Strong and Moving!

Simply A Masterpiece

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Absolutely Fantastic

A good-natured Disney adventure which borrows its title from the WW2 flick ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING. This is a distinctly '70s production, packed with action and humour and an ensemble cast of stalwarts who appear in regular cameos. The plot is preposterous nonsense of course, and the film as a whole is laced with lurid racism and general silliness, but it's all handled in such a lively spirit that it becomes impossible not to like.Peter Ustinov headlines the cast as a Chinese agent searching for a secret formula hidden within a dinosaur skeleton by a British spy. Such plotting is merely a loose excuse for the film's pivotal and extended set-piece, which sees a huge Brontosaurus skeleton transported on the back of a wagon through the streets of London, with various villains in pursuit.The cast give engaging, witty performances, with Joan Sims and Helen Hayes particularly shining as the committed nannies and Ustinov holding it all together with his perfectly-mannered turn (which reminded me of Peter Sellers in MURDER BY DEATH). Watch out for the likes of Jon Pertwee, John Laurie, Joss Ackland, Bernard Bresslaw, John Bardon, Joan Hickson, and Amanda Barrie in minor parts.

What enormous fun! Nannies, toffs with monocles, drunken Scots, loud Yanks, inscrutable Chinese ... every cliché under the sun chases around London in pursuit of a dinosaur skeleton on the back of a lorry.Such energy, fun, and real "oomph" make this film utterly lovable. it's not subtle, but it's not meant to be. It's a kids' film. I love it as I love the Carry Ons: rip-roaring laughter, unsubtlety, old gags, and corking performances from a range of brilliant character actors.Look at the cast list! How can anyone not love this film, just from the cast list alone?! Peter Ustinov and Helen Hayes lead the proceedings. Derek Nimmo has a key role. Carry On-ers Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Amanda Barrie and the supreme Joan Hickson give 100% to their roles.People seem to be a bit sniffy about this film, but it's so good-natured, warm and funny that it's really rather rude to pick it to pieces for its stereotyping or its clichés. This film is glorious as it is.

Clearly any film nearly 30 years old is going to have flaws by today's standards and I know many people knock this film because of the now very politically incorrect portrayals of the Chinese.However (and I am part Chinese myself) I regard the performances as pure pantomime or affectionate parody and not offensive. Besides - the bumbling British upper classes hardly fare any better.I watched this on DVD last night and I still find it funny. Nostalgia of course plays a big part - I was 8 when it came out, still into palaeontology and visiting the Natural History Museum regularly. But it still has some cracking dialogue, great slapstick and visual humour and of course the incomparable Helen Hayes and Peter Ustinov.So if you want a chuckle and to escape back to a gentler (albeit fictitious) time - you could do a lot worse than spend 90 minutes watching this.

And it's in my top ten best films. Hilarious from the very start, with Lord Southmere hitching a lift from the yeti ("Thanks for the lift old boy - I don't think you're abominable at all!") and then escaping from the villains in the Natural History Museum disguised as a baby. It may be racist in the same way as Carry on Up the Khyber (most of the Chinese are occidentals in terrible eye makeup) but it's certainly feminist, celebrating the power of women in grey stockings fuelled only by nice cups of tea. (What if this great beast should fall on us, Hetty? Then we would be the first people in two million years to be killed by a dinosaur!) xxxxxx