1969 - THE VALLEY OF THE GWANGI, it's cowboys vs. dinosaurs.

This cowboys versus dinosaurs fantasy originated with Willis O'Brien who was never able to get a studio to back his film.  Years later stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen resurrected the property and with his producing partner Charles Schneer filmed this story in Spain.

Initially popular with a series of stop motion science fiction and fantasy films in the 1950's, Harryhausen had always labored with tight budgets as most Hollywood studios looked at special effects films as  poor stepchildren to their usual output.  Relocating to England Harryhausen produced some of this most entertaining films, Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon and One Million B.C. come to mind.

Even though the popularity of traditional special effects fantasy films had diminished by the mid 1960's with the film audience, Harryhausen soldiered on.   Valley of the Gwangi is a very entertaining fantasy film in the classic tradition.  The film has some entertaining sequences particularity the cowboys roping the Tyrannosaurus scene which was one of the most challenging stop motion scenes Harryhausen had ever filmed.  

Valley of the Gwangi was a victim of a studio regime change and was patronized by critics at the time of release.  With the passage of time the reality is that this is a very fun film   The film's reputation has actually continued to grow over time.  Steven Spielberg and his production team obviously took a look at this film before they made Jurassic Park.  One sequence in Spielberg's film was directly lifted from this film.

The film was written by William Bast, Julian More and Willis O'Brien, the film runs 96 minutes.