ReaderKenka
Let's be realistic.
Solidrariol
Am I Missing Something?
Bluebell Alcock
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Roy Hart
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
pigletbunny
Today's young people may be surprised to learn that, in the 1970s, it was still considered fine to cast pale people of European descent or origin as Asians! Then again, they may not be surprised, given the whitewashing that is still occurring on TV shows and in movies in 2017! (Whitewashing is the current term for the changing of people-of-colour characters into pale-skinned characters of European origin or descent.)I loved this movie as a young child back in the 70's, when I was ignorant as to what Chinese people looked and sounded like. (Where I lived as a young child, there were people of Eastern European descent, Indian descent, Japanese descent, Thai descent, and Western European descent; I didn't encounter anyone of Chinese descent or origin, until later in my childhood.)I saw this movie with my mother. She's quite racist, and so did not explain to me that those were not actual Chinese /of Chinese descent people in the main "Chinese" roles.A number of the user reviews for this movie, here on IMDb, do a great job of demonstrating inherent bigotry. Their ingrained prejudice causes them to deny the reality of this movie, which is that OF COURSE the casting of Peter Ustinov and Bernard Bresslaw as Chinese characters is racist! (Contrary to what one particular reviewer wrote, it is NOT the same as a Chinese actor putting on a Texan accent! There ARE Texans of Chinese origin or descent, in real life.)This movie is arguably even more racist than the patently racist Charlie Chan movies, as One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing's "Chinese" characters are caricatures written and portrayed for "comedic" effect.(BTW, in the summary of this review, I said "another movie", because, sadly, there's a lot of them :-( For example, I saw Disney's Song of the South, when it was given a theatrical re- release, when I was a young child. When I watched the movie, I had no idea that many of the characters were slaves! I thought that they were paid workers. No-one, especially not my racist mother, had ever told me about the despicable history of U.S. slavery, and early- to- mid 1970's dramatic TV shows, which I watched at FAR too young of an age, tended to have "white slavery" plots, featuring, of course, evil "foreigners", if they ever mentioned slavery at all. It wasn't until the 1977 original broadcast of the amazing miniseries Roots, again watched by me at far too young of an age, that I knew anything about slavery having existed in the United States.)
malenoid
It is not necessary to give a synopsis of one of the worst movies ever made. There are good reviews of this movie available online. I just want to add that as a young teen of about 13 years I went to see this movie with a friend and his father. The movie was double-billed with a Disney classic, Cinderella, which ran first in order to draw an audience. One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing began and the audience just kind of slowly filtered out of the theater. Our group was one of the last to leave, and the theater was probably empty before half-an-hour of the movie was through. Don't buy the DVD unless you are a collector. So the next time Disney announced the opening of its "Golden Vault" the video of this stinker better stay right where it is: collecting dust on a shelf.
bob the moo
Pursued by a group of fiendish Orientals, secret agent Lord Edward Southmere conceals the secret formula for Lotus X on a dinosaur skeleton. By coincidence he meets his old nanny in the museum and is able to blurt out a plea for help before he is taken away by the fiendish Orientals. The nannies sneak into the museum to search the dinosaur for the formula that is hidden there but are interrupted and abandon their search. With the fiendish Orientals holding Southmere, Hettie knows she is running out of time and has only one option to steal the dinosaur before the fiendish Orientals can get it.With the unusual title and the memorable scenes featuring a dinosaur skeleton chasing around London I can recall elements of this from childhood but decided to watch it again before I tried to write down my thoughts on it. So it was that I sat down to a fairly amusing but inconsequential mess of a comedy. The plot is messy of course but at least it has the good taste never to take itself seriously and instead just keeps the silly slapstick action moving along. Sadly it is not witty enough to play that well to an adult audience but rather relies on slightly older children getting into the silly jokes, pratfalls and stereotypes. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy some parts of it but it never did it consistently or even half the time.The cast help a little bit but they have little to work with other than stereotypes. Following Mary Poppins, the English Nanny is put up centre stage and played reasonably well by Hayes and Sims but they seem dull compared to a performance from Peter Ustinov that is so off the wall and weird that it is worth seeing. Of course it would be impossible for someone to give the same performance today because, rightly, it is a piece of absurd stereotype to the point where I felt I should apologise to every Orential person I knew just for the sin of enjoying it. It is very close to being offensive but it is so silly that I couldn't help but enjoy it far from his finest hour of course but fun at least. The support cast are all average, matching the tone of the film but I was entertained by the presence of several recognisable faces, including Ackland, Guyler and a few others. Nimmo is very British and good value but, as in many of the Carry On films, Bresslaw is just a big brute with little to do.Overall, an enjoyably silly film for older children but with little in it for adults. The narrative is no more than silly action and Ustinov's performance will (like Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean) either offend you or make you enjoy the film a lot more than you would without it. For me he was the main event and without him this would have just been too silly to enjoy.
Palicot
Helen Hayes and Joan Sims are British Nannies that get involved in espionage trying to find Lotus X. A brilliant comedy, with great performances all round. There are also a lot of familiar faces in small roles. A memorable plot line and a great fight near the end of the film between the Chinese and the Nannies.