A Western That 'Jurassic Park' Fans Will Love

When Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) saw the T. rex appear out of nowhere and attack a Gallimimus, he told Tim and Lex that they’d “never look at birds the same way again.” What Jurassic Park was arguing at the time — in that hoary old age when blockbusters argued — was the relatively recent theory that theropods share a closer lineage with birds than lizards. Up until that point, the popular image of the dinosaur was largely rendered by artist Charles R. Knight, whose upright, tail-dragging Tyrannosaurus and swamp-based Brontosaurus were borrowed for The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933). As movie monsters, they were brought to life by Willis O’Brien, the Oscar-winning effects pioneer who invented stop-motion animation. One of his movie ideas, Emilio and Guloso, alternatively The Valley of the Mist, was completed in 1969 by his protégé Ray Harryhausen and director Jim O'Connolly as The Valley of Gwangi. Bearing one of cinema’s great posters, with the tagline “Cowboys battle monsters in the lost world of Forbidden Valley” in enormous, bold text, it’s a western with one hell of a twist. The cowboys chase an Ornithomimus through the desert before an Allosaurus appears out of nowhere to attack; a moment to which Steven Spielberg was keen to pay tribute.