WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH they (a) did a better job than we have since they stuck around for, give or take, 165,000,000 years (b) wondered why those pale upright ground dwelling monkeys they occasionally chased, trampled on or gobbled up dressed their fit, tanned, buxom females in bikinis and had dawn-of-anger issues with blondes or (c) certainly would have voiced hearty growls if they knew that someday (like now) there would be humans able to read, tell time, order take-out and program a Blu-ray player yet also be so ahistorically stupid as to actually believe we once co-existed with fast-moving, 40-foot, 8 ton reptilian carnivores. Could the answer lie in Scripture…?

Sacrificial maiden on left was runner up Miss Cretaceous Period, 275,344,618 B.C.   Later co-anchor of really long-running ‘Stegosaurus & Friends’

“A time of beginnings, of darkness, of light, of the Sun, the Earth, the sea, of man. The beginnings of man living with man, by the sea, in the mountains. The beginnings of love, hate and fear. Man’s fear of the unknown. Man’s fear lest the sun should leave him, leave him alone in everlasting darkness. A time when the color of a woman’s hair condemned her for sacrifice to the Sun.”

The somber narrated opener lays out a hysterhistorical template so that we can then more easily grok the ‘spoken dialogue’ that adorns the rest of the script, a 27-word ‘vocabulary’ that will leave you conversant enough—tongue spoken?—to impress others at school, during parties or in court, with fits-all-occasion barks of “Akita”, “Neecha”, “zak”, “neecro” and “m’kan”.

Ayak, pissed that chick from twinkly lights in sky region used her bronzer, about to let Tara know that blondie will not be having more fun as long as Ayak is around and has key to loin pit

Waaay back, the Cliff Tribe regularly sacrifices young BBB’s (beautiful busty blondes) to appease not the moon, because it hadn’t spun into existence yet (look it up!), or simple brunette jealousy, but ‘Akhoba’, the Sun God. During one such watch & learn event, ‘Sanna’ (Victoria Vetri, 25, Long May She Run) escapes her turn by falling into the ocean, to be fetched from snack fate by fellas of the more liberal Seaside Tribe. Temporarily spared, she’s ogled (understandably) by ‘Tara’ (Robin Hawdon)—unaware that he’s pre-named for a famous plantation—who is the chosen dude of ‘Ayak’ (Imogen Hassall, no slouch in the Molten Lava Dept.) a proto-brunette not impressed by Sanna’s likely chances to dominate cheerleader tryouts, invent skiing and be inspiration for an entire subset of ‘dumb’ jokes. Not enough, Sanna has the ability to charm, talk with and boss around (sweetly) not just men but a mama & offspring pair of Megalosaurus’s (on the “run & hide!” order of old friends Allosaurus and T-Rex). A reptile whisperer and a pinup: who gives an igneous rock whether she can cook?

Akita! Barney, Akita!

Speaking of dinos, in this opus, the special effects guys under the supervision of Jim Danforth (The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm, The 7 faces Of Dr. Lao) provide a Tylosaurus (sea thing), a Rhamphorhynchus (similar to Pterodactyl with an even more entertaining name), a Chasmosaurus (like a Triceratops), a Elasmosaurus (a sort of Plesiosaur), those Sanna-tamed Megalosaurs and some effectively creepy giant crabs. Stop motion done to a tee, although they do sneak in some quick shots of a magnified lizard from 1960’s The Lost World (don’t kid a former kid).

The storyline for the full frontal foolishness of this movie sprang from no less than the well-regarded author J.G. Ballard, though what he thought of director Val Guest’s screenplay we can but ponder. The smash success Hammer Films had in 1966 with Raquel Welch and One Million Years, B.C. prompted a brief, memorably daffy slate of cave dweller romps. This one followed Prehistoric Women (endowed with the sublime slink of Martine Beswick) and reaped enough box office ($3,800,000 in the States alone, 69th in ’70) that it was tracked a year later by Creatures The World Forgot. Shooting exteriors in the Canary Islands, budgeted around £566,000, Guest knocked this off for the challenge and fun of it: he had a resume that boasted top notch winners The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, Yesterday’s Enemy and The Day The Earth Caught Fire. 

Oh, how I would have loved this as a kid (for the creatures) and as a smart aleck teen (for everything else). Maturity achieved (cough), it’s still a kick, for the critters (neat stuff, Oscar nominated for Special Visual Effects), the consistent level of laugh-aloud dumbness (probably shown as documentaries in several States), and the copius coverage of the hottest cavebabes Hammer’s selfless rare bone experts could drag by the proverbial hair into civilized 1970 A.D.  For Bedrock sure, a certain 23-year old named Steven was paying attention: the rousing finish to the first Jurassic Park was capped by a Tyrannosaurus Rex roaring in triumph as a banner fluttered down from above proclaiming “When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth”.

100 minutes, with Patrick Allen (as ‘Kingsor’, chief hard guy of the Cliff folk—“Kingsor, neekro!”), Drewe Henley (as ‘Khaku’—“Khaku, akita!”), Sean Caffey (as ‘Kane’—“Kane, m’kan!”), and Carol Hawkins (as ‘Yani’—“Yani, zak!”).

The proudest of boys, already masked up

* Victoria Vetri aka Angela Dorian; now there’s an interesting latter day homo sapien. (1) grad of Hollywood High, which seems perfect. (2) small role as unlucky guest tenant in Rosemary’s Baby (3) Playboy Playmate of the Year, 1968, helping keep hope alive for the troops mired in Vietnam (4), cancels invitation to Sharon Tate’s home during the night Tate was murdered by the Manson creeps (5) survived an attack in her own house in 1980 (6) shot her 4th husband, was convicted of attempted involuntary manslaughter, spent seven years in prison, released when she was 73.

Let’s add a comment she made about the filming of When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth: “People were skinny-dipping, drinking sangria instead of tea at four in the afternoon, getting drunk on their asses. It was party time…”