MovieChat Forums > When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1971) Discussion > On DVD today (7/29/08) -- and yes, it's ...

On DVD today (7/29/08) -- and yes, it's uncut!

posted 16 years ago by hobnob53
30 replies | jump to latest

Confirming the news elsewhere on this board, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH was released on DVD today (July 29, 2008), part of a Warner Sci-Fi Double Feature series. (It's paired with another Hammer film, MOON ZERO TWO.)

The film is widescreen, but there are no extras. However -- the film has been completely restored, i.e., Victoria Vetri's nude scenes are on the DVD, intact -- unlike the VHS release, which inexplicably cut all those scenes, with their crucial plot points.

All the films in the series are Best Buy exclusives for the present, though supposedly they'll go into wide release in September.

[–] JPfanatic93 16 years ago

Hurray!

What's a Best Buy exclusive? And do you know whether there will be a region 2 release (though as long as the Region 1 DVD is available through Amazon I won't complain)?

Also, have you bought it, hobnob53? Is the picture and sound quality good?

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Hi Roselaar --

The films in this series apparently are being released at this time exclusively through a chain called Best Buy. (Since you asked about an R2 release I assume you live someplace where you're not besieged with that particular store!) I only accidentally stumbled across this information three days ago -- hadn't heard a thing about these releases -- and bought two of the DVDs at a nearby BB store yesterday. I haven't looked, but I'd guess they might also be available on line at bestbuy.com.

But as of now the DVD is not available anywhere else as far as I know. Supposedly this and the other discs will go into widespread distribution in September, although so far I've see nothing listed on Amazon or elsewhere.

I haven't yet watched the movie through, just fast-forwarded to see if the aforementioned VV scenes had been restored, but in the three or four places I did stop to watch for a bit the picture and sound were very good. It would have been nice to have had a few extras (there's not even the theatrical trailer, or scene selection), but at least there is a good-quality DVD of the entire film.

Hope this helps.

hob

[–] JPfanatic93 16 years ago

It helps. Thanks!

Considering how long we waited for this, I'm just glad it got a DVD release at all. It's a shame about the lack of extras, but considering most movies like this don't get a special edition treatment or something similar, it was to be expected. I'm puzzled by the lack of scene selection though, that's almost a DVD given. Still, I can live with it, and I'm just glad they bothered to release the uncut version.
I guess I'll have to wait until september to see whether there will be a non Best Buy edition. But I'm hopeful there will be.

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

The lack of scene selection seems to becoming more and more common on older films -- the movie, and that's about it. That, I find annoying.

If I see anything about its wider release I'll post and let you know! Talk to you later.

hob

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

Hello hob! This is one title I have to get only so I can throw away my gathering dust LD copy. Because this film copies "One Million Years BC" in so many details, viewing it is enough to offer a reminder for me at least of why OMYBC is the superior movie in terms of FX and overall sense of atmosphere (not to mention the fact that Raquel blows away VV, formerly known as Angela Dorian when she made the TV guest circuit in shows like "Man From UNCLE" and "Batman"!).

I'm sure you know the moments where stock FX from "Lost World" get inserted. :)

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Hi Eric! I prefer Raquel too, but VV (is this a subliminal reference to "Va-Va-Va-Voom!"?) is pretty damn gorgeous herself -- and in fact the cave women throughout this movie are I think much sexier and more beautiful than Raq's cohorts in OMYBC. In the latter, none of the girls was allowed to sport a cave-bikini except RW: they all wore one-piece skins. In WDRTE, on the other hand, a more progressive, humane and scientifically advanced society has emerged, where the women wear miniscule bikinis, or occasionally nothing, thereby demonstrating a greater understanding of the exigencies of the climate, respect for the preservation of animals by limiting excessive hunting for the purpose of obtaining material for clothing, and the evolution of mankind towards equality of the sexes where everyone is equally exposed. It also takes your mind off all that stock footage.

This was, you understand, the subject of my doctoral thesis in grad school.

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

LOL! Well, I would say that one Raquel is worth a thousand of similarly attired ones in WDRTE, but I would be remiss in not pointing out that Martine Beswicke got the two-piece outfit. ;)

Had some fun killing time yesterday reading throug our OTB discussion of a year ago, but I'm afraid this film could never generate something similar. :)

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Eric, another correspondent, Big G-2, similarly admonished me about Martine's bikini, about which I answered recalling some other notable bikinied endeavors of Ms. B., so you can read those in that post below.

Oh, I'm sure you and I could reel this thread off to 100+ entries through a minute deconstruction of the clothing of the individual tribeswomen -- oh, that's another thing, it seems to me there are many more of the latter in this film than in OMYBC, not to mention that I think they're much sexier, as I believe I've vaguely alluded to someplace around here. Not to diss our Ava, but any of the bikinis in either WDRTE or OMYBC would leave Miss Gardner looking positively Victorian in her black-and-white number. But at least that was a step up from the true Victorians. It's reaffirming somehow to realize that our morals, and fashions, have risen once more to the level established by our less inhibited (and blonder) ancestors.

Say, I assume Creationists, who believe the world is 6000 years old and that dinos and bimbos walked side by side, would of necessity simultaneously put their morals at risk of the Devil by the skimpiness of said babes' attire -- over which, I'm quite certain, most self-styled "Christian" gentlemen would drool...and liberally so, at that. Dear, dear. Sorry boys, you can't have it both ways.

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

Hob, not that I want to suddenly make a big serious detour in this chat, but I have to correct you on something. Those who find the concept of macro-evolution to be lacking in a good many things (and for very good reasons) do not hold to the concept of an earth that young. That isn't even what 1920s Fundamentalists like Bryan thought.

That's really the only comment I want to make on a religious matter. For me, a film like OMYBC and one like this should not be dragged into any kind of cultural/theological discussion by anyone on either side of whatever issue and should only be accepted as fantasy entertainment in the same way movies about ancient Greeks or medieval Muslims interacting with monsters ("Jason And The Argonauts" and any Sinbad movie) should be accepted as mere fantasy entertainment.

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Okay, Eric, though I must put in that I know of no "good reasons" to doubt the fact of evolution (macro or otherwise). However, some Fundamentalists in the 20s did indeed believe in the Bishop Usher fantasy that the Earth/Universe was only about 6000 years old (the "work" having begun Oct. 23, 4004 BC, at 9 AM), and the creationist museum in Kentucky insists that dinos and men did co-exist and that the universe is indeed a mere 6000 years old.

(After Bryan volunteered --it wasn't wrung out of him, "Inherit the Wind" notwithstanding -- that the creation did not take literally six days but "might have continued for millions of years", H. L. Mencken reported about spying on a group of ultra-fundamentalists who met in a clearing outside Dayton that evening and denounced their erstwhile hero, Bryan, for admitting such a thing, and for his additional stated beliefs on the stand that the earth revolves around the sun, and that man's skin is not made, literally, of salt.)

That said, back to real fantasies, and great primitve bikinis. Did they "usher" in a new wave of cave wear?

[–] moondoggiedaddy2007 16 years ago

Thank you for the news update! I did a search, and Warner Home Video has officially released it. It is available for purchase through eBay. It's great that it has been released in widescreen, and fully uncut with Victoria Vetri's nude scenes intact! I'm going to Best Buy to purchase several copies of it.

[–] mandarin992000 16 years ago

Think i'll have to buy this on Ebay as Best Buy don't ship to the U.K. Never mind. I did actually see the uncut version of this movie in Glasgow, Scotland in 1981 at a cinema in Dennistoun called the Parade, although i find the stop motion more fascinating that brief shots of women's breasts. Also discovered that cavemen like nothing better than a game of leapfrog after they've slaughtered and eaten a Plesiosaur!!!

[–] JPfanatic93 16 years ago

I like both beasts and breasts. Great this movie offers both!

[–] Big G-2 16 years ago

I think much sexier and more beautiful than Raq's cohorts in OMYBC. In the latter, none of the girls was allowed to sport a cave-bikini except RW: they all wore one-piece skins.

Hey hobnob. Didn't Martine Beswick also sport cave bikini in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.?

I do agree with you that the cave girls in WDRTE, are indeed much sexier - save of course for Raquel and Martine!

I've looked at two Best Buys thus far and have found nothing. Curious!

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Hey, Big-G. You're the second guy to admonish me about Martine and her bikini in OMYBC. Yeah, now I recall that. But I think the fact she failed to make much of an impression on me indicates how overwhelmingly Raquel dominated those proceedings. Martine got her chance the following year in PREHISTORIC WOMEN (a.k.a., SLAVE GIRLS -- not to be confused with the ludicrous 1950 film also called PW). There she had her prehistoric bikini and lorded it over enslaved blonds. Wow. (Plus she sported a real, if uninteresting, bikini in THUNDERBALL. By the way, when you see the credits in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, where she plays one of the Gypsy girls in the cat fight, note that the credits spell her name "Martin Beswick"! Talk about missing by a mile.)

I went back to the BB where I bought this DVD and another one with one of my faves, WORLD WITHOUT END, and they were selling out fast. Keep trying!

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

Didn't see it in the BB I was in today. But I'm in no rush to get it, it's just nice to know it's finally out.

And yes, Raquel did overwhelm the proceedings which is a testament to her own presence that makes her a cut above anyone else similarly attired in OMYBC or WDRTE (or that wretchedly dull "Creatures The World Forgot". It's too bad she never got to do the big-screen "Sheena" movie that she tentatively agreed to in the mid-70s but the project never got started (and instead we got the unbearably awful Tanya Roberts a decade later).

[–] mandarin992000 16 years ago

Imogen Hassall in a bikini absolutely ROCKS!!!!!

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Ayak? Aye-aye!

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

I never heard that Raq was to do SHEENA - now that would have been something! I thought Tanya R. was cute, sexy, but in a sleazy, street sort of way -- great body, but somehow out of place as the Queen of the Jungle. (Let's not spoil things by raising the specter of actual acting.)

Did you know that Raquel was originally supposed to be the leading lady in OUR MAN FLINT? She had just signed her Fox contract then. But at the last minute they switched her out of it and put in Gila Golan, former Miss Israel in the 1961 Miss World contest, in which she was first runner-up. Gila was gorgeous, but again, Raq would have been sensational.

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

Here's the full-details on the production history of "Sheena" (other parts of the site have the inside stuff on the superior Irish McCalla TV series).

http://terrororstralis.com/sheena/tanya/tanya-concept.htm

And AP articles that ran in late 1975 were already running filler items that Raquel had already signed for the project. That alas is as far as it ever got. Raquel was born to play that role and would have been perfect IMO since she already showed in Kansas City Bomber and in her OMYBC fight scene that she could be up to the physical demands of the part.

And re: Flint, Raquel would have certainly been better than Golan. I think though, the biggest disservice Fox did her was in "Fathom" where they seemed reluctant to let her be more assertive and independent, and instead had to have Tony Franciosa bail her out all the time.

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Oh, I don't know that Tony bailed Raquel out all the time, not at all. She took pretty good care of herself on the yacht, in the water, in the bull ring, on the train, and certainly in the airplane finale -- in fact, Tony seemed a bit miffed that she could fly herself, and she certainly knocked him for six when she dropped the fire dragon into the birthday cake, against his wishes. Of course she required occasional rescue, but not always by Tony. But that's the nature of the plot, and it never seemed to cast her in a helpless, damsel-in-distress light.

And being a professional skydiver is hardly a sissy pursuit!

Gosh, I hope no one logs onto this thread and gets mad because we didn't put a Spoiler Warning For "Fathom" up in the topic!

"Enjoying the view?"

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

I just had a sense that she was too easily manipulated/fooled by those she was up against. In the end, they had her guessing wrong on who the bad guys were, and I think when it came to the bull ring they were showing her running about helplessly at the mercy of Franciosa until she said something that got him to pull her out.

The yacht scene culminating with her throwing her earring down the vent caps her best scene in the movie. If the whole movie had maintained that sense of total command she seemed to exude there, it would have been a lot better.

"Fathom" has some great moments but I keep seeing more of a wasted opportunity that if done right would have established Raquel as a legit action heroine and gotten her some better roles than what she got in the next few years afterwards (much as I enjoy seeing anything she's in, I couldn't be paid a million dollars to see "Myra Breckenridge").

[–] Big G-2 16 years ago

FATHOM was really to showcase Raquel as much as possible, and you see that from the very beginning as we see her preparing for her jump in a skimpy outfit! Eric, I could understand where you are going with this. We didn't see many female actions stars back then, and Raquel could have been a trailblazer, but hobnob did point out things that made Raquel's character think on her feet and not be a total bimbo as we thought she might have been.

Hey, Big-G. You're the second guy to admonish me about Martine and her bikini in OMYBC. Yeah, now I recall that. But I think the fact she failed to make much of an impression on me indicates how overwhelmingly Raquel dominated those proceedings. Martine got her chance the following year in PREHISTORIC WOMEN (a.k.a., SLAVE GIRLS -- not to be confused with the ludicrous 1950 film also called PW). There she had her prehistoric bikini and lorded it over enslaved blonds. Wow. (Plus she sported a real, if uninteresting, bikini in THUNDERBALL. By the way, when you see the credits in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, where she plays one of the Gypsy girls in the cat fight, note that the credits spell her name "Martin Beswick"! Talk about missing by a mile.)

I went back to the BB where I bought this DVD and another one with one of my faves, WORLD WITHOUT END, and they were selling out fast. Keep trying!

Hobnob, Martine failed to make an impression on you! Say it ain't so! And that bikini she wore in THUNDERBALL, uninteresting? For 1965, it looked kind of daring! And in terms of James Bond, I think she was also the silhouette dancing figure in the opening credits of DR. NO, but I will have to check that.

Finally got my copy of DINOSAURS and WORLD WITHOUT END. The latter really reminded me of THE TIME MACHINE, which of course both had Rod Taylor.

And in terms of the Earth being only 6,000 years, around 10 years ago, I had an argument with a co-worker, and she was quite the religious and conservative type, and stated to me that the Earth was indeed around 6,000 years old because a Dr. Dobson had said so in a radio show. Srew all of the carbon dating. If he said it, then it must be true! Today, of course, I realize she was referring to the infamous James Dobson. Still, we are good friends to this day!

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Well, I didn't quite say Martine failed to make an impression on me in THUNDERBALL. I said her bikini was uninteresting, not what was in it. Re OUR MAN FLINT, basically the same year, I though Gila Golan's red bikini was pretty sensational for its time. Martine's in T'BALL was kind of blah -- she looked great, but could have worn a skimpier suit with a better design.

And then there's Raquel in her yellow number in FATHOM. My goodness. I basically agree with you guys that more could have been done with/for RW in and after FATHOM, and Raq's film career overall was a disappointment. (Eric's right on in his assessment of MYRA B.!) Still, as far as it goes, FATHOM isn't so bad a comedy/thriller, and does show off Raquel in her prime and at her best.

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

I agree FATHOM could have been a bit more solid and on the mark with a little tighter script and direction, plus three or four additional bikini sequences, but overall it's okay. More on this deathless subject below!

BTW, I kind of like the name "Fathom" for a girl!

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

I think if Raquel had done the Sheena movie, or something similar it would have been easier to see "Fathom" from more of a half-full glass perspective, than the half-empty one it seems to give off much of the time to me. One additional problem was that Lorenzo Semple was really not well-versed when it came to writing female characters well, as his episodes of "Batman" demonstrate (where the best stuff he wrote was for villains like Riddler etc.) and his abysmal job on the "Sheena" script that was finally done for Roberts.

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Interesting perspective, though I've never paid any attention to Semple's work as such. Think Raq would have done the nude scene Tanya did? I suspect not, though maybe topless. Speaking of things abysmal, however, what about Raquel instead of Bo Derek in TARZAN THE APE MAN in 1981? Granted, it could never have happened with John Derek in charge, but even at 40, RW would have looked sensational in that film (not that Bo was hard on the eyes). Of course, we'd still be stuck with the rest of the movie.

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

No, I don't think Raquel would have posed topless if she'd done the film then (which would have been 1976). I think she had then (and still does) enough of an aura where she's never had to do something like that. And I think she could have made it a genuine hit not just because I think she had the larger-than-life quality and the physical prowess essential for that kind of part, but the film would have come out at a time when Lynda Carter was becoming a national icon as "Wonder Woman" and would have captured the wave of interest in female superheroine roles.

The image of Raquel as Jane in the bikini Bo wore on the poster is a nice one to consider! :) The optimum time though IMO would have been a project like that circa 1970-75 just like that was the optimum period for her to do "Sheena".

[–] hobnob53 16 years ago

Oh, I quite agree that the optimum time for RW to appear in either of those films would have been in the early-mid 70s, even '78 or so; but I still think she would have been magnificent in Bo's place even in 1981. (I was assuming a Welch-made SHEENA would have been made in the mid-70s, as you had indicated as its original start date.)

But Raquel did indeed pose completely nude in many photographs in the 70s and 80s (many can be found in links to her imdb site). And I mean, completely nude, nothing half-hidden or coyly revealed. She was stunning. Many say she had "work" done, and maybe so, but she's still one of the most perfect beauties I've ever seen on screen. Having so posed for stills, there was really no reason for her not to have done likewise in films.

I never understood whatever allure Lynda Carter had. I never found her all that sexy or particularly attractive.

[–] Eric-62-2 16 years ago

Raquel's never posed nude in anything I've heard about. Her Playboy layout was one where she strategically placed her arms up in all the images and no one ever brings up her doing photos when she's commented on not doing anything nude ever. (But hey, let's not quibble on that when we can agree on how magnficent her beauty is!)

Come 1980, Raquel had cut her hair and basically settled in to looking her age in terms of being a mature sexy 40 so that would also work against her doing a Jane kind of vehicle by then. I wish I'd had a chance to see her in "Woman of The Year" on Broadway where she got the best notices of her career.

Lynda Carter I think was able to succeed in making the character of Wonder Woman come to life (though even Raquel could have done right in the part if she'd decided it was time to go to TV back then) and be believable as the character, which is no easy feat.