FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Only G-Rated Film Best Buy Ever Carried… With Nudity [SFW]
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, even when things seem dire, no, sacrificing a blonde will not make it better…
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
(Dist.: Hammer Films; Dir.: Val Guest)
It’s one of the major truisms about Hollywood: If something works, you keep doing it to death. And in 1966, One Million Years B.C. worked really well. Hammer Films was happy with the returns, and the success of breakout star Raquel Welch gave Hammer confidence in their business plan, which was to get a bunch of animated dinosaurs on set with a knockout actress in a flimsy bikini, then sit back and enjoy.
And yes, that last sentence could describe the expectation of both the suits and the target audience…
Unfortunately, a formula is only as good as its ingredients, and Hammer was forced to repeat the formula with two of those unavailable. Welch was going on to other roles that required less skin and more dialog (she had all of three lines in One Million Years B.C., none of them in an established language), and Ray Harryhausen, the artist responsible for the dinosaurs the last go-round, was committed to working on another film for Warner Brothers 7 Arts, The Valley of Gwangi.
As for the lead, that fell to Victoria Vetri. While she had been in various bit parts on television in such shows as Bonanza, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Batman, it was more likely her being named Playmate of the Year for 1968 by Playboy (under the nom nue of Angela Dorian) that helped her get the gig. Considering the requirements of the role, the only serious challenge the producer posed to her was to dye her hair blonde.
While in our time and place that may not seem to be a major limiter, in the world the film takes place, that’s a serious hardship. As the picture opens, the omens are so bad for one tribe that their only response to the frightening darkness in the sky above is to sacrifice blonde members of their tribe, who are corralled together to have on hand the way cattle are penned in anticipation of an impromptu barbecue competition coming up.
Our now-blonde heroine, Sanna, decides to bolt the ceremony, and cliff dives her way to freedom, where she gets rescued by a beachcomber tribe that doesn’t have a blonde-on-the-altar policy. She’s met with open arms by these people, looking to get into the arms of Tara (Robin Hawdon), to the dismay of the woman in the tribe who already had eyes on Tara, Ayak (Imogen Hassall), leading to an active disagreement that involves some pushing, shoving, and other pre-civilization forms of discussion.
After the catfight in the surf between these two fur-clad actresses, the production sets up a rhythm as it moves on to the requisite set pieces. We get plenty of dinosaur action thanks to Danforth’s stop-mo work, and quite a number of scenes where Vetri is in danger of making this a break-out role, trying to prevent her top from failing to save her modesty. (In fact, foreign releases included a bit more exposed parts than the American cut, which was rated G; the only chance domestic audiences had to see the nude scenes was an accidental release of the extended cut on the DVD release through Best Buy in 2010, making it probably the only G-rated film with serious skin to be sold at that store.)
Other than the dinosaurs and the other savage attractions (ahem…), there’s not much else to keep you watching if you’re not a fan of either. The story such as it exists is a set of strung together set pieces with large plants and dinosaurs threatening our heroine, who uses a fake language to discuss the plot points. Between utterances of “Akita!” at almost anything thrown at the cave people, we watch as they survive dangers from aggressive fauna and flora, and witness the birth of the moon in our skies.
And no, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but if you’re on board with dinosaurs and later-evolved-looking hominids running around together, you did kind of bring it on yourself if you’re still watching.
Sadly, the film did not generate the business or interest of its predecessor, and as a result expectations that the film would lead to bigger and better things for everyone involved proved not to pan out. Vetri did not see the same success from being the lead here that Welch did in her film, and other than one of her Playboy shots being used as a page in Pete Conrad’s Apollo 12 checklist on the lunar surface, the roles offered her stayed small and soon dried up. As of this writing she’s serving a nine-year term for attempted voluntary manslaughter, while Hassall’s similar career setbacks led her to take her own life in 1980. Danforth would face continual frustration during the 1970s, and his subsequent work on giant beasts on screen for the soft-porn parody Flesh Gordon, the comedy Caveman with Ringo Starr, and assisting Harryhausen on Clash of the Titans would go uncredited.
Hammer, having gotten frustrated with the expense required to combine stop-mo creatures with prehistorically attired actresses, decided that for the third trip to the well to just do away with the dinosaurs. Their effort, Creatures the World Forgot, was less well received that the film before, and the whole “prehistoric action” sub-genre would go extinct.
After that, once the akita hit the fan, there were just not enough blondes out there they could sacrifice to make it ever work again.
NEXT TIME: Snails? Things were bad enough around here, and now we have a snail problem, too…?
