The hiring of Caucasian
actors to play Asian roles was still commonplace in the Hollywood of the mid-’70s,
so it would be wrong to single out Walt Disney Productions for special enmity
while discussing the race problem plaguing the company’s kiddie comedy One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. Still,
watching Peter Ustinov mug his way through a stereotypical performance as a
Chinese master criminal is painful, and his portrayal reflects the overall
stupidity of the picture. Even though One
of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing benefits from Disney’s usual lavish production
values, to say nothing of Helen Hayes’ appealing star turn as an intrepid
nanny, the picture plucks so much low-hanging fruit, comedically speaking, that
it’s hard to imagine anyone but very young children enjoying the experience.
Much of the film comprises an absurd chase during which a truck bearing a
dinosaur skeleton roams the streets of 1920s London, with every imaginable
sight gag used to attenuate the sequence. Other would-be highlights include a
scene of multiple nannies crawling and leaping around the skeleton while
looking for a hidden object, the same set of nannies hiding inside the mouth of
a life-sized whale sculpture, and a bizarre throwaway scene in which a King
Kong-sized yeti helpfully carries a man across a snowy Tibetan field. As for
the plot, it’s idiocy about Hnup Wan (Ustinov) seeking the formula for
something called “Lotus X,” which British explorer Lord Southmere (Derek Nimmo)
has stolen from China. Through convoluted circumstances, Lord Southmere tasks
his childhood nanny, Hettie (Hayes), with protecting the formula. She recruits
fellow caregivers to foil Hnup Wan’s scheme. Basically a cartoon rendered in
live-action, this is pathetic stuff, too silly for adult viewers to enjoy, and
too racially insensitive for modern parents to share with their kids.
One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing: LAME
1 comment:
Watched this with my kids this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendation!
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