The Valley of Gwangi
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Features
• Anamorphic
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Dubbed
• DVD-Video
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 1969
DVD Release : 21 October, 2003 |
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The Valley of Gwangi Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
A straightforward, no-nonsense, monster movie.
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The sound and image quality of the film are excellent. Only at a couple of points does the image have a slightly dirty or deteriorated appearance. The light balance is excellent throughout. The character development is nice, and at least as good as those found in the Indiana Jones movies. The confident, strong willed woman (T.J.), the operator of a Wild West Show, works well in this movie. My complaints are only slight. The stop-action of the tiny horse looks a little phony (its a phony pony). The stop-action technique works better with imaginary creatures than with real animals. (Perhaps twice the density of stop figures should have been used with the horse.) Also, Gwangi is somewhat violet in color. I would have preferred the more traditional dinosaur color of green or brown. Another complaint is the sour ending. If I had my way, I would have written a happier ending, for example, by disclosing the discovery of Gwangi's eggs with babies hatching out, where the baby dinosaurs are recruited for use in the Wild West Show. But we are stuck with the sour ending.
To put things in perspective, a much better movie in the same genre is SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. SINBAD is another Ray Harryhausen movie, which also features two battling monsters, a prophetic curse, and a small valuable object (a tiny horse in GWANGI; a lamp in SINBAD). But GWANGI lacks the epic qualities and more abundant variety that is found in the SINBAD movie.
If you don't want to learn the plot, you need to stop reading at this point.
The film opens with a bleak landscape resembling Death Valley. We see eight gypsies in a valley searching for a companion. The companion, a man with a bag, is shown stumbling down a gulch. He clutches a bag. Something alive is inside, something making neighing sounds. But an old blind woman (a witch), one of the gypsies, issues a warning, "No, no. Leave it I tell you. If he does not go back to the Forbidden Valley, we will all suffer a terrible fate. Fool! Ah. One day he will learn to obey the Law of the Gwangi."
A few minutes of credits are then shown.
The story begins with a Wild West Show marching into a Mexican town. A cowboy atop a moving stagecoach twirls a lasso, followed by a cluster of running Mexican boys. Then, a cute Mexican boy (Lope) materializes and offers to do odd jobs for Tuck Kirby, a former associate of the Wild West Show. We see the actual Wild West Show. Indians chase a stagecoach around and around the arena. Galloping horses tumble to the ground, throwing their riders. The stagecoach is set afire, and it leaves by way of a gate. There are faux gun fights and faux fist fights. The stunts in the arean scene are excellent.
The next act introduces us to Miss T.J. Breckenridge ("T.J."), a beautiful woman, who does tricks on a horse. We see her atop a horse, about to dive off a platform into a pool of water, where the rim of the pool is ringed with flames. The horse dives from the platform--a trick identical to that performed, at one time, at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey. But the crowd in the arena is sparse.
Tuck Kirby makes another appearance. T.J. does not welcome him at first. T.J. throws him out saying, "You stick to your con tricks and I'll stick to my horse tricks." Lope is friends with a professor, an American paleontologist. The old professor adds science to this science fiction film. At turning point then occurs. We see the arena being used for rehearsing a bull fight. A matadore practices in the ring, but Lope fools around in the ring with a blanket. A bull begins to attack. Tuck Kirby dashes into the ring and saves the boy. Then T.J. falls back in love with Tuck. Another man (Carlos) saves Tuck from the bull.
In the next scene, we finally see the tiny horse, the one contained in the cloth sack at the start of the movie. This occurs 25 minutes into the movie. "What are you doing here, over 50 million years after you should have been extinct," exclaims the professor. T.J.'s goal is to use the tiny horse as an act in the Wild West Show, to bring in more customers.
But at night, the dwarf, the blind witch, and their gypsy friends, steal the tiny horse, and deliver it back to the Forbidden Valley and set it free. While stealing the tiny horse, the dwarf conks Carlos on the head. But Lupe with the professor, and separately Tuck Kirby, follow the gypsies to the Forbidden Valley. Finally, 40 minutes into the film, the gypsies let the tiny horse free, saying, "Fly little one."
Within a few minutes, T.J., Tuck, Lope, and the professor have re-captured the tiny horse, but it escapes and leads them through a tunnel to a second valley. The second valley resembles Elephant Hill, a part of Canyonlands National Park. Now, fortyfive minutes into the film, there is a scene with a pterodactyl. The bird carries Lupe off, but he is saved a few minutes later. Then, a tiny dinosaur appears, and shortly thereafter, Gwangi materializes and eats the tiny dinosaur. Then, 50 minutes into the film, a triceratops appears.
Comedy makes its appearance. One of the group observes that the bullets that they had been shooting at the dinosaurs were only blanks, used in the Wild West Show. The men dig a deep hole and cover it with pine branches. Something gets caught in the trap, but it is only the professor.
From the 60 minute to 75 minute time point (15 min altogether), there is a generous lassoing scene. At one point, three cowboys on three horses have simultaneously thrown three lassos around Gwangi's neck. After this scene, Gwangi is wheeled into town on a large cart. But in lumbering along a desert road, they encounter the witch and the dwarf. The witch warns them, "Soon you will be doomed, all of you, unless the evil one is set free."
Within a few minutes, we are back at the arena. This time the arena is packed with thousands of Mexicans, many with sombreros. But we see the witch instructing the dwarf to set Gwangi free. The dwarf sneaks under Gwangi's red tent and unlocks the gate to the cage. At this point, an elephant act draws to a conclusion. Then Gwangi escapes, with the Mexican dwarf in his mouth. Gwangi fights the elephant, and in the mean time, there is a massive mob scene, as thousands of Mexicans dash from the arena, upsetting fruit carts. The scene is reminiscent of the theater mob scene from THE BLOB with Steve McQueen. Part of the mob runs into a cathedral. At one point, an escaping person falls and rolls down the cathedral steps. But at 90 minutes, Gwangi enters the cathedral. A torch is overturned, and the entire cathedral, along with Gwangi, goes up in flames. The film ends at 95 minutes
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The Valley of Gwangi dvd movie.