Really Good Movies! The one with cowboys and dinosaurs

 

 Title: Valley of Gwangi

What Year?: 1969

Classification: Mashup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Awesome!!! (3/3)

 

As I write this, I am just past a significant milestone not related to my movie reviews: I just marked two years of steady output for my paleo feature, The Legion of Silly Awesome Dinosaurs. After posting the celebratory installment as the weekend toy blog as usual, I went back and figured out that the exact anniversary of my first dino post was going to be in the middle of the current week. I debated changing my schedule to do an extra dino post on that date, but decided against it. After further reflection, I decided the next best thing would be a dinosaur movie review, and I knew it was time for one I’ve meant to get to for a long time. In the history of that surprisingly sparse genre, there are three that stand above all others. One is King Kong, the other is Jurassic Park, and the third is the movie under consideration. I present The Valley of Gwangi, and you get to hear me wax on why it is the b

Our story begins with a man found dying in a desert wilderness, carrying a sack with a living creature inside. Skip forward past the epic opening credits, and we learn that this is Mexico ca 1900. In short order, we meet TJ, the star of a struggling Wild West show, her old flame Tuck, a disreputable cowboy and adventurer, and Carlos, a member of the troop whose interest in TJ may or may not be mutual. Tuck soon confirms that Carlos and his now-deceased brother have uncovered a monumental find, a tiny prehistoric Eohippus whose origins are known only to a clan of gypsies. When the gypsies steal the dawn horse, Tuck, TJ and the troop follow the trail to the “forbidden valley” it came from. There, they discover a lost world of dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, ruled by an allosaur the gypsy matriarch refers to as Gwangi the evil one. The cowboys manage to capture the dino and bring it back to civilization, because this is before anybody saw King Kong. While the group simmer in their frustrated and conflicting ambitions, the seer makes her move- unleashing Gwangi on an unsuspecting city!

The Valley of Gwangi was a 1969 science fantasy/ western film by director Jim O’Connolly, producer Charles H. Schneer and stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen (see Sinbad andthe Eye of the Tiger and First Men in the Moon). The film was based on an unproduced project by effects/ animation pioneer Willis O’Brien titled “Valley of the Mists”; the 1956 film The Beast of Hollow Mountain is believed to have been based on the same proposal. The film starred James Franciscus and Gila Golan, with Laurence Naismith returning after Jason And The Argonauts as the scientist Professor Bromley. Live-action filming took place in Spain in place of Mexico in 1967, with Harryhausen completing the effects and animation entirely in post-production. The movie was released in 1969 by Warner Bros, to limited success. Harryhausen and others complained of poor marketing and possible disinterest from WB, as well as problems with O’Connolly. The movie also receive mixed reviews from genre critics, with a more positive consensus emerging by the time of his death in 2013.

For my experiences, this is a film I didn’t get to until college. What stands out in hindsight is that I went in with caution after seeing it criticized in most of the reference works that mentioned it at all. Once I saw it, it immediately emerged as an all-time favorite. In the course of my reviews, I occasionally gave thought to reviewing it, but for the most part, it was one of the films that stayed above my radar, as well as a bit early for the timeframe of my existing features. When I decided to review it, it still came to a choice between here or Featured Creature. What settled the matter in my mind was the considerable improvement in its reputation, especially among self-described Harryhausen fans. Before, it was a neglected film worth defending; now, it’s an accepted classic, and it’s on those terms that I am prepared to take up its case.

Moving forward, the one thing to be said as a qualification is that any skeptics in the studio definitely weren’t wrong about its marketability in its own time. There were enough difficulties with the viability of the dinosaur-movie genre (see Planet of Dinosaurs, etc, etc). It was the western side of the genre mashup that was flat-out dying, both in hindsight and from contemporary accounts. The present film is all too representative example of why audiences had stopped taking the genre seriously, wavering between sincere if admittedly effective cliches and arguable self-parody. Against these problems, I find two things that account for its comparative virtues. First, the setup of the failing Wild West show is a potent metaphor for the media myth-making that created the western in the first place, whether or not anyone thought the analogy entirely through. Second, the solid action sequences and stunt work (which I am inclined to credit to O’Connolly) establish a baseline of believable competence. They may be players in their own legend (shades of Galaxy Quest?), yet in the face of real-life danger, they remain professionals who know what they’re doing.

Naturally, any difficulties with the human story and characters are easily set aside when Harryhausen’s creatures are on-screen. While we don’t get a lost world as rich as Skull Island, we offered a mix of creatures, including a non-threatening ornithomimid and a truly magical Eohippus. The centerpiece remains Gwangi. I could go on for pages about the fine details of the creature (and probably have at one time or another), but I will settle for the absolutely terrifying finale that finds Gwangi inside a cathedral, with no music and often no sound except his footfalls. (And I am not letting go of the similarities to the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park!) What’s just as intriguing is the thematic dissection of the “monster” concept. He is explicitly a living, vulnerable animal, not an unstoppable kaiju, a point reinforced by a mishap with the good guys’ ammunition. The naturalistic take is further developed as the scientist argues with the seer, fatefully commenting, “The only evil thing about him is his jaws.” I find further fascination in the sounds of the creature, more than a decade before Jurassic Park defined convention. The growls show already the questionable influence of the lion. Other sounds, however, seem eerily unconventional, especially the scream that becomes its death cry. It’s not the best science (that distinction probably still goes to the nearly silent meat-eater of Kong), but it’s even more unique now.

One more thing I find worth discussing, as the review is already going long, is the gypsies. It’s clear that the seer Zorinna is meant to take over the role of Noble Johnson in Kong, perhaps in the further hope of losing that film’s racial and colonial baggage. Whatever the intent, the results definitely pose their own problems. To start with, I have never found it necessary to take the gypsy label as anything but a general description of their lifestyle (a non-trivial problem in sorting out the history of the “real” Romani people). Granting that ambiguity, it follows that they could just as well be native Americans, and that is a mush better framework for sorting out their real relationship with the “forbidden valley”. It’s clear from the familiar name and titles that they have dealt with Gwangi or creatures like him at some point in the past, perhaps further back than the arrival of Europeans. With my established penchant for revision, I find myself wishing for a version of the seer who stops muttering about curses and gives a real account of what her ancestors may have experienced facing a carnosaur with only Chalcolithic weaponry. As it is, we at least get a subtext that indigenous voices should not be dismissed lightly. Of course, it’s tangential over-analysis, yet it’s the kind that can tell us most about how we got to where we are.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and with at least two of Harryhausen’s finest creations on the board (see my collectibles post while you’re at it), I find myself coming to a “romantic” bit of dialogue. In the middle of their perilous expedition, Tuck and TJ discuss their futures and quickly agree that it’s time to leave show business. After a buildup that draws cautious interest from TJ,  reveals that he has found a perfect ranch in Wyoming. As he waxes about raising “lots” of cattle and horses, TJ adds, “Kids, maybe?” Tuck merely nods and says, “Yeah…” It’s clearly intentional comedy, even for a film as wonky as this one already is. Even so, it doesn’t really change the tone of the scene, corny, sentimental and ultimately no less charming for it. It’s scenes like this that show just how much trouble westerns were in, with just enough self-awareness to do it better than “straight” material.

In closing, what I come back to is whether this or any other film can be counted the “best” dinosaur movie. In the course of my own inquiries, I’ve seen entries in the genre covering over a century, and if there’s one thing that becomes self-evident, it’s that it was never about technology or even science. If you have a sense of imagination and an eye for detail, the rest will follow well enough to endure, even if the world has moved on. This is above all a movie proven to stand the test of time. I won’t pretend that there haven’t been better movies since, but this remains a benchmark to measure the rest. With that, I am done for the night.