Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's this film played periodically on TBS, typically alongside the likes of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT [1975], AT THE EARTH'S CORE [1976], THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT and THE LAST DINOSAUR [both 1977]. As a child I watched as many of these creature-features as I could lay my eyes on, leading to a good many wasted Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the opinions of my parents and grandparents (the latter of who's house I often occupied at these times thanks to their cable subscription).

That said, there was a great deal of confusion surrounding the film in question today within my small mind at that age. I had purchased (or rather, had forced someone else to purchase for me*) the New World Cinema VHS release of DINOSAURUS! sometime early on in my film-obsessed career, and only caught the film via its multiple TBS broadcasts some time later. Imagine, then, my shock and disbelief when there appeared to be shots in that version not present on the video tape I had at home!

Indeed, it would be many years before I would begin to understand the notion of aspect ratios and still more before the issue would be settled for DINOSAURUS! - I had simply seen two panned-and-scanned prints that had been panned-and-scanned by two technicians of obviously different minds. Luckily for my adult self, Image Entertainment (through whatever weird agreement they have or had with Universal) saw fit to release the film on DVD in its original Cinemascope form some years ago, thusly putting an end to the pan-and-scan conundrum of my childhood.

DINOSAURUS!, for those who are unfamiliar with the title, follows the story of engineer Bart (Ward Ramsey) as he tries, against all odds, to complete a new harbor on an obscure Caribbean island. The primary opposition to the project is materialized in the form of Mike Hacker (Fred Engelburg), a slime-ball of a man of questionable nationality who is left in charge of the island while its governor is away in Washington, D.C. Things get no better for Bart when a few stray underwater blasts open up the frozen prison of two mammoth dinosaurs - a Tyrannosaurus and a Brontosaurus. Though ice cold and down for the count, the two prehistoric beasts find themselves in the way way of progress and are moved to the beach for safe-keeping (and so Hacker's would-be son, Julio (Alan Roberts), can compare them to a pair of models he was rewarded with for collecting cereal box tops).

While Bart is occupied with . . . ehem . . . larger problems, Hacker wanders the beach and discovers a frozen Neanderthal, whom he promptly hides in the bushes for later plundering. A stereotypically drunk Irishman is left in charge of looking after the dinosaurs while the rest of the crew, Hacker, Julio and all head to the island's only restaurant to have a good time. Once there Hacker promptly makes a nuisance of himself by trashing on of Julio's dinosaur toys, which sends the boy running out into the streets. Bart heads out to search for him, but is stopped by the sudden onslaught of a thunderstorm that sees fit to knock the main generator out of order. It also sees fit to revive the two prehistoric beasties and their caveman pal, who waste no time in tormenting the islanders proper . . .

DINOSAURUS! is the brainchild of producer Jack H. Harris and director Ivan S. Yeaworth Jr., both of whom were the driving forces behind THE BLOB [1958] and the less popular 4D MAN [1959]. The amusing and pulpy screenplay, penned by Dan Weisburd and Yeaworth's own spouse Jean, allowed for such shenanigans as heroine Kristina Hanson falling into the clutches of the maniacal Tyrannosaurus only to be saved by the then-lustful caveman. The all-important special effects work is handled by Tim Barr, Wa Chang, and Gene Warren, two of whom are Oscar recipients for their work on George Pal's THE TIME MACHINE from the same year. What they produce is a motley collection of stop motion animation and puppetry work that, while hardly realistic, succeeds in being harmlessly fun.

Director and co-producer Yeaworth, a man of faith who would go on to produce mostly religious films after this one, saw fit to imbue DINOSAURUS! with a certain morality that shines through all of its B-movie hokum. The man-eating Tyrannosaurus is obviously a stand-in for the greedy and abusive Mike Hacker - both take to destroying orphan Julio's 'friends' (the latter his model of a Brontosaurus and the former the real thing) and causing general trouble for the islanders. The caveman is the less-civilized but none-the-less well intentioned double to engineer Bart - both have a strong affection for Kristina Hanson's Betty and Julio. The caveman saves the woman and child from the scheming clutches of Hacker while Bart slays the Tyrannosaurus with a steam shovel. In the end, Julio is brought out of his abusive relationship with deceased surrogate-father Hacker and placed into a more typical family unit, with Bart and Betty playing the respective parental roles.

That the Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus of the film are both spitting images (in color, shape, and size-relation to one another - the Tyrannosaurus even has 3 fingers instead of two) of the two plastic models Julio presents early in the film can be no surprise - the film is, beyond its B-movie aesthetic, the story of an abused child's perception of the cruel world around him and of his escape from it. In this sense, DINOSAURUS! is something of a less-intelligent bastard child to William Cameron Menzies' INVADERS FROM MARS of seven years earlier - a morality tale in a pulp thriller wrapper.

None of the above can keep DINOSAURUS! from being a very silly film, however. While the implications of a caveman, Brontosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus all apparently existing at the same moment in geologic time can be dealt with surely enough by realizing that the film is coming quite intentionally from a child's perspective, other logical inconsistencies don't fare quite as well. How does Betty's mother's house still have power after the island's main generator has blown, for instance? Just how does lightning striking a pair of frozen dinosaurs manage to revive a caveman sitting under the brush some distance away? And that title - DINOSAURUS! . . . really?

One of the unsung strengths of the film would have to be the magnificent score by Ronald Stein, a veteran of many a low budget shocker who produced the music for the likes of IT CONQUERED THE WORLD [1956], INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN [1957], and SPIDER BABY [1968]. His ponderous theme for the film is one easily remembered and helps lend dramatic weight to an otherwise entirely ludicrous premise - the score, as a whole, is easily one of the very best of his extensive career. Those with sharp ears will notice that the score was re-used by Roger Corman when he imported the Russian science fiction effort PLANETA BUR [1962] for US release under the title of VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET in 1965.

Undoubtedly silly but utterly harmless as far as entertainment goes, DINOSAURUS! is another one of those fondly remembered films from my childhood that, even as an adult, I find myself heartily recommending. WTFFILM suggests picking up Image Entertainment's out-of-print but easy to find DVD of the title and whisking yourself back to a time when dinosaurs running amok in the Caribbean didn't seem like such an unlikely prospect at all.

* My father was with me when I first discovered this at the local Wal Mart. His reaction was to keep me from picking it up because I didn't want to "see a movie where dinosaurs ate people." At seven or eight years old I knew that dinosaurs eating people was exactly what I wanted to see, and promptly dragged my mother back to the store to pick up the tape for me instead. My sketch books were, for weeks afterwards, filled with crude renderings of the off-screen death of the drunken Irishmen - the first victim of the Tyrannosaurus in the film.