When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth released October 25, 1970

 

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970 movie starring Victoria Vetri, set in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Britain’s Hammer Films.

Like several of Hammer’s previous films, such as One Million Years B.C. (1966), the film portrays dinosaurs and humans alongside each other. Directed and scripted by Val Guest, it was based on a treatment by J.G. Ballard, and nominated for an Oscar for its visual effects.

The special effects are considered a benchmark in stop-motion animation believability, so much so that the film is referenced in the movie Jurassic Park. Stop-motion effects were created by Jim Danforth, assisted by David W. Allen and Roger Dickens.

The landscapes (Earth during the Quaternary) were filmed in Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura (Canary Islands), in some places as Maspalomas beach, Ansite Mountain, Amurga and Caldera de Tejeda, in others. It was briefly released on DVD as an exclusive from Best Buy with a G-rating, but was later recalled because it was the uncut version and contained nudity. The original is now a collector’s item.

Trivia:

Victoria Vetri revealed in a 1984 interview that the U.K. version of the film contains nudity. The nude scenes include her character Sanna making love to Tara (Robin Hawdon) in a cave.

A 27-word “caveman language” was devised for this movie, supposedly drawing on Phoenician, Latin, and Sanskrit sources. Some of the key words in this language are: “neecha” is “stop” or “come back”; “zak” is “gone” or “left”; “akita” is “look” or “see”; “neecro” is “bad” or “evil”; “m’kan” is “kill” or “killed”; “mata” is “dead”; “yo kita” is “go”.

In March 1971, Warner Brothers cleverly distributed this film in the USA on a double bill with the similarly themed dinosaur film The Valley of Gwangi (1969).

Cast:

Victoria Vetri

  Victoria Vetri … Sanna
  Robin Hawdon … Tara
  Patrick Allen … Kingsor
  Drewe Henley … Khaku
  Sean Caffrey … Kane
  Magda Konopka … Ulido
  Imogen Hassall … Ayak

Magda Konopka

 

 

Raquel Welch Birthday September 5

 

http://goremaster.com/blog/2009/09/05/raquel-welch-birthday-september-5/

http://goremaster.com/blog/2009/09/05/raquel-welch-birthday-september-5/

 

 

 

Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch (born Jo Raquel Tejada, September 5, 1940) is a Golden Globe-winning American actress.

In 1959, Welch played the title role in the famous Ramona Pageant, a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California, which is based on the novel Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson and Bob Biloe.

She became a weather forecaster at KFMB, a local San Diego television station. Because of her heavy schedule, she decided to leave college. Her marriage broke up and she moved with her two children, Damon and Latanne, to Dallas, Texas, where she modeled for Neiman Marcus and worked as a cocktail hostess, intending to move on to New York City from there.

Instead, Welch moved back to California and found a place in Los Angeles and started making the rounds of the movie studios. She was cast in bit parts in two films and in the television shows Bewitched, McHale’s Navy, and The Virginian, as well as on the weekly variety series The Hollywood Palace as a billboard girl and presenter of acts.

Welch’s first featured role came in the beach film A Swingin’ Summer, which led to a contract with 20th Century Fox. She was subsequently cast in a leading role in the sci-fi hit Fantastic Voyage (1966), which made her a star. She was the last star created under the studio system.

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On loan out to Hammer Studios in Britain, Welch starred in the remake of One Million Years B.C. striking an iconic pose in a prehistoric animal-skin bikini. After her appearance as lust incarnate in the hit Bedazzled, she returned to the U.S. and appeared in the Western film Bandolero!, with James Stewart and Dean Martin, which was followed by the private-eye drama Lady in Cement with Frank Sinatra.

Welch’s most controversial role by far came in the notorious Myra Breckinridge with Mae West. She took the part as the film’s transsexual heroine in an attempt to be taken seriously as an actress, but the movie turned out to be a dismal failure.

Welch became one of the leading sex symbols of the 1960s and 1970s. Her most memorable publicity still for One Million Years B.C. became a bestselling poster. Playboy called her the “Most Desired Woman” of the 1970s.

In 1970, Welch teamed up with Tom Jones and producer/choreographer David Winters of Winters-Rosen Productionsfor the TV special “Raquel!”, considered by some viewers to be a classic pairing together of 1970s pop-culture icons in their prime. The multi million-dollar TV song-and-dance extravaganza was filmed around the world, from Paris to Mexico. The show featured lavish production numbers of classic songs from the era, extravagant costumes, and notable guest performances, including John Wayne and Bob Hope in the Wild West.

In 1974, Welch won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy for The Three Musketeers.

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The actress was due to star in an 1982 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, but was fired by the producers a few days into production (allegedly, she was taking too long to get ready each day). She was replaced with Debra Winger. Welch successfully sued, collecting a $15 million dollar settlement.

In addition to her break out special, Raquel!, her television appearances include the TV movies The Legend of Walks Far Woman and Right to Die in which she turned in a stirring performance as a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and in the PBS series American Family, about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles. She has appeared in the night-time soap opera Central Park West and made infomercials and exercise videos.

In 1987, she flirted with a pop singing career, releasing the dance single “This Girl’s Back In Town.” She has performed in a one-woman nightclub musical act in Las Vegas and has starred on Broadway in Woman of the Year, receiving praise for following Lauren Bacall in the title role, and in Victor/Victoria, having less success following Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli in the title roles.

She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the TV drama Right to Die (1987).

In a 1997 episode of the comedy series Seinfeld entitled The Summer of George, Welch played a highly temperamental version of herself, assaulting series characters Kramer and Elaine, the former because he fired her from an acting job and the latter because Welch mistakenly thought that Elaine was mocking her.

She also appeared as a guest on the popular American TV series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, as Sabrina’s flamboyant Aunt Vesta.

She appeared in Welcome to the Captain, which premiered on CBS television on February 4, 2008.

Trivia:

Graduated La Jolla High School, La Jolla, California. [1957]

Miss Fairest of the Fair, San Diego, Ca. [1957]

Mother of Tahnee Welch.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#18). [1995]

Her father is Bolivian.

Turned down the lead in Barbarella (1968) – which eventually went to Jane Fonda.

Husband Richard Palmer is a restaurateur.

She was fired from Cannery Row (1982) and replaced by Debra Winger. She then sued MGM and won a $10 million judgement.

Among her many beauty contest titles were “Miss Photogenic”, “Miss Contour” and “Miss Maid of California” – all won while she was in her teens.

30 August 2003 – Broke her wrist in a Los Angeles car crash.

Measurements: 37C-22 1/2-35 1/2 (measured in 1967), 37-23 1/2-35 1/2 (from 1980 fitting), 37D-26-36 (@ age 43 in 1985), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Mentioned in the theme song of the 1980s TV hit “The Fall Guy” (1981).

Had a notorious backstage feud with the indomitable Mae West on the set of Myra Breckinridge (1970).

Auditioned for the role of Mary Ann in “Gilligan’s Island” (1964).

Mother of Damon Welch.

Was a former cocktail waitress.

Has a home on the private island of Mustique

Dated producer Robert Evans with whom she attended Super Bowl (X) at Miami’s Orange Bowl in 1976

Son Damon Welch married the daughter of England and Yorkshire cricket legend Freddie Trueman.

One of the bombshells shown in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). (The other two were Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe.)

In 1970, she accepted the Oscar for “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” on behalf of Goldie Hawn, who wasn’t present at the awards ceremony

Second husband, producer Patrick Curtis, reportedly was one of several infants who took turns playing the baby of Olivia de Havilland in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Profiled in the book “Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973″ by Tom Lisanti and Louis Paul (McFarland, 2002).