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Cowboys battle dinosaurs and other Mesozoic monsters in one of the most influential films to several renowned modern film-makers titled, ‘The Valley of Gwangi’. Among the most well-known of Ray Harryhausen’s work, ‘The Valley of Gwangi’ was based on a script Ray’s mentor Willis O’Brien had written several years earlier but was unable to produce due to difficult times. Upon uncovering the script and taking it to Charles H. Schneer, and making slight alterations to the plot, Ray went to work on the film. The result is one of the most well-known and loved dinosaur movies of all time.

The adventure begins when former stuntman Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus) approaches his ex-girlfriend, TJ (Gila Golan), about purchasing her horse Omar with whom she performs stunts for a small wild-west show. TJ refuses, throwing Tuck out. As Tuck travels into the desert, he meets professor Bromley (Laurence Naismith), a paleontologist who is presently studying the origins of human evolution, and has found several fossil specimines, the one of which he is most proud containing a fossilized human footprint alongside a series of three-toed tracks belonging to a tiny prehistoric horse-anscestor known as Eohippus. When Tuck returns to the village in an attempt to change TJ's mind, he ends up saving a small boy from a charging bull in the arena, but is wounded in the process, and is saved by Carlos (Gustavo Rojo).

As TJ nurses Tuck back to health, he once again attempts to convince her to sell Omar to him, and to his surprise, she agrees. Suspecting that TJ may have found a better act, Tuck asks her about it and TJ shows him El Diablo, a cat-sized horse who TJ is certian will save the show. As the two converse, Tuck notices that El Diablo has three toes. Professor Bromley later identifies the little creature as an Eohippus, and hurries over to the local village of Gypsies, wherein we encounter the lead Gypsy who tells him El Diablo came from the forbidden valley. After stating that she'll not lead him to the valley, the professor tells her the wherabouts of El Diablo, hoping to follow her when she steals the little horse to return it to Gwangi. Tuck soon realizes that El Diablo has been stolen and heads off in search of the Valley.

TJ, thinking Tuck is the thief based on a story tole to her by Carlos, rounds up several members of the show and heads off in search of Tuck. The searching leads Tuck, Professor Bromley, TJ, Carlos, and a horde of the show's performers into the Forbidden valley where they encounter a huge man-eating Pteranodon, an agile Ornithomimus, a ferocious horned Styracosaurus, and the valley's most fearsome resident, a huge Allosaurus known as Gwangi 'the evil one' in the most bizzare showdown the wild west has ever beheld!
 

Creatures to look out for:

Trivia:

• Spain was the obvious location for a story set in Mexico, so the production was mostly centered in and around Almeria and Cuenca, with the interiors photo-graphed in a television studio in Madrid.

• Ray completed the animation and effects on the 7th of October 1968 after shooting more than 400 stop-motion cuts for the film, more than any other film to that date.

• Right up to January 1969 the film was to be called The Valley Where Time Stood Still, which was, the perfect title. Unfortunately, the Warner publicity people thought it was too long and complicated, and even after strong objections from everyone involved, including James Franciscus, the title became The Valley of Gwangi.