I watched the Columbia Pictures November 1961 “Valley of the Dragons” (which had no dragons in it) on Svengoolie. The movie is, very loosely, based on the Jules Vernes book “Career of a Comet”. This film uses lots of stock footage from Rodan (Rodan itself), Cat-women of the Moon (the spider), King Dinosaur, and One Million B.C.. The director is Edward Bernds (Three Stooges short subjects, A Bird in the Head, Gasoline Alley, Joy Ride) and
produced by Al Zimbalist (Robot Monster, Monster from Green Hell, Cat-women of the Moon, Watusi, Baby Face Nelson, King Dinosaur, Tarzan, the Ape Man). In 1881, two men are preparing for a duel,
are swept up by a comet passing closely to Earth and find themselves in a very different world of cavemen and prehistoric animals.
The dueling pair are Cesare Danova (Don Juan, The Rifleman TV show, Tarzan, the Ape Man, Cleopatra, Gidget Goes to Rome, Viva Las Vegas, Tentacles, the mayor in Animal House) and
Sean McClory (Island in the Sky, Them!, Disney’s The Guns of Fort Petticoat, Mary Poppins, Bandolero!). The gorgeous cave women they find are played by Joan Staley (The Robe, Brigadoon, My Sister Eileen, November 1958 Playboy Centerfold) and
Danielle De Metz (Return of the Fly, Gidget Goes to Rome, and tv appearances in shows such as Dr. Kildare, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, My Three Sons, I Dream of Jeannie,
77 Sunset Strip, Combat!, Perry Mason, I Spy, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun – Will Travel). Others are Greg Martell (Dinosaurus, Winchester ’73),
Gil Perkins (Lots of movies where he is uncredited, The Big Chase, Teenage Monster, Bluebeard in 1966 Batman), I. Stanford Jolley (appeared in many TV westerns including The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Cisco Kid, Tales of the Texas Rangers,
Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show, Sky King, Death Valley Days, Wanted Dead or Alive, Bronco, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Maverick, Lawman, Cheyenne, Rawhide,
Wagon Train, The Virginian, Daniel Boone, Laredo, The Big Valley, Bonanza, Gunsmoke) and Michael Lane (Frankenstein 1970, Ulysses Against Hercules, played the Frankenstein monster in The Monkees episode Monstrous Monkee Mash (1968),
Monster Squad TV series). They used the leftover jungle set from the movie The Devil at 4 O’clock and shot the entire movie on the back lot of Columbia. The music was by Ruby Raskin (Flipper, National Geographic Specials, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau). I’ll give this movie 2.5 out of 5. For more information read Wikipedia, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
