Valley of the Gwanji (1969 film)
The Valley of the Gwanji, AKA Valley of Gwanji, The Valley Where Time Stood Still, Gwangi, The Lost Valley, The Valley Time Forgot, (1969)
Summary
"Cowboys battle monsters in the lost world of a forbidden valley!" Everything goes wrong when a Wild West showman and his cowboy adventurers find stop-motion dinosaurs (animated by special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen) near a Mexican town and put one on display.
Details
- Release Date: 1969
- Country/Language: US, English and Spanish
- Genres/Technical: Fantasy, Western (weird west), Adventure
- Runtime: 1 hr 36 min
- Starring: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson
- Director: Jim O'Connolly
- Writer: William Bast and Julian More
- Producer/Production Co: Ray Harryhausen (associate producer), Charles H. Schneer (producer), Warner Brothers/Seven Arts, Morningside Productions
- View Trailer: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: G (probably more like a PG by today's standards, with some mild off-screen Violence)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
Without a single drop of cosmic horror and without a single tentacle-monster anywhere, this film will never be mistaken for "Lovecraftian" in any way; what it does have is pure over-the-top pulp weirdness: gypsy curses, a Wild West show full of cowboy adventurers, hidden valleys containing monsters from the dawn of time, and a dinosaur-god running loose in the streets of Mexico. Just re-imagine this film's story retold, with a lost city of Elder Things taking the place of a valley full of dinosaurs....
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Richard Scheib at the Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (3/5 Stars) (link) - "The story is fairly much King Kong (1933) relocated in the American West. There are a number of annoyingly familiar similarities to Kong – a journey into a land That Time Forgot, the capture of a mighty prehistoric beast, its display before the public back in civilisation and its subsequent rampage and destruction. What makes the rehashed story worthwhile is Ray Harryhausen’s stunning animation work. ... The verisimilitude of these sequences show Ray Harryhausen at the absolute peak of his art."
Synopsis
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
In turn-of-the-century Mexico, a Wild West showman and his cowboy adventurers manage to revive their failing rodeo with the attraction of a tiny prehistoric horse, until the horse is taken by a band of Gypsy dwarves and hidden in a cursed valley under the protection of the dinosaur-god, Gwanji. The cowboys follow the Gypsies to the valley, and are attacked by Ray Harryhausen's signature stop-motion-animated monsters, before capturing a dinosaur and bringing it back to Mexico, where the beast escapes and goes on a rampage, until the cowboys corner it in a burning church.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- TO DO
- setting: Pulp Cthulhu
- setting: Weird West
Keeper Notes
- This film is pure over-the-top pulp weirdness: gypsy curses, a Wild West show full of cowboy adventurers, hidden valleys containing monsters from the dawn of time, and a dinosaur-god running loose in the streets of Mexico. Just re-imagine this film's story retold, with a lost city of Elder Things taking the place of a valley full of dinosaurs....
