Hi there nieces and nephews!  I know it's been awhile, but no men in white labcoats this time.  I needed to come up with some extra scratch to pay off a few gambling debts so I've been doing the carnival route for awhile.  I played the role of Chester the Chess-Playing Chimp.  No big deal,really.  Two bucks to watch me whomp up on a human opponent..  "Beat the chimp and win 500 bucks"!  Never any worries--you rarely run into any serious chess players at the Sideshow.  Anybody ever gets close to winning and I just bare my teeth.  Causes a blunder on their part everytime.  HaHa - all it took was a couple of articles in the paper about chimps ripping folks faces off and now no one screws with me once I bare the teeth and give 'em the ol' "OO OO EE EE".

   Now let's saddle our ponies and travel back to the early 1900s and south of the border to live out every youngster's dream.  Is it cowboys in a dinosaur movie?  Is it Dinosaurs in a Western?  It's The Valley of Gwangi!

This movie hit the drive-In circuit around 1969-1970 when I was 8-9 years old --Could you ask for better timing?  If Bill Murray thought cats and dogs living together was a sign of the apocalypse, I wonder what he would have thought of cowboys and dinosaurs? With a tagline of: Cowboys Battle Monsters in the Lost World of Forbidden Valley, they had my attention.

Our movie starts with a band of Mexican Gypsies.  "But Uncle Pump", you say, "Gypsies weren't Mexican".  Now look little ones, I know you aren't questioning Mexican Gypsies in a cowboy-dinosaur movie.  Jeesh, you'd thought I said fast zombies, or something silly like that.  Well, anyway, one of these Gypsies, Miguel is dying as he hands over a struggling sack of something.  The creepy old Gypsy woman with them who is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, (I kid you not.  It's probably how she ended up in Mexico instead of Romania) warns them that if they don't return the contents of the sack to the forbidden valley then the curse of Gwangi will be upon them all.  Gwangi is the evil one she warns.

We then switch over to a small town south of the Rio Grande where the Breckenridge Wild West Show, complete with marching band is rolling into town to begin their engagement at the local stadium. The owner and star of this traveling show is Miss TJ Breckenridge, portrayed by the beautiful Gila Golan.

Gila Golan was found , as a toddler, wandering the streets of war-torn Krakow, Poland in 1940.  She was adopted and eventually moved to Israel.  She never knew who her parents were or her own birthday.  Before becoming an actress, as Miss Israel, she finished 2nd in the Miss World competition.  TJ's grand finale in the Wild West show is riding Omar the Wonder Horse as he jumps off a 3-story platform into a flaming pool of water.  (PETA would have loved this performance).

Next enter James Franciscus as Tuck Kirby, who as soon as he enters the town, takes a young local, Lope,  as his guide and fetch-it boy.  Franciscus was a Yale graduate, perhaps best known for his many TV roles as well as his Tom Cruise-on-acid smile.  He did play astronaut Brent in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes and was the uncredited voice of Jonathon Livingston Seagull.  He was also a student of Bruce Lee at his martial arts studio.  His father-in-law was "Wild Bill" Wellman, the director of the classic films, Wings, A Star Is Born, and Public Enemy.

An unwelcome Tuck Kirby shows up after TJ's performance with intentions of purchasing Omar The Wonder Horse.  Not only is Omar not for sale, it appears that our man Kirby broke TJ's heart at some point in the past and neither her or her right-hand hand man, Champ, are glad to see him.  Champ is played by Richard Carlson of It Came From Outer Space and Creature From The Black Lagoon fame.  Champ was a friend of TJ's dead father and looks after TJ.  He's as happy to see Tuck as a dying mule is to see a vulture.

TJ gives in to Tuck's persistant charm and partially forgives him. She shows Tuck her new star attraction-- a miniature horse--the contents of Miguel's bag, which promptly prances around to Tuck's amazement.  Among all the dinosaurs to come, the beauty and grace of the mini-horse stands out.

Now it appears that Lope has other clients for his guide and fetch-it services.  And wouldn't you know it--one just happens to be a paleontologist.  I mean what's a good dinosaur movie without a paleontologist?  Even if it is a western.  This particular bonedigger, Professor Bromley, is portrayed by Laurence Naismith, who was also Argos in the original Jason and the Argonauts.

Professor Bromley promptly identifies the mini horse as an eohippus and explains how extinct it should be.  He also explains that there are probably more where this came from and by the way: where did it come from?  Now this little horse is suddenly as popular as a loose, drunken cheerleader in the boy's locker room.  To TJ it's the savior of her struggling show and to Bromley it's the "Dawn Horse"--the most magnificent scientific find ever, but to the old Gypsy woman it is "el diablo" and unless the little fella is returned to the forbidden valley a curse will befall them all.  You have to have curses whenever an old gypsy woman is involved.

So Bromley assists the Gypsies in kidnapping the eohippus so that he can follow them when they return it and hopefully find more or them.  And the chase is on:  Bromley following Gypsies and Tuck following Bromley and TJ and her cowboys following Tuck, thinking him responsible for the theft of their golden goose. Finally everyone follows the mini horse into the forbidden valley where much dinosaur action ensues.  Allosaurs, pterodactyls, and Styrachosaurs--oh my!

We're treated to Allosaurs vs Ornithominus, Pterodactyls Vs Cowboys, Allosaurs Vs Styrachosaurs, Cowboys Vs Allosaurus!

And now to introduce the genius who brought us all this dinosaur goodness, making his first, but certainly not last, appearance in the Dusty Musties, let's give a warm Ossuary welcome to Ray Harryhausen!

Ray was mentored by the great Willis O'Brien, the man responsible for bringing King Kong to life and who originally came up with the idea for Gwangi.  Ray worked with O'Brien on his Special Effects Oscar-winning film, Mighty Joe Young. Ray learned his lessons well and went on to make advances in stop-motion animation that are still stunning when you remember there was no cgi at the time.  Ray called this pain-stakingly slow,  methodical approach to animation Dynamation and would use it to thrill all us young chimplings in films such as the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth Vs the Flying Saucers, It came From Beneath The Sea, One Million Years BC, the original Clash of the Titans, and several more.  He brought to the screen Cyclops, Dragons, the wonderful and original Ymir, Aliens that destroyed the Washington Monument and a giant octopus that attacks the Golden Gate Bridge.  He was the original releaser of the Kraken.  These were live-action films where his monstrosities would appear on screen with the actors and actresses.  The scene in Jason and the Argonauts where human actors are engaged in fierce combat with skeletal warriors is truly a wonder to behold.  I believe the dinosaurs he created for The Valley of Gwangi are the best pre-Jurassic Park dinosaurs there were.  The Industrial Light and Magic folks were required to watch this film before beginning work on the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park.  The scenes where the cowboys are roping the Allosaurus are magnificent and had other special effects wizards of the time in awe.

Ray's still with us and turned 90 in June at his home in London.  He was close friends with Ray Bradbury and his first film without O'Brien, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, was based on Bradbury's short story, The Fog Horn.  Another little bit of Harryhausen trivia is that in World War II, he worked in the Army Motion Picture unit with Frank Capra and Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss).  Ray certainly wasn't fond of elephants.  Just like his Ymir in 20 Million Miles to Earth, Gwangi gets to beat up on one too.  In his defense, giant reptiles attacking a hamster probably wouldn't have been as thrilling.

Well, you probably know how these stories end.  Kong rampaging in New York.  Godzilla rampaging in Tokyo.  And Gwangi rampaging in a small unamed Mexican town.

The Valley of Gwangi  was originally offered to Columbia Pictures, turned down, and then taken up by Warner Brothers. Although it is set in Mexico, it was filmed in Spain.  The screen play was written by William Bast, based on an original Willis O'Brien idea, fleshed out by Harryhausen.  William Bast was a prolific TV writer who did screenplays for everything from the Outer Limits to Perry Mason.. He won an Edgar Allen Poe award for the screenplay for The Legend of Lizzie Borden.  The score by Jerome Moross is also very rousing and fits the on-screen action to a T.

This is a great movie to watch with kids on a Saturday afternoon. It'll be nostalgic for a few of you, new to others, but a fun-filled treat for all.  Gwangi won't scare you, but it will make you smile and maybe even get a Wow out of you. 

When I come back next time, we'll take a silent, creepy trip back to 1926 London to witness the horror beginnings of a true legend of the genre.  Until then, keep your bananas peeled and try to somehow scare yourself.