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| Gwangi goes to church |
T.J. (Gila Golan) runs a circus in turn of the century Mexico with her older friend, Champ (Richard Carlson). Back into their lives comes T.J.'s old boyfriend, Tuck (James Franciscus), who ran out on T.J. some time before. T.J. has a new act, a cute little horse (or prehistoric eohippus) who was found in the desert. But this attraction is nothing compared to the animals inside a hidden valley where the tiny horse came from. There are pterodactyls, a belligerent triceratops, and most of all, Gwangi, a fearsome combo of allosaurus and T Rex that chomps on one luckless fellow (Gustavo Rojo) and is ready for more before a rock slide helps Tuck and the others capture him. This is another in a long line of movies (stretching from before King Kong to Jurassic World and beyond) in which a dangerous creature is put on display and breaks out of confinement, causing havoc. The chief selling point of this is some absolutely amazing stop-motion effects work by Ray Harryhausen, clearly working on all cylinders. Gwangi is a wonderful creation, angry, confused, hungry, snapping and tearing at anything in its way. The sequence when the cowboys attempt to lasso the monster is superb, seamless -- I mean, who needs CSI? Another stunning sequence has the monster entering a huge Cathedral and stalking Tuck and the others while its heavy footsteps reverberate all through the building. There is the infrequent use of unconvincing props of assorted creatures, but generally the FX work is fluid and exacting. The story is based on a script put together by stop-motion specialist Willis O'Brien (King Kong), and it is serviceable. Carlson [Riders to the Stars] and Franciscus [Great White] are fine, as is Laurence Naismith as a paleontologist. Gila Golan appears to be dubbed, along with little Curtis Arden as the orphan boy, Lope. As for the film's romance between Tuck and T.J., one can only imagine the real melodrama will come afterward considering what happens to the circus.
The DVD for the movie has a featurette in which several CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) specialists are highly complimentary of Harryhausen's influential work on this film, of which they certainly should be.
Verdict: Lively Gwangi, and some superb stop-motion effects, make this a winner. ***1/2.
2 comments:
GWANGI nearly ruined my family's summer vacation, as I noticed it playing in theaters seemingly wherever we went and I complained and whined about wanting to see it endlessly. But there was no way my folks were going to stop for several hours so I could satisfy my dino-lust, so I had to catch up with it later. When I did, I thought it was spectacular and satisfying beyond belief, and with one major exception (see below) its flaws only became evident to me as an adult. Gila Golan being dubbed turned out to be a major distraction on (multiple) rewatches, with the person dubbing her sounding like a little cartoon boy. James Franciscus was okay, but I already thought of him as "Charlton Heston Lite" because of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and considered him more or less a minor TV personality. But who cared? Gwangi was one of Ray's finest creations and the Forbidden Valley as mythic and intriguing a locale as could be imagined. Sure, it was just the latest in a long line of "lost worlds" in the movies, but it was undoubtedly one of the liveliest and most colorful. The roping sequence gets most of the accolades, but IMO the scenes in the cathedral were the biggest highlight. This has perhaps the most poignant ending of any of Ray's movies. Gwangi's realistically heart-rending squeals of pain as he burns to death were horrifyingly disturbing and ended the film on a huge downer. Yikes!
--Mark
Interesting -- I always found the film's ending poignant but not so much because of Gwangi's squeals but because the peasants lost their beloved Cathedral, which seemed to be the center of their universe. But then I didn't care that much when King Kong fell off the Empire State Building! But I digress. (I think the music helped a lot, too.)
"Gwangi" is a terrific picture, very entertaining and with superb Harryhausen FX work, and next to that its flaws, as you mention, are bearable. I finally caught this a couple of years after its initial release on the bottom of a double-bill with "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth," which was not as good.
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