One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)

One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)

Directed by: Robert Stevenson

Starring: Peter Ustinov, Helen Hayes, Derek Nimmo

I have no problems whatsoever in saying that One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing is one of the strangest films I have ever seen in my life. It’s just so bizarre, every couple of minutes while watching this I just had to keep saying, “… WHAT?” because my mind just couldn’t comprehend what the hell was going on. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to show this movie to a kid…

Okay, here’s the story: Peter Ustinov is a Chinese spy who leads an army of kung-fu-ing Chinamen, and they’re after a spy who has some Chinese secrets on microfilm. In his rush to get rid of the film, the spy hides it on a dinosaur skeleton in the museum he’s in.  Pretty straightforward so far (except for the whole big Russian guy as a Chinese caricature thing, but we’re gonna have to move on from that). In the museum, before he’s captured by the “Chinese”, the spy runs into his old nanny, whom he recruits to retrieve the microfilm so the Chinese don’t get their hands on it. The nanny recruits a legion of nannies to search the dinosaur, but then they get captured by the Chinese.

Eventually, the Chinese decide the best way to get the film is to just steal the entire damn dinosaur skeleton (which is supposed to be a brontosaurus, except it has huge pointed teeth) and they load the thing up on a truck. The nannies steal the truck, and what follows is an insane car chase through London where Chinamen and a big game hunter and some children are chasing after the dino-truck, which is driven by three nannies and which is also coal-powered for some reason. This chase sequence lasts at least a half hour. After all this, it turns out they had the wrong dinosaur skeleton all along, and a couple kids help Ustinov find the microfilm, and there’s a big fight between Chinese and nannies, and it turns out the film was a recipe for won-ton soup. SIGH.

I’m obviously not doing this movie justice, but trust me, it was really, really weird. It wasn’t even all the white guys dressed up as Chinamen, honestly, I’m kinda used to that with all the racist old movies I watch. It was just the decisions the characters kept making, which made no sense at all, ever. And there were things like the coal-powered truck. What the fuck sense does that make?! I have to go lie down…