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One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing | |
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Directed by | Robert Stevenson |
Written by | Bill Walsh |
Based on | The Great Dinosaur Robbery by David Forrest |
Produced by | Bill Walsh |
Starring | Peter Ustinov Helen Hayes Clive Revill Derek Nimmo |
Cinematography | Paul Beeson |
Edited by | Peter Boita |
Music by | Ron Goodwin |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $5.5 million (North American rentals) [1] |
One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing is a 1975 comedy film set in the early 1920s, about the theft of a dinosaur skeleton from the Natural History Museum. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution Company. The title is a parody of the film title One of Our Aircraft Is Missing , in which both Peter Ustinov and Hugh Burden also appeared. The film was based on the 1970 novel The Great Dinosaur Robbery by David Forrest (pseudonym of David Eliades and Robert Forrest Webb). It was the last work of producer and screenwriter Bill Walsh before his death on January 27, 1975, almost six months before the film's release. [2]
Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Edward Southmere, a King's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
Back in London, Lord Southmere runs into the Natural History Museum and hides the microfilm in the bones of a large dinosaur skeleton. The spies decide to steal the dinosaur, so they can search it properly, and load the Brontosaurus skeleton on the back of their steam lorry. Some nannies steal the vehicle, which they drive through the foggy streets of London before being carried off to safety on a flat wagon at the back of a train.
The spies eventually find the microfilm at the museum inside the bones of another large dinosaur skeleton, and all misunderstanding is set aside, with good results for all.
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The book on which the film was based, The Great Dinosaur Robbery, was aimed at an adult audience by its authors, Robert Forrest Webb and David Eliades, and was set in New York. The authors, both very experienced UK national journalists and best-selling authors, extensively researched material in New York and were greatly assisted by the American Museum of Natural History, and by the New York Police Department responsible for that area. The authors were disappointed that the humour of the film was aimed at a very much younger audience than that in the book, which had been published, in several languages, extremely successfully throughout Europe and also in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.
The film was shot on location in England at Elstree Studios and Pinewood Studios. Additional filming took place at London Zoo, the Natural History Museum, and around Windsor and Holyport Green, Maidenhead. [3] While One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing was in production, Bresslaw and Sims also appeared in Carry On Behind , another film being made concurrently at Pinewood Studios.
Ustinov, Revill, and Bresslaw—all white actors—performed in yellowface makeup to portray Chinese characters in the film. [4] [5]
The special photographic effects for One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing were handled by British special effects artist John Stears. The steam lorry used in the film was a mockup, with the mocked up boiler smaller than that on a real steam lorry. [6] The Diplodocus skeleton model featured in the film was later used in Star Wars (1977), in the opening scenes in the Tunisian desert. [7]
One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing has been released on VHS and DVD. The DVD last physical format release was in the UK on April 12th, 2004 [8]
The film is absent from streaming on Disney+.
Bernard Bresslaw was an English actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the Carry On film franchise. Bresslaw also worked on television and stage, performed recordings and wrote a series of poetry.
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.
Stegosaurus is a genus of herbivorous, four-legged, armored dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails. Fossils of the genus have been found in the western United States and in Portugal, where they are found in Kimmeridgian- to Tithonian-aged strata, dating to between 155 and 145 million years ago. Of the species that have been classified in the upper Morrison Formation of the western US, only three are universally recognized: S. stenops, S. ungulatus and S. sulcatus. The remains of over 80 individual animals of this genus have been found. Stegosaurus would have lived alongside dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus and Allosaurus, the latter of which may have preyed on it.
Spy Kids is an American media franchise centered on a series of spy action comedy films created by Robert Rodriguez. The plot follows various children, who discover that their respective parents are spies and become involved in an espionage organization when their parents go missing. The films include Hispanic themes, as Rodriguez is of Mexican descent.
Derek Robert Nimmo was an English character actor, producer and author. He is best remembered for his comedic upper class "silly ass" and clerical roles including Revd Mervyn Noote in the BBC1 sitcom All Gas and Gaiters (1966–71).
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
Carry On Behind is a 1975 British comedy film, the 27th release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). It was the first entry in the series not to be scripted by Talbot Rothwell since Carry On Cruising 13 years previously. Also missing was series stalwart Sid James. James was busy touring in a play, while Rothwell's health prevented him from writing. The regular actors present are Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas, Joan Sims and Peter Butterworth, Bernard Bresslaw and Patsy Rowlands. Carry On Behind was the final picture in the series for Bresslaw, Liz Fraser and Rowlands as well as Carol Hawkins. It saw the only appearances of Elke Sommer, Adrienne Posta, Sherrie Hewson and Ian Lavender in a Carry On film, and was the first of two entries in the series for Windsor Davies. The film was followed by Carry On England 1976.
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a 1942 British black-and-white war film, mainly set in the German-occupied Netherlands. It was the fourth collaboration between the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the first film they made under the banner of The Archers.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is an American film distributor within the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. It handles theatrical and occasional digital distribution, marketing and promotion for films produced and released by the Walt Disney Studios, including Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and internationally Searchlight Pictures; which operates its own autonomous theatrical distribution and marketing unit in the United States.
Saurolophus is a genus of large hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of Asia and North America, that lived in what is now the Horseshoe Canyon and Nemegt formations about 70 million to 66 million years ago. It is one of the few genera of dinosaurs known from multiple continents. The type species, S. osborni, was described by Barnum Brown in 1912 from Canadian fossils. A second valid species, S. angustirostris, is represented by numerous specimens from Mongolia, and was described by Anatoly Konstantinovich Rozhdestvensky.
David Forrest is a pen-name used by English novelists Robert Forrest-Webb and David Eliades to write four books, And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game (1969), The Great Dinosaur Robbery (1970), After Me, the Deluge (1972), and The Undertaker's Dozen (1974). These books featured tight plotlines and riotous humor, touching at the same time some serious topics: The Great Dinosaur Robbery and Nephew deal with the Cold War, After Me, the Deluge with religion.
Omeisaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period of what is now China. Its name comes from Mount Emei, where it was discovered in the lower Shaximiao Formation of Sichuan Province.
Siamosaurus is a potentially dubious genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what is now known as China and Thailand during the Early Cretaceous period and is the first reported spinosaurid from Asia. It is confidently known only from tooth fossils; the first were found in the Sao Khua Formation, with more teeth later recovered from the younger Khok Kruat Formation. The only species Siamosaurus suteethorni, whose name honours Thai palaeontologist Varavudh Suteethorn, was formally described in 1986. In 2009, four teeth from China previously attributed to a pliosaur—under the species "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis—were identified as those of a spinosaurid, possibly Siamosaurus. It is yet to be determined if two partial spinosaurid skeletons from Thailand and an isolated tooth from Japan also belong to Siamosaurus.
Tyrannosaurus rex is unique among dinosaurs in its place in modern culture; paleontologist Robert Bakker has called it "the most popular dinosaur among people of all ages, all cultures, and all nationalities". Paleontologists Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus have likewise called it "the most famous dinosaur of all times." Paleoartist Gregory S. Paul has called it "the theropod. [...] This is the public's favorite dinosaur [...] Even the formations it is found in have fantastic names like Hell Creek and Lance." Other paleontologists agree with that and note that whenever a museum erects a new skeleton or bring in an animatronic model, visitor numbers go up. "Jurassic Park and King Kong would not have been the same without it." In the public mind, T. rex sets the standard of what a dinosaur should be. Science writer Riley Black similarly states, "In all of prehistory, there is no animal that commands our attention quite like Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the tyrant lizards. Since the time this dinosaur was officially named in 1905, the enormous carnivore has stood as the ultimate dinosaur."
Dong Zhiming was a Chinese vertebrate paleontologist formerly employed at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing. He began working at the IVPP in 1962, studying under Yang Zhongjian, who was director at the time. He described fossil remains of many dinosaurs. He investigated and described the Shaximiao Formation; an important contribution to science since they are composed of Middle Jurassic beds which do not commonly yield fossils.
Cultural depictions of dinosaurs have been numerous since the word dinosaur was coined in 1842. The non-avian dinosaurs featured in books, films, television programs, artwork, and other media have been used for both education and entertainment. The depictions range from the realistic, as in the television documentaries from the 1990s into the first decades of the 21st century, to the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s.
Sue, officially designated FMNH PR 2081, is one of the largest, most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever found, at over 90 percent recovered by bulk.
The Great Dinosaur Robbery is a 1970 novel by David Forrest. This book was the basis for the 1975 film One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing.
The London cast of Dippy is a plaster cast replica of the fossilised bones of a Diplodocus carnegii skeleton, the original of which – also known as Dippy – is on display at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The 26-metre (85 ft) long cast was displayed between 1905 and 2017 in the Natural History Museum in London, becoming an iconic representation of the museum. It began a national tour of British museums in February 2018. Dippy returned to London in June 2022, and then moved to Coventry as a long-term loan to the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in 2023.
Jinyunpelta is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurine thyreophoran dinosaur from the Cretaceous Liangtoutang Formation of Jinyun County, Zhejiang, China; it has one species, the type species J. sinensis. This species is the basalmost ankylosaur known to have had a proper tail club.
The third film, produced by Disney's BuenaVista, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975), retained the practice of using white males in racist cosmetics in order to portray Asian males, particularly on the major role level. In addition, the Asian characters, in this case Chinese, were depicted as vicious and unscrupulous persons not above murder to achieve their demonic goals.