To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Best movie ever!

Released in 1970 and directed by Val Guest, "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" is a prehistoric adventure/fantasy starring Victoria Vetri as a blond cavebabe who survives her tribe's sacrificial ritual to their sun god. She then tries to join another tribe where she attracts the attention of one of the dudes (Robin Hawdon) and the jealousy of one of the brunette babes (Imogen Hassall).Wow, this flick is painfully bad. I was seriously tempted to fast-forward through the second half. This was surprising because it's basically the follow-up to Hammer's most successful film, 1966's "One Million Years BC." Unfortnately, it's nowhere the same quality. Things go wrong right away when the camera switches from excellent Canary Island locations to an obvious indoor set when it focuses on close-ups of the tribe on top of a hill. Worse, the story is dull and there's WAY too much cave-babbling, e.g. "Akita, AKITA!" The stop-motion F/X work is good, but there isn't as much as in the former film, like the great T-rex versus triceratops and the allosaurus sequences. While I like the friendly baby dino and Hassall is significantly hotter than the overrated Vetri, neither makes up for the movie's mortal flaws.The film runs 96 minutes and was shot in the Canary Islands and England (sets).GRADE: D

Little did I realize when I woke up early this morning to catch "One Million B.C." on Turner Classics that I'd be lulled into catching yet another caveman flick right after with this one. As it opened I had a pretty good idea that this would turn out to be the Spaghetti Western version of prehistoric dinosaur films, and I don't think I was too far off. The hook turned out to be that this picture had a character named Akhoba just like the first one; I can't imagine that would have been such a popular name back in the Paleolithic day.I'm reading on the trivia board that only twenty seven words were used throughout the film. While watching I got the idea that with the limited vocabulary it would have been rather easy to figure out what each one meant after a while, but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. The best was 'Neecro, Neecro' - each time I heard that one I thought they were shouting out to the Braves bullpen for a relief pitcher.So anyway, could there have been any other reason to make this flick than to appeal to a prepubescent audience going gaga over the likes of Victoria Vetri or Carol Hawkins in their skimpy fur bikinis? This one came really close to soft porn territory more than once, and Vetri goes almost full frontal at one point after her swim with Tara (Robin Hawdon). And check me on this, but didn't it seem to you like that big old green dinosaur was making goo-goo eyes at Sanna (Vetri) after doing her blonde on the half shell bit? Throw in the cute green gumby dino, the prehistoric Venus fly trap and that crazy crab at the end of the flick and you've got yourself one mad pre-Jurassic dino-fest. That this came from the Hammer folks obviously explains a lot, but what really blew my mind was that this whole movie was close-captioned in gibberish! To that, I can only say 'N'to'.

Blonde-haired cave woman Sanna (Victoria Vetri) is picked up by a seaside tribe after being thrown into the sea by her own tribe. Tara (Robin Hawdon), a member of the dark-haired seaside tribe becomes infatuated by her and woos her with the gift of his necklace. Ayak (Imogen Hassall - who tragically committed suicide in 1980) wants Tara for herself so becomes intent on removing Sanna from the tribe, but after they fight, Sanna's former tribe come looking for her and she flees for her life. Tara starts his journey to find her and bring her back, but he faces many dangers in the dinosaurs and creatures lurking in the jungles and mountains, and a tribal prophet has foreseen a tidal wave that could possibly devastate the planet.This film is every bit as tedious as it sounds. One of a few prehistoric films produced by Hammer than depicted humans alongside dinosaurs, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth is nothing more than cheap fantasy that mixes the excitement of dinosaur attacks with big breasted women in cave girl costumes. Don't get me wrong, the sight of Vetri and Hassall all shaven- legged and oiled up wearing next to nothing and full make-up is not something I am complaining about, but that is just about all this film has going for it. The dinosaur scenes are mildly entertaining but are often repetitive, except for one scene which sees Sanna sleep in a broken dinosaur egg only to be adopted by the mother. Very silly but quite fun in it's own ridiculous way.A small caveman language was created for the film ("Akita! Akita!"), which, according to IMDb, is based on Phoenician, Latin, and Sanskrit sources. Very admirable indeed, but it is strange that such attention was made to the language when the film ignores the obvious historical fact that humans did not co-exist with dinosaurs! It seems a pointless detail when the film is clearly going for fun and titillation rather than anything remotely resembling historical accuracy. All in all, an easy way to spend a lazy bank holiday afternoon, but a rather boring and unspectacular cinematic experience. I would expect more from the director of The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

In prehistoric times, Sanna is a young woman destined to be sacrificed to the Sun God because she has blonde hair. She escapes and is befriended by Tara, a young man from a neighbouring tribe. Can they survive in this harsh and unforgiving land ?This was the third of Hammer's four agreeable dinosaur/cavegirl flicks (the others being One Million Years B.C., Slave Girls and Creatures The World Forgot). In terms of dino action it's pretty good - there's a beach fight with a plesiosaur, a chasmosaurus hiding in a cave, a giant quadruped lizard which befriends our heroine (and is reminiscent of the fictional rhedosaurus from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), a clifftop rumble with a rhamphorhynchus, and some giant crabs for good measure. The optical effects are by Jim Danforth and are pretty cool for the time, with lots of detail and clever matte work; there's even a reverse tracking shot on the rhedosaurus at one point. The story has some pedigree in that it was originally written by J.G. Ballard (Empire Of The Sun, Crash) and adapted by Guest (who made the original black-and-white Quatermass movies), but it's a bit hokey, to say the least; at one point our starcrossed lovers run away for eight minutes and then get caught anyway. It does end with both a tsunami and a lunar eclipse though so you get a lot of spectacle, not to mention the very cute Vetri (Playboy's 1968 Playmate Of The Year) as the bad karma heroine. Shot by Dick Bush on remarkable locations on Fuertaventura in the Canary Islands - the landscapes themselves are perhaps the movie's most interesting feature. Not the best picture from Hammer Studios, but even one of their average movies is more fun than most.