The Special Effects! Stupendous!

I really loved the oscar-nominated special effects in this film. It's too bad this came out in the same Oscar year as The Thief of Bagdad, which justifiably took home the award. I think in many other years it could easily have won.

The enlarged reptile footage is quite good, and blended almost seamlessly with the human actors. Also more convincing than the later One Million Years BC (1966) or When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) since anatomically modern humans did likely encounter giant lizards in real life. The only flaws in the special effects are the man in the rubber dinosaur suit, and the pig in the triceratops suit. The film could have functioned just as well without these.

But most of all, I found the volcanic eruption sequence sensational. It was much more terrifying, exciting and realistic than the still ok rendition in the 1966 remake. Especially stunning was the cavewoman getting consumed by a steaming lava-flow (I gasped audibly when I saw that!) I'm not used to seeing that much grit and violence in a Hays code era movie. The landslides, falling rocks and earthquake were phenomenal. As hard as it is for the sensitive modern viewer to see lizards and alligators callously hurled from flames into precipices...it does make for an exciting scene. A similar device was used in the remake to less thrilling effect. This one got it right!