''King Dinosaur'' is a 1955 American

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses Speculative fiction, speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as Extraterrestrial life in fiction, extraterrestria ...

starring William Bryant and Wanda Curtis with narration by Marvin Miller. It was co-written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon, in his directorial debut. The film was featured on season 2 of ''

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on WUCW, KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then ...

''.

Plot

Five years in the future (1960), four scientists (zoologist Dr. Richard Gordon, geologist Dr. Nora Pierce, medical specialist Dr. Ralph Martin, and chemist Dr. Patricia Bennett) are selected as

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

to travel to an ancient planet called Nova that has just entered Earth's

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. The crew begins studying the planet to see if it is suitable for a possible Earth colony. After first discovering normal Earth animals such as a kinkajou which they refer to as a

lemur Lemurs ( ; from Latin ) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea ( ), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are Endemism, ...

crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly, a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not linked scientifically to any certain trait but is rathe ...

s which they call

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...

s, and an

alligator An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus ''Alligator'' of the Family (biology), family Alligatoridae in the Order (biology), order Crocodilia. The two Extant taxon, extant species are the American alligator (''A. mis ...

(the prehistoric species Diplocynodon), they soon encounter and battle giant insects, an enormous snake (

Gigantophis ''Gigantophis'' is an extinct genus of giant snake containing a single species, ''G. garstini''. Before the Paleocene constrictor genus '' Titanoboa'' was described from Colombia in 2009, ''G. garstini'' was regarded as the largest snake ever r ...

), and prehistoric mammals such as

Cave Bear The cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus'') is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. Both the word ''cave'' and the scientific name '' ...

, a

Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

, and a

Glyptodont Glyptodonts are an extinct clade of large, heavily armoured armadillos, reaching up to in height, and maximum body masses of around 2 tonnes. They had short, deep skulls, a fused vertebral column, and a large bony carapace made up of hundreds o ...

. Richard and Nora paddle a raft out to an island and are trapped in a cave by prehistoric reptiles, even a

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' () is a genus of large theropoda, theropod dinosaur. The type species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' ( meaning 'king' in Latin), often shortened to ''T. rex'' or colloquially t-rex, is one of the best represented theropods. It live ...

(portrayed by a

green iguana The green iguana (''Iguana iguana''), also known as the American iguana or the common green iguana, is a large, arboreal, mostly Herbivory, herbivorous species of lizard of the genus ''Iguana''. Usually, this animal is simply called the iguana. ...

). They fire off a signal flare. Back on the mainland near their spaceship, Ralph and Patricia see the distress signal, grab the auxiliary nuclear power supply and paddle their raft out to the island to rescue Richard and Nora. Before they leave the island, they set the power supply to "unharness" in 30 minutes and leave it on the island. After encountering more prehistoric creatures, they reach their spaceship. The power supply blows up the island in a nuclear

mushroom cloud A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently e ...

, rendering the "King Dinosaur" and the other dinosaurs of Nova extinct.

Cast

* William Bryant as Dr. Ralph Martin * Wanda Curtis as Dr. Patricia Bennett * Douglas Henderson as Dr. Richard Gordon * Patti Gallagher as Dr. Nora Pierce * Marvin Miller as Narrator

Production

Filming started in September 1954. The film was directed over a seven-day period by Bert I. Gordon and was Gordon's debut. The camera and other pieces of equipment were borrowed and the cast worked for deferred salaries. The scene of the attacking

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

was stock footage recycled from the film '' One Million B.C.''. There were only four actors in this film. The rest of the band and soldiers were just military stock footage, as was the footage of the atomic bomb explosions.

''Mystery Science Theater 3000''

The film was featured in a second-season episode of ''

'' in December 1990.

Reception

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' gave the movie one out of five stars, stating that the quickness of the movie shooting shows. Film historian

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

rated the movie 0 of 4 stars, describing it as "First and worst of director Gordon's many 1950s sci-fi films .... Boring, silly, and awesomely cheap ...."

References

External links

* * * {{Bert I. Gordon 1955 films 1950s monster movies 1950s science fiction films Giant monster films Films about astronauts Films about extraterrestrial life Films about dinosaurs American black-and-white films Films directed by Bert I. Gordon Lippert Pictures films Films set in 1960 Films set in the future Films set on fictional islands Films set on fictional planets 1950s English-language films American science fiction films 1955 directorial debut films English-language science fiction horror films Mystery Science Theater 3000