The Allosaurus

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: One Million Years B.C 1966

Allosaurus Video Clip

 

As Tumak learns the art of fishing from the Shell tribe using a spear the Allosaurus invades the camp and begins to reek chaos, the Allosaurus attacks the tribe and manages to capture one of the men in its jaws and kills him. After the man is dead the creature turns its attention to a little girl that Tumak help climb a tree so that she could rustle the tree for fruit. It tries to capture the girl but Tumak uses a spear and begins to fight with the Dinosaur, the other tribe men soon join in the attack and begin to fight with it also. They use spears, rocks and anything they can find against the Allosaurus, as the fight continues the creature destroys a man made camp of tree leaves and sharp tree trunks. The Allosaurus picks up yet another tribes man in his jaws and kills him also, during the fight Tumak loses his spear when the creature grabs it with his jaws but Tumak gets one of the fallen tree trunks from the camp. Akhoba manages to impale the dinosaur in the neck with his spear, it then rushes towards Tumak but he uses the momentum to impale the creature right on his stomach injuring him. With a fatal wound on his stomach the Allosaururs falls to his death in agony..  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Allosaurus Facts

 

  • In reality the Allosaurus was an enourmous carnosaur that grew up to 39 feet but Ray decided not to think too big, if he had it would have destroyed everything and the men of the tribe would have been unable to offer any resistance.

 

  • For the fight the spear was an important example of 'contact'. As the spear in the rear-projection spear image 'touches' the model it was replaced with a miniature one.

 

  • in the scene were the Allosaurus picks up a man from the water a real actor was suspended on wires in the studio and filmed writhing in agony. In the animation studio Ray matched the actor's actions with the mouth of the model Allosaurus. In later scenes the real actor was replaced with a model.

Credit: An Animated Life

By Tony Dalton

 

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