The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy
About The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy
The Duke and Stonejaw Steve both court Miss Araminta Rockface. Steve throws the Duke into a pot of boiling water. A title introduces a third suitor, "our unassuming hero, Theophilus Ivoryhead." Miss Rockface apologizes for offering no tea, because tea has not been discovered. Wild Willie, the missing link, eats the household's food. Mr. Rockface sends the three men out to hunt dinner. Steve's arrow misses a quail and hits the Duke. Willie, fishing for snakes, pulls the tail of a dinosaur drinking at the lake. The dinosaur kills him. Theophilus finds the body, puts a foot on the chest, and tells the others, "Yes yes—a mere trifle. He irritated me and I was forced to kill him." He gets the kisses.
Cast & crew
More about The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy
Willis H. O'Brien animated the short in stop motion and photographed it. Herman Wobber produced it. Thomas Edison's Conquest Pictures released it on 24 March 1917. It runs 5 minutes. An American reissue was titled The Dinosaur and the Baboon. Early test footage by O'Brien was expanded into the film. The figures are clay.
Themes
Making
O'Brien built the courtship, the quail hunt, and the lake fight as tabletop clay animation, then Conquest put it out as a five-minute comedy.
Look
O'Brien shot his own stop-motion models, including the lake where Willie hauls on the dinosaur's tail.
Technique
Stop-motion clay figures carry a five-minute story with four speaking titles' worth of jokes.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print survives. It was later reissued in America as The Dinosaur and the Baboon.
Notes
- The tea joke is a title: it has not been discovered yet.
- Theophilus's line after the fake kill is "Yes yes—a mere trifle. He irritated me and I was forced to kill him.
- A later note on O'Brien calls the foot-on-the-chest pose a gesture he kept using.
- Wild Willie is played as a thin, ape-like figure, not a costumed actor.
- The Internet Archive copy uses the silent-film identifier silent-the-dinosaur-and-the-missing-link-a-prehistoric-tragedy.
Scenes
- Steve dumps the Duke into a boiling pot.
- Willie yanks a dinosaur's tail at the lake and is killed.
- Theophilus plants a foot on Willie's chest and takes the credit.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-dinosaur-and-the-missing-link-a-prehistoric-tragedy)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Dinosaur and the Missing Link.ogv)
Quotes
Yes yes—a mere trifle. He irritated me and I was forced to kill him.
