The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy

1915
6.1| 0h5m| en
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Two cavemen, The Duke and Stonejaw Steve, call on Miss Araminta Rockface. The hated rivals fight, and Steve wins when he throws The Duke into a pot of boiling water. A title card introduces a third rival, "our unassuming hero, Theophilus Ivoryhead." Miss Rockface invites the three men into her father's drawing room/cave, apologizing for not offering tea, since it has not been discovered yet. The Duke and Steve fight again, and everyone rushes out of the cave. Mr. Rockface notices his pot of food is empty; earlier, Wild Willie the Missing Link had eaten it. Mr. Rockface tells the three suitors they will have to procure their own dinner. Steve locates a desert quail and shoots an arrow at it, but the arrow misses the quail and happily (for Steve) hits The Duke's behind. Meanwhile, Wild Willie is still hungry and goes hunting for snakes. He finds a dinosaur's tail instead...

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Reviews

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant
pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
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
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.
ultramatt2000-1 Whenever we think of modern stone-age humor, we think of THE FLINTSTONES, but before we them let us scroll back to 1915 and see where it really all began. In this claymation short (yes they had claymation back in the silent era), we see a primeval love triangle between The Duke and Stonejaw Steve. They want to marry the girl, but along comes the youngster Theophilis Ivoryhead, and you know where this is going. You are asking, "Hey, where is the dinosaur and where is the missing link? The Missing Link is the villain in the picture and his name is Wild Willie. This Australopithecus (the missing link between man and ape), looks more like a gorilla-chimp hybrid. In fact, Willis O'Brien, who made this short, called him "King Kong's Ancestor." After Wild Willie sneaks in to steal their lunch, which happens to be snakes. (Were you expecting spaghetti? Just go with it.) A flightless prehistoric bird called the Dinornis (referred to as the desert quail), makes an appearance not only to dodge Stonejaw Steve's arrow (which hit's The Duke's rump), but scares the antagonist away. Theophilis Ivoryhead goes fishing and sees the battle between the dinosaur, a Brontosaurus (being the deus ex machina), and Wild Willie. After gang returns, all the youngster says that he fought him, leading him to win the girl's heart. This was Willis O'Brien's first film before the original THE LOST WORLD, before the original KING KONG, and before the original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. This battle between those hairy and the scaly would pop-up again in 1933 with KING KONG, 1948 with UNKNOWN ISLAND (done with men in costumes), Toho's KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, 1976's QUEEN KONG (read my comment), Dino Delaurentiis' 1976 remake (done with a snake), Peter Jackson's 2005 remake (done with three T-Rexes), KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) and RAMPAGE (2018). Wild Willie paved way to many stop-motion animated apes. The gorillas in THE GORILLA HUNT (1926), KING KONG and SON OF KONG (1933), MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), Taurus from EQUINOX (1970) KING DONG (1984) and the yeti from THE PRIMEVALS (which never got made until November 2017 when Charles Band announced that it is coming out sometime in 2018). This short never got remade, until 90 years later. It was remade my me and it came out in the time of Peter Jackson's KING KONG remake and it is up on YouTube and the link is down there. Give it a watch and it is pure family fun. Not rated, but a "G" would be nice.
morrison-dylan-fan With there only being a few days to go until a poll being held on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best titles of the 1915-1919 era ends,I started to take a look at a post that a fellow IMDber had kindly done which listed short movies from the period.Due to having heard about director Willis H. O'Brien legendary special effects work on the original King Kong,I was delighted to spot O'Brian's debut short,which led to me getting ready to find the missing link.The plot:Due to each caveman sharing affection for Miss Araminta Rockface,The Duke & Stonejaw Steve decide that they will fight to the death for Rockface's fair hand.Pushing Duke into a pot of boiling water,Steve prepares to declare himself the winner,but is stopped in his tracks by the sudden appearance of Theophilus Ivoryhead,who leads to Steve and Duke realising that they have a real fight on their hands for Rockface's heart.View on the film:Backed by an energetic score,director Willis H. O'Brian shows an amazing skill in bringing out the personality in each of the stop- motion characters. Displaying a surprising fluidity with the animation,O'Brian perfectly balances cute dinosaurs with a satirical upper-class Drama.In the sadly uncredited screenplay,the movie is given excellent Comedy shots,as all 3 cavemen try to win Rockface's heart in the land before time.
MartinHafer This is an extremely important animated short because it shows what Willis O'Brien, the special effects genius behind King Kong and many other stop-motion films, was doing early in his career. This film's quality isn't nearly as good as his later work, but you can see how he's learning and improving his craft in this film. You really can't rate it or compare it to later films because it was so crudely done in the very early days of animation.Now just because this is a rather crude stop-motion film does not mean it is bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty cute. It is the story of three suiters during the caveman days--each trying to impress the girl. Exactly what happens and how the wimpy guy gets the girl is actually kind of funny, but I don't want to spoil it.
GeneralB This film is a 1910s version of what would today be called Claymation. It features dinosaurs, apes, and caveman. It is worthy of mention as it was one of the first films made by the legendary Willis O'Brien, who would later do the special effects for "The Lost World" and "King Kong". O'Brien's clay animation in "Missing Link" is certainly not as good as his work in later films(which featured far more advanced models). However, as this was one of the first films with stop-motion animation, it was a pioneering work for O'Brien, and for the film industry in general. It was probably not the first film to use stop motion animation, but it may well be the first dinosaur movie to have done so. These historical notes will make it worth seeing for some people, in particular those interested in film history.