Kingkitsch "Valley of the Dragons" is a real scrapbook of other, better movies. Finally available in a very nice DVD print from Columbia Classics, VOTD reveals itself to be the second half of a sci-fi double bill aimed at kids in the early 60s. VOTD is strictly a potboiler patched together from other films Columbia had access to, as well as stock footage. Columbia hoped to cash in on the Jules Verne craze that had seen great success with Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) and 20th Century Fox's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1958). Verne's "Off on a Comet" was pretty much forgotten, so Columbia seized on the title and added an astonishing number of things harvested from other sources in hopes to make the money the aforementioned films harvested. It didn't work, and VOTD ended up on an endless loop in second-run theatres and died a quiet death on TV "Chiller Theater" offerings until vanishing in the late 60s. Seeing this oddity again after so many years is why popcorn was invented. It's earnest, yet silly. The production values are not bad, and the story is as flimsy as they come. Earthmen are swept onto a passing comet, discover they're about to become lunchmeat for "dinosaurs", run away from flaming oatmeal spewed out by a volcano, and find hot babes on said comet. Love conquers all and leering commences as the two former enemies realize they have seven years to fool around with the hot babes before maybe getting off the comet when it passes Earth again.The "dinosaurs" are the stock variety lizards with fins glued on their backs and blown up via rear projection. Many have wandered over from the classic "One Million BC" (1940), as have a bunch of mangy mastodons. The erupting volcano and the hot oatmeal returns from that spectacle as well. There's a really unpleasant scene featuring a giant kinkajou attacking and really eating a snake. Rodan (1956) wanders over from Japan and makes a few peek-a-boo appearances. The giant spider/bug is from "World Without End"(1956). The Morlocks from MGM's "The Time Machine" (1960) show up, although the faces have been changed and lack the glow-in-the-dark eyes. And so on. All that aside, VOTD isn't a bad way to spend a few minutes, and there's some cheesecake and a loose bikini top in an underwater swim sequence. This is poverty row movie-making at it's finest. Be warned though, if you making a drinking game of this by taking a shot every time you spot something from another B-movie monster mash, you'll be stinking drunk by the 45 minute mark.

JasparLamarCrabb An 82 minute movie that's about 82 minutes too long. Two 19th centuries rakes who are about to duel to the death are swept into some sort of space and time vortex and end up on a distant planet inhabited by tribes of battling people and a lot of larger than life lizards. The lizards are meant to be dinosaurs, but they're not convincing at all. The stock footage taken from earlier films doesn't help either. Cesare Danova and Sean McClory are the leads and Danielle De Metz plays Nateeta, a sexy cave-woman. It's written and directed by Edward Bernds and based on a Jules Verne story (we know that because the opening credit scroll tells us that...TWICE). The loud and intrusive music score is by Ruby Raksin. Interestingly, there are NO dragons in this movie.

mark.waltz This film is so entertaining from the moment it starts that finding out through research that some of the footage was from "One Million B.C.", it didn't diminish the impact of the film for me. I was going to call my review "The Night of the Big Iguana", but I wanted to instill the point of view that having seen "One Million B.C." and this at different points in my life, I didn't even notice the difference. Only one thing in the film made me roll my eyes, and that was the silly looking underground people. But there was nothing else to laugh at, even after the premise of a comet leaving the two men about to duel all alone (as the others are whiffed away in some sort of Event Horizon) and come out of it as friendly as the Geiko gecko.I'm not really a follower of science fiction to the point where I can call myself an expert on the genre, so I had to simply accept what the two men realized had happened and just go along with the flow with that explanation and enjoy the sight of large creatures they had to hide from. Sure, it is really silly that the Frenchman (Cesare Danova) floats down the river on a palm raft as large creatures (including a snake and lizard) pass right by him as if they didn't want to disturb his nap. It is easy to overlook faulty parts of a storyline when it is presented so entertainingly. Only George Pal and Ray Harryhausen were doing successful films like this at the time, and this one wasn't either one of their talented thumbs.Fortunately, the romantic involvement between the two men and the cave women they found was subtly done not to overshadow the pre-historic nature and science fiction elements of the film. Young audiences of today might not appreciate it (to quote the son of a friend who watched "Godzilla" and told his dad that it was a man in a lizard suit.) But for those of us who remember the double creature feature (and no computer animation), it remains a lot of fun.

Brian Washington This was one of the very first dinosaur movies I ever watched. When I was a kid I loved the a lot of the scenes, especially the ones from the volcanic eruption. Little did I know at the time that most of the footage was "borrowed" from the original "jurassic classic" One Million B.C. (1940). Also, I didn't find out until several years later that this film was based on a work by the master of science fiction, Jules Verne. This is an okay film for lovers of B movies. Too bad that they don't really show it on television anymore.