Forgotten Movies That You Rediscovered and Love

[Doc Safari]

"I found a love I had lost,
It was gone for too long" goes a line from the INXS song "Don't Change."

I happened across TCM the other night, not really expecting to find anything.

My jaw dropped.

Emblazoned across the screen was a movie that I had loved in childhood but had forgotten all about.

The back story:

In 1970, I was six years old. My mom and dad wanted to go see the latest "hot" movie: "Tora, Tora, Tora." It was an epic film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and was pretty much enjoying 'Star Wars' level popularity when it came out. On the fateful night my mom and dad took me and my brother to see it, we arrived at the theater only to see the crowd lined up around the block.

We didn't get to see it that night.

Upon viewing the mob waiting to get in, my dad mumbled something about having to wait a while to see "Tora, Tora, Tora."

He turned to me and said, "Would you like to see a couple of dinosaur movies?"

Of course--EVERY grade school kid loves dinosaurs. My eyes must have gotten as big as saucers as I enthusiastically indicated "YES!"

My dad took us to see two movies that in the intervening years I had almost totally forgotten about.

The first feature was the Jim Danforth animated "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_D...uled_the_Earth

The other--the one that I stumbled across on TCM the other night--and which was my favorite movie for years but later forgotten--was the Ray Harryhausen flick "The Valley of Gwangi".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valley_of_Gwangi

While I watched the rest of the movie on TCM, I hearkened back to my childhood: living in a creaky mobile home out in the country. I had clipped the newspaper ad for "The Valley of Gwangi" showing the exaggerated-sized dinosaur whipping cowboys around with his tail (see the movie poster on my link). I had taped it to my bedroom wall in that mobile home, and I remember lamenting that I'd never be able to see it. My parents probably thought it was too scary for kids. I had to content myself with that newspaper clipping of the movie poster to fulfill my fantasy of what that fantastic dinosaur movie must have been like.

I had remembered asking my dad if we could see the movie. I think I remember begging him to take us to it. Were it not for the crowd waiting to see "Tora, Tora, Tora" I might never have gotten to see it.

With my childhood memories of that night flooding back into my mind, I began to recall my entire childhood: that creaky old trailer, the house my dad built, everything-I-ever-did-as-a-kid, and how it was all gone.

I immediately went to the computer and ordered the blu ray of both movies.

[SteyrAUG]

Loved those Hammer "dinosaurs and a playmate in a fur bikini" films.

[Doc Safari]

Loved those Hammer "dinosaurs and a playmate in a fur bikini" films.

One Million Years, BC is another good one, and another Harryhausen movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Years_B.C.

It was one of Racquel Welch's first movies.

I haven't been able to find a link for it yet, but supposedly there is a "lost" Brontosaurus fight scene intended for the end of the movie, but the studio bigwigs thought that the earthquake made a better ending and cut it.

I also believe, IIRC, that the Ceratosaurus model was rebuilt into Gwangi.

Jeez....I used to have a hardcover book on all this back in the day. Too bad it's long gone.

[ramairthree]

Loved those Hammer "dinosaurs and a playmate in a fur bikini" films.

God yes.

[Firefly]

Cavegirls on Dinosaur Island was amusing.

I saw R.O.T.O.R. again a while back and as a lad it horrified me. Imagine Robocop as a T-800. But today, I'm like..."I could kick R.O.TO.R.'s ass".

The bad guy robot is a paunchy highway patrolman with a RAGING Copstache. Some muscle chick ends up killing it.

But now I wanna be with the muscle chick. She looks like hammerdyke but that is part of the appeal and even today I dont think I could kick her ass.

She's probably 70 now if not dead from steroids but good gawtalmigtahy'all she was swole.

[SteyrAUG]

One Million Years, BC is another good one, and another Harryhausen movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Years_B.C.

It was one of Racquel Welch's first movies.

I haven't been able to find a link for it yet, but supposedly there is a "lost" Brontosaurus fight scene intended for the end of the movie, but the studio bigwigs thought that the earthquake made a better ending and cut it.

I also believe, IIRC, that the Ceratosaurus model was rebuilt into Gwangi.

Jeez....I used to have a hardcover book on all this back in the day. Too bad it's long gone.

Very aware. I think I have a nearly complete Hammer movie collection and definitely have a complete Raquel Welch collection. When I was a kid, one of the first multiplex theaters was built (1981) and it had posters of her in the famous fur bikini shot from One Million Years BC, Robinson from "Little Caesar", Eastwood from "For A Few More Dollars" and Bogart from "Casablanca" in the lobby, but each poster was something like 6 foot by 10 foot and anytime I needed coke or popcorn I would just stare mesmerized at the poster of Raquel.

[Doc Safari]

Very aware. I think I have a nearly complete Hammer movie collection and definitely have a complete Raquel Welch collection. When I was a kid, one of the first multiplex theaters was built (1981) and it had posters of her in the famous fur bikini shot from One Million Years BC, Robinson from "Little Caesar", Eastwood from "For A Few More Dollars" and Bogart from "Casablanca" in the lobby, but each poster was something like 6 foot by 10 foot and anytime I needed coke or popcorn I would just stare mesmerized at the poster of Raquel.

I think Racquel Welch may have been my first childhood movie diva lust.

It was either her or Jenny Agutter in "Logan's Run". There's another forgotten movie I loved back in the day.

[Leonidas24]

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). I was perusing through Hulu the other night and spotted it; the last time I actually sat down to watch it and study its historical connotations was my senior year Omnibus III class in high school (2006.) Watching it the other night I picked up on so much more than I had half-bored in class 12 years ago.

Charade (1963). Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn are awesome in this movie together. Hitchcock did a great job with this one, and I actually enjoy it more than a few of this others.

Rear Window (1954). Jimmy Stewart is hilarious. 'Nuff said.

Mister Roberts (1955). I love 1950's post-WWII films, especially ones that paint a lighter side of the times. James Cagney, Henry Fonda, and Jack Lemon are great together.

As my kids have gotten older and a little more independent I'm spending fewer nights watching Moana and Frozen, and more evenings dusting off old DVD's to find I have a solid collection of great movies. The past couple of months have been a great rekindling of appreciation for the older movies, when I didn't have to worry about shielding my son's eyes from an unexpected scene of nudity, or cover his ears when someone lets loose a verbose string of adjectives. Movies like The Wackiest Ship in the Army and The Enemy Below are solid entertainment period, even if they're over a half-century old.

[WillBrink]

The Good, The bad, and the ugly. Was flicking through the channels and it was just starting. Been many moons since I'd seen it, and I'd forgotten just how cool and fun a movie it is. Pretty much the pinnacle of the genre.

[26 Inf]

Cavegirls on Dinosaur Island was amusing.

I saw R.O.T.O.R. again a while back and as a lad it horrified me. Imagine Robocop as a T-800. But today, I'm like..."I could kick R.O.TO.R.'s ass".

The bad guy robot is a paunchy highway patrolman with a RAGING Copstache. Some muscle chick ends up killing it.

But now I wanna be with the muscle chick. She looks like hammerdyke but that is part of the appeal and even today I dont think I could kick her ass.

She's probably 70 now if not dead from steroids but good gawtalmigtahy'all she was swole.

She was also in Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders.

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