jamesrupert2014 Review of Valley of the Dragons

Valley of the Dragons (1961)

Recycled footage is only thing of value in this lackluster 'dinosaur' film

[4/10 · 14 December 2019]

A duel in Algiers is interrupted by a mysterious celestial event that deposits the two duelists (played by Cesare Danova and Sean McClory) on a comet inhabited by prehistoric life, including mammoths, dinosaurs, and cave men. The story is ostensibly based on Verne's novel "Off On a Comet" but there is no similarity to the book beyond the concept of a passing comet drawing up people and the ominous name of one of the duelists ("Servadac"). The film was simply an opportunity to cheaply piece together a "voyage extraordinaire" (Verne adaptions being popular at the time) using clips from 1940's "One Million Years B.C." The result is a dull budget film that feels more like a 1960's TV show than a feature film. The only saving grace are the nicely done, but very dated, special effects sequences from the old Hal Roach Studios film. Unfortunately, by the time "Valley of the Dragons" was released, the vintage 'dinosaur' footage was overly familiar, having been recycled in numerous films including the legendarily bad 'Robot Monster' (1953) and 'King Dinosaur' (1955), and even shown up on TV (e.g. in the 'Jungle Jim' series (1955)). The two leads are OK, considering what they have to work with, but to get the most from the old footage, they conveniently change out of their period costumes into ridiculous 'cave man' furs to match the original players (watch Cesare Danova occasionally change into Victor Mature). In addition to resurrecting the 1940 film's pseudo-dinosaurs, the film retreads the dueling cave-clan storyline, ending in a sappy 'why can't we all get along' group-hug, and just in case Roach's cosmetically-modified organisms aren't threat enough, the rubbery giant spider from 'World Without End' (1956) shows up, as does Toho Studios classic kaiju 'Rodan'. Since any merit in 'Valley of the Dragons' comes from the clever (but now very dated) recycled special effects, you might as well watch the original film instead of this patch-work cheapie.