The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy | |
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The complete film | |
Directed by | Willis H. O'Brien |
Produced by | Herman Wobber |
Cinematography | Willis H. O'Brien |
Release date |
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Running time | 5 minutes |
Country | United States |
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy is a 1915 American comedy silent film animated with stop motion by Willis O'Brien. The film was distributed by Thomas Edison's film company Conquest Pictures in 1917.
The film is also known as The Dinosaur and the Baboon (American reissue title).
Plot
[edit]The film starts with a caveman going to give some flowers to a cavegirl. He fails when he hits a tree. However, he keeps going. However, the "Self Appointed Hero" of the story steals the girl's heart. Meanwhile, an evil gorilla-like ape called "Wild Willie" the Missing Link is watching them. When the Missing Link goes to hunt for snakes at the lake, where the dinosaur is, the dinosaur kills the Missing Link after a fight and goes away. Then the "Hero" finds the Missing Link and takes the credit for killing Wild Willie.
Reception
[edit]Smithsonian Magazine called the film "a strange bit of cinema. Cavemen, the ape-like 'missing link' and an ornery sauropod dinosaur act as the players in this early precursor to films like 1981's Caveman. Crude though they were, these stop-motion creatures created by O'Brien would help launch his film career. Better known as the special effects wizard behind The Lost World and King Kong, O'Brien was among the first filmmakers to resurrect dinosaurs on film, leaving an impressive legacy still carried on by special effects experts today."[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Black, Riley (March 16, 2011). "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
- Berry, Mark F. (2015). The Dinosaur Filmography. McFarland. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-4766-0674-3.
External links
[edit]- The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy at IMDb
- The Dinosaur and the Missing Link Archived 2010-02-07 at the Wayback Machine at the Library of Congress website
- 1917 films
- American animated short films
- Silent American comedy films
- American silent short films
- 1910s American animated films
- 1910s animated short films
- 1917 comedy films
- American black-and-white films
- Animated films about dinosaurs
- Animated films set in prehistory
- Films about cavemen
- 1917 short films
- 1917 animated films
- Films using stop-motion animation
- Short animated film stubs
- 1910s comedy film stubs