"When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" is sometimes described as a sequel to "One Million Years B.C" from four years earlier, although it does not contain any of the same characters. Both films were, however, made by Hammer Films, and both are based around the premise that early humans coexisted with dinosaurs. This is not, of course, historically correct, but I would not criticise the film on that basis as it was clearly intended as a fantasy rather than a serious historical picture of life in prehistoric times. As in the earlier film, the dinosaurs are realised through stop-motion animation, although Ray Harryhausen, the great pioneer of this technique, did not actually work on the movie in person as he had done in "One Million Years B.C."
The main character in the film is an attractive blonde woman named Sanna, who is doomed to be sacrificed to the sun, the normal fate of blondes in her particular tribe. She manages to escape by jumping into the sea, and is rescued by Tara, a young man from another tribe. Tara already has a very pretty and curvaceous brunette girlfriend named Ayak, but it would appear that even in the Palaeolithic Era gentlemen preferred blondes. Tara takes a decided fancy to Sanna and her golden locks, provoking Ayak's furious jealousy. A further complication arises when Sanna's own tribe come looking for her.
One of the big attractions of Hammer's "cavemen" films, at least for male audiences, was that they all featured several glamorous actresses in revealing bikini-type costumes. (Those who prefer male flesh to the female variety will be pleased to note that the hirsute male stars all wear even less). "One Million Years B.C." had helped to make a big star of its leading lady, Raquel Welch, and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" was intended to do the same for the Playboy centrefold Victoria Vetri, but signally failed to do so. Vetri certainly had the looks of a Hollywood goddess, but seemed to lack the indefinable charisma which had taken Welch to the top. Her acting career was perhaps not helped by the fact that she was sometimes billed under her real name and sometimes under the pseudonym "Angela Dorian".
I will not try to compare the two ladies' acting skills because films of this nature do not generally require much in the way of acting. There is no comprehensible dialogue in English or any other known language; all the characters speak an invented language consisting of only about two dozen words. (The similar language spoken in "One Million Years B.C." had an even more deficient vocabulary). No subtitles are provided, and exactly what the dialogue means generally remains obscure, although it is occasionally possible to guess the meaning of individual words from the context. (It seems clear, for example, that "makan" means "dead", "to die" and possibly also "to kill", and that "nikro" means "bad" or "evil"). I was surprised to learn that the distinguished author J. G. Ballard had a hand in the script; he was clearly a less fluent writer in Cavemanese than in English.
Because they are required to do little more than proclaim nonsense syllables, none of the actors involved, Vetri included, really stand out. (At least, not for reasons other than their physical charms). As in "One Million Years B.C." the real stars are the dinosaurs which are not simply treated as the antagonists of the human characters; Sanna befriends a mother dinosaur and her baby, and this relationship is to play an important role in later plot developments..
This film is less well remembered today than its predecessor, probably because it lacked an iconic star like Raquel Welch, but to my mind it is the better of the two. Certainly, it contains its fair share of nonsense; the early scenes are said to be set "before the moon existed", but the moon clearly exists by the end of the film, implying that it has miraculously been created during the relatively short time-span of the plot. (In fact, Earth's moon is some 4.5 billion years old, much older not only than the human race but also than the dinosaurs). Nevertheless, the plot is more coherent than that of the earlier film, and the animation sequences are even better. The film-makers do not repeat the mistake which Harryhausen made of optically enlarging small, inoffensive creatures to apparently gigantic size. There was to be a third film in the series, "Creatures the World Forgot" from the following year, but as I have not seen that film for a long time will not attempt a comparison with "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth". 5/10
The main character in the film is an attractive blonde woman named Sanna, who is doomed to be sacrificed to the sun, the normal fate of blondes in her particular tribe. She manages to escape by jumping into the sea, and is rescued by Tara, a young man from another tribe. Tara already has a very pretty and curvaceous brunette girlfriend named Ayak, but it would appear that even in the Palaeolithic Era gentlemen preferred blondes. Tara takes a decided fancy to Sanna and her golden locks, provoking Ayak's furious jealousy. A further complication arises when Sanna's own tribe come looking for her.
One of the big attractions of Hammer's "cavemen" films, at least for male audiences, was that they all featured several glamorous actresses in revealing bikini-type costumes. (Those who prefer male flesh to the female variety will be pleased to note that the hirsute male stars all wear even less). "One Million Years B.C." had helped to make a big star of its leading lady, Raquel Welch, and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" was intended to do the same for the Playboy centrefold Victoria Vetri, but signally failed to do so. Vetri certainly had the looks of a Hollywood goddess, but seemed to lack the indefinable charisma which had taken Welch to the top. Her acting career was perhaps not helped by the fact that she was sometimes billed under her real name and sometimes under the pseudonym "Angela Dorian".
I will not try to compare the two ladies' acting skills because films of this nature do not generally require much in the way of acting. There is no comprehensible dialogue in English or any other known language; all the characters speak an invented language consisting of only about two dozen words. (The similar language spoken in "One Million Years B.C." had an even more deficient vocabulary). No subtitles are provided, and exactly what the dialogue means generally remains obscure, although it is occasionally possible to guess the meaning of individual words from the context. (It seems clear, for example, that "makan" means "dead", "to die" and possibly also "to kill", and that "nikro" means "bad" or "evil"). I was surprised to learn that the distinguished author J. G. Ballard had a hand in the script; he was clearly a less fluent writer in Cavemanese than in English.
Because they are required to do little more than proclaim nonsense syllables, none of the actors involved, Vetri included, really stand out. (At least, not for reasons other than their physical charms). As in "One Million Years B.C." the real stars are the dinosaurs which are not simply treated as the antagonists of the human characters; Sanna befriends a mother dinosaur and her baby, and this relationship is to play an important role in later plot developments..
This film is less well remembered today than its predecessor, probably because it lacked an iconic star like Raquel Welch, but to my mind it is the better of the two. Certainly, it contains its fair share of nonsense; the early scenes are said to be set "before the moon existed", but the moon clearly exists by the end of the film, implying that it has miraculously been created during the relatively short time-span of the plot. (In fact, Earth's moon is some 4.5 billion years old, much older not only than the human race but also than the dinosaurs). Nevertheless, the plot is more coherent than that of the earlier film, and the animation sequences are even better. The film-makers do not repeat the mistake which Harryhausen made of optically enlarging small, inoffensive creatures to apparently gigantic size. There was to be a third film in the series, "Creatures the World Forgot" from the following year, but as I have not seen that film for a long time will not attempt a comparison with "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth". 5/10