They Walked the Earth Before ‘Jurassic Park’

The verdict isn’t in yet on what they’ll think of “Jurassic Park.” But when paleontologists have nightmares, they dream of old dinosaur movies--some of the greatest founts of fudging and outright scientific misinformation ever.

Consider some of the problems that plagued the prehistoric monster movies of the B.C. (before Crichton) age:

Confusion of eras. Never mind that most evolutionists insist that dinosaurs and cave gals never walked the Earth at the same time. The cheapo filmmakers of such flicks as “One Million B.C.” and “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” would rather side with the creationist minority in having the species of 100 million or so years ago menacing starlets.

Inexact species identification. In Hollywood--and especially in Japan--it’s not always possible to tell for certain what really is a dinosaur. Are Godzilla, Rodan and that crazy beast from 50,000 fathoms indeed accidentally atomic-revived frozen products of the Mesozoic Age, or just garden-variety generic mutants? Debating this with fellow fantasy buffs, you start to feel like those kids in “Stand by Me”: Is Goofy a dog, or what?

Radiology as a theory of origins. For dinosaur movies set in the present day, atomic testing was usually the explanation for the unwarranted comeback of the Tyrannosaurus rex . Some baby boomers still can’t visit a doctor’s office for a chest X-ray without suffering an inexplicable fear that Gorgo may walk through the door.

Still, there’s plenty of kitschy fun to be had in the video racks for those who’d rather wait out the long lines for “Jurassic Park” at home. Here are a dozen great and not-so-great dinosaur (and pseudo-dinosaur) features from the pre-Spielbergian era:

The Lost World (1925). “I would rank that up there with ‘King Kong’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ as certainly being the top,” says Phil Tippett, the dinosaur supervisor of “Jurassic Park” and a real fan of these old movies, offering high praise indeed for this silent film. “If you read any of the newspaper reviews of the time, people were going, ‘Oh my God, how did they do it? They must have gone out and filmed real dinosaurs!’ ” Even now the dinosaur footage holds up, in a dreamlike sort of way, in the story of a scientific expedition visiting an uncharted--but not uninhabited--island. It’s not just the story that prefigures “Kong,” but similarly terrific stop-motion animation done by the same special-effects wizard, Willis O’Brien.

King Kong (1933). Asked to name his three favorite dinosaur movies of all time, Stan Winston--who designed the creatures for “Jurassic Park”--speaks for a lot of his contemporaries in answering: “ ‘King Kong,’ ‘King Kong’ and ‘King Kong.’ And then there was ‘King Kong.’ I must’ve seen it 100 times--the reason being not because of the technology, but because of the story and the characters. When Kong was fighting the T. rex , you were into that fight because you cared .” Never mind that the dinosaurs the fictional movie crew runs into on that island are only cameo players, compared to the Big Guy they bring back to Manhattan; they’re still everyone’s celluloid favorites.

One Million B.C. (1940). The third major dinosaur movie to be made leads us into the age of lowered expectations, eschewing stop-motion to instead use footage of lizards with plastic fins on their backs and men in monster suits. Ridiculous as it sounds, these effects were passable enough to have been reused as stock footage in at least seven subsequent caveman movies. The dialogue consists of Victore Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. grunting--no kidding.

Fantasia (1940). Bet you forgot this was (in part) a creature feature. Speaking for many paleontologists, Stuart Sumida, a professor of biology at Cal State San Bernardino, likes the “Rite of Spring” segment of this animated omnibus best of all the dinosaur movies “when it comes to accuracy, believe it or not. The bodies move quite nicely. There are some minor errors with the dinosaurs that were really constraints on the animators themselves. Because most dinosaurs have a very wedge-shaped head, very narrow at the snout and a bit broader at the back, and that’s really difficult to animate in three dimensions, they had to make the heads somewhat more boxy and angular. But aside from that, they’re still pretty reasonable reconstructions.”

The Beast From 50,000 Fathoms (1953). Stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen would later go on to much better things than this pokey black-and-white potboiler, which starts off with Kenneth Tobey accidentally resuscitating a beast in the Arctic, a la “The Thing,” and ends up with the creature trouncing Manhattan, a la “Kong.” It’s a mushroom cloud that wakes up the unfathomable dinosaur; as such, this was an inspiration for all the Japanese A-blast monster movies that followed.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). Maybe they’re dinosaurs, maybe they’re not. But James Mason and company find something prehistoric-looking down near the world’s core. Could they be . . . magnified lizards and Gila monsters? Unintentional comedy is the result, but beware: In order to hear Pat Boone shout the immortal line “Run, professor! A monster,” you have to sit through two of his nude scenes. Really.

Dinosaurus! (1960). Absolutely, incontrovertibly the cheapest-looking and most inept dinosaur movie ever released, in America, at least. Naturally, it’s kind of a cult favorite. A T. rex , a brontosaurus and a caveman all get pulled up from the ocean mere yards from a tropical beach, where they’re unfrozen--look, we said this was inept--and run semi-rampant. The stop-motion animation looks more like just plain stop animation. Astoundingly, the home-movie-ugly Cinemascope photography is by the legendary Stanley Cortez, pulling in a paycheck in his sleep.

One Million Years B.C. (1966). This remake of “One Million B.C.” by Hammer, the British film studio that’s generally associated with horror movies of the ‘60s, features the spectacular stop-motion of Ray Harryhausen, but is even more famous for the spectacular fur-bikini motion of Raquel Welch, whose form adorned so many ‘60s pinups she’s probably singularly responsible for the elimination of several rain forests. (Unfortunately, this much-coveted item isn’t available yet on home video.)

The Valley of Gwangi (1969). Git along, little dinos! In this ridiculous, must-see genre hybrid, cowboys of the Old West putting on a traveling show in Mexico stumble across a forbidden valley, where miniature horses somehow avoid getting tromped on by surviving T. rexes. The pokes lasso up one of the big guys and take it back so that it can pull a Kong, break loose and trample the townspeople who’ve paid to see it. With mid-level Harryhausen effects.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). A true Hammer camp classic, designed for maximum pre-historic cleavage action. Well-toned, platinum blond cave girl Victoria Vetri (the 1968 Playmate of the Year) leans toward the camera a lot in her push-up loincloth, when not indulging in some primordial mud-wrestling cat fights with her brunette rival, or catching fish with her teeth. Like the “One Million B.C.” movies, this is one you can fast-forward through without fear of missing exposition, since all dialogue is in an indecipherable 27-word caveman vocabulary. But, incongruously, as Tippett points out, “There’s great Jim Danforth stop-motion animation and scale models--some really beautiful work.”

Baby--Secret of the Lost Legend (1985). A disastrous product of the early Touchstone era, “Baby” showed Disney’s new grown-up imprint having trouble finding its legs: The plot--young couple find brontosaur infant in Africa and protect it from evil scientists--is pure Disney kiddie hokum, but for no apparent purpose it’s garnished with profanity and violence. Rather than use stop-motion animation, the movie alternates between electronic models (including an anthropomorphized face that assigns reptiles the ability to smile!) and unintentionally funny shots of little people loping around in baggy, four-legged suits.

The Land Before Time (1988). No, “Jurassic Park” isn’t Steven Spielberg’s first venture into dinosaur territory. He executive-produced this animated feature, which was basically director Don Bluth remaking his teary lost-child fable “An American Tail” with an all-reptilian cast. Not surprisingly, paleontologist Sumida--who counts “Fantasia” as his favorite dinosaur movie--lists this as his least favorite: “They were cutesy, roly-poly, large-eyed little cute things that had no resemblance to any dinosaur that I could recognize.” As it turned out, even kids wanted dinosaur toys that looked more like dinosaurs and less like toys.

Dinosaur compleatists might also want to consider these other entries in the genre: “Son of Kong” (1933)--sequel with briefer dinosaur cameos; “Unknown Island” (1948); “The Land Unknown” (1957); “Godzilla” (1956)--is he or isn’t he?; “Rodan” (1957)--pterodactyls over Tokyo; “The Lost World” (1960)--forgettable Irwin Allen remake of the 1925 silent; “Gorgo” (1961); “The Lost Continent” (1968); “The Land That Time Forgot” (1975) and “At the Earth’s Core” (1976)--both negligible Burroughs adaptations; “The Last Dinosaur” (1977)--the Japanese try again; “Caveman” (1981)--Ringo’s not the only dinosaur.