Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Perfectly adorable

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Another movie to tap into the fertile imagination of Jules Verne, the 1961 production "Valley of the Dragons" is loosely based upon - or maybe we should say inspired by - Vernes' story "Career of a Comet". It begins in the 19th century, when a Frenchman named Hector Servadac (Cesare Danova) and an Irishman named Michael Denning (Sean McClory) are about to have a duel (over a woman). But a comet makes contact with Earth at that precise moment, and Hector and Michael are swept up, along with a large chunk of Earths' prehistoric past, and deposited on the moon. The two men agree to put aside their differences, in order to survive, and end up dueling with ancient beasts, dealing with primitive tribes, and romancing cave babes Deena (Joan Staley) and Nateeta (Danielle De Metz), respectively.This is a fair diversion. There's nothing special here, but nothing overwhelmingly bad either. Even if done on a low budget (and heavily dependent on stock footage from "One Million B.C." and "Rodan"), it still manages to be just amusing enough for this viewer to stick with it. The attractiveness of Staley and De Metz doesn't hurt at all, and Danova and McClory deliver reasonably engaging performances. The black & white photography and atmosphere are respectable, while the special effects, largely consisting of trick photography designed to make ordinary animals seem huge, are passable. The action drags for a portion of the running time when our heroes are wooing their ladies. However, there is a mighty fine swimming sequence.The climax may very well be comprised of this stock footage, but that doesn't make it any less exciting. Some of the moments are horrific as humans and animals alike fall victim to a major volcanic eruption.Harmless stuff overall, if also unmemorable.Six out of 10.

"Valley of the Dragons" is a real scrapbook of other, better movies. Finally available in a very nice DVD print from Columbia Classics, VOTD reveals itself to be the second half of a sci-fi double bill aimed at kids in the early 60s. VOTD is strictly a potboiler patched together from other films Columbia had access to, as well as stock footage. Columbia hoped to cash in on the Jules Verne craze that had seen great success with Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) and 20th Century Fox's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1958). Verne's "Off on a Comet" was pretty much forgotten, so Columbia seized on the title and added an astonishing number of things harvested from other sources in hopes to make the money the aforementioned films harvested. It didn't work, and VOTD ended up on an endless loop in second-run theatres and died a quiet death on TV "Chiller Theater" offerings until vanishing in the late 60s. Seeing this oddity again after so many years is why popcorn was invented. It's earnest, yet silly. The production values are not bad, and the story is as flimsy as they come. Earthmen are swept onto a passing comet, discover they're about to become lunchmeat for "dinosaurs", run away from flaming oatmeal spewed out by a volcano, and find hot babes on said comet. Love conquers all and leering commences as the two former enemies realize they have seven years to fool around with the hot babes before maybe getting off the comet when it passes Earth again.The "dinosaurs" are the stock variety lizards with fins glued on their backs and blown up via rear projection. Many have wandered over from the classic "One Million BC" (1940), as have a bunch of mangy mastodons. The erupting volcano and the hot oatmeal returns from that spectacle as well. There's a really unpleasant scene featuring a giant kinkajou attacking and really eating a snake. Rodan (1956) wanders over from Japan and makes a few peek-a-boo appearances. The giant spider/bug is from "World Without End"(1956). The Morlocks from MGM's "The Time Machine" (1960) show up, although the faces have been changed and lack the glow-in-the-dark eyes. And so on. All that aside, VOTD isn't a bad way to spend a few minutes, and there's some cheesecake and a loose bikini top in an underwater swim sequence. This is poverty row movie-making at it's finest. Be warned though, if you making a drinking game of this by taking a shot every time you spot something from another B-movie monster mash, you'll be stinking drunk by the 45 minute mark.

I understand that Edward Bernds's "Valley of the Dragons" only keeps one character from Jules Verne's "Off on a Comet". Nevertheless, it's a very entertaining movie. The star is Cesare Danova, best known as the crooked mayor in "Animal House" ("If you mention extortion again, I'll have your legs broken."). In this movie, he plays a duelist who gets blasted - along with the other duelist - onto a world populated by cave people and dinosaurs.The movie had a number of obvious historical inaccuracies, such as humans and dinosaurs existing contemporaneously*, but who cares about accuracy in these movies? The point is to have fun, and it's impossible not to have fun with this movie, especially with the ultra-hot Deena. Of course, I did make a number of "Animal House" references whenever Danova was on screen. Fun movie.*I understand that Earth's oxygen levels were much higher when the dinosaurs existed. Such levels would overload a human. Conversely, the dinosaurs would suffocate in our oxygen levels.

Valley of the Dragons was one of the last gasps of the classic Fifties SF movie. In the UK it has been very difficult to see, but is now available on DVD, in a superb print, as part of the excellent Columbia Classics series.If you like this sort of thing (I do) then there is quite a lot to keep you occupied, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and plenty of dinosaur and mammoth action; not to mention a couple of very fetching cave girls. It delivers a lot more than many B movies of the era.I am pleased to have finally seen it, but I cannot claim it is an unsung minor classic. It consists of a prologue that nods in the direction of Jules Verne, followed by a caveman movie similar to One Million BC. That is where the problems lie: "similar to" is a massive understatement.In truth, most of this movie (and just about all the action) is stock footage taken directly from that earlier picture and the new material was clearly written just to accommodate it.Valley of the Dragons is not just based on One Million BC.It is One Million BC.