubescent at that time. The audience was quietly taking in the Verneian antics of our shanghaied duo, until one of the main characters (I forget which) runs off for a swim with the Joan Staley character (Deena). OK, so Deena takes off her prehistoric sunsuit and lo and behold she is wearing a Stone-Age bikini! OK, nothing to get excited about --- pretty chaste even for 1961. No elastic in prehistoric times, though, so the top fits rather loosely. So the couple jump in the lagoon and start playfully swimming and diving underwater. The decent underwater cinematography lingers on each of the characters as they cavort about. It quickly becomes evident that Deena's bikini top is not going to hold her fairly ample anatomy securely in hiding from the voyeurs in the audience. I will never forget the eruption of hoots and whistles from the darkened theater as the camera continued to follow Ms. Staley from such a point of view as to make it all too evident that Deena would have no trouble feeding any of her progeny, especially considering the equipment on display. Granted, this sort of thing hardly rates the consideration of a PG rating today, but in 1961, it was dynamite. I was at a point in my development where the fuss being made by the male members of the audience only served to make me embarrassed and uncomfortable. The scene seemed to go on forever. I was elated to be able to get recently a VHS copy of the movie (recorded, believe it or not, from a TV presentation), and waited breathlessly for the scene burned into my mind as a young lad. And there it was in all its glory. And every bit as provocative as it was in that little Galveston, Texas theater back in '61. One of the best bits of vintage, unexpected cinematic cheesecake I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.

• Stock footage, but why care?

  mark.waltz2012-06-24

  This film is so entertaining from the moment it starts that finding out through research that some of the footage was from "One Million B.C.", it didn't diminish the impact of the film for me. I was going to call my review "The Night of the Big Iguana", but I wanted to instill the point of view that having seen "One Million B.C." and this at different points in my life, I didn't even notice the difference. Only one thing in the film made me roll my eyes, and that was the silly looking underground people. But there was nothing else to laugh at, even after the premise of a comet leaving the two men about to duel all alone (as the others are whiffed away in some sort of Event Horizon) and come out of it as friendly as the Geiko gecko. I'm not really a follower of science fiction to the point where I can call myself an expert on the genre, so I had to simply accept what the two men realized had happened and just go along with the flow with that explanation and enjoy the sight of large creatures they had to hide from. Sure, it is really silly that the Frenchman (Cesare Danova) floats down the river on a palm raft as large creatures (including a snake and lizard) pass right by him as if they didn't want to disturb his nap. It is easy to overlook faulty parts of a storyline when it is presented so entertainingly. Only George Pal and Ray Harryhausen were doing successful films like this at the time, and this one wasn't either one of their talented thumbs. Fortunately, the romantic involvement between the two men and the cave women they found was subtly done not to overshadow the pre-historic nature and science fiction elements of the film. Young audiences of today might not appreciate it (to quote the son of a friend who watched "Godzilla" and told his dad that it was a man in a lizard suit.) But for those of us who remember the double creature feature (and no computer animation), it remains a lot of fun.

• This movie holds a soft spot in my head...

  Vigilante-4072001-01-25

  Okay, I admit it...this little film holds a special place in my heart. It is the absolute first movie I can ever remember watching on television. I remember watching it on a Saturday morning after cartoons, and looking at the TV Guide to see that it was actually classified as a "melodrama". All I really remember from that initial viewing was the fight between the two lizards and the attack by the giant spider. I recently managed to obtain a copy of the movie and finally re-watched it after what was probably thirty years. First of all, I never knew it was based on a Jules Verne novel, who is one of my favorite authors of all time. Too bad it was based on one of the few Verne books I haven't read. Cesare Danova is great as the French duelist who is picked up with an American who had affronted him in a disagreement over a woman. What follows turns into your standard caveman/regular-lizards-pretending-to- be-dinosaurs type film. The two end up becoming the leaders of opposing prehistoric tribes and things continue from there. The movie is nothing really that great, but it's a fun little movie that's on a par with any 1950's programmer.