Throughout the summer the Cleveland Museum of Natural History will be hosting a variety of evening activities every Wednesday. Of particular interest to readers of this blog will be June 8, July 20, and August 24 when the CMNH will be hosting “Dino-Mite Movie Nights”. We kick off next Wednesday with Academy Award winner Ray Harryhausen’s classic film, “The Valley of Gwangi”, which features some of Ray’s best stop-motion animation dinosaurs.
On July 20th, we’ll be featuring another great Harryhausen film, “One Million Years, B.C.” This, too, has some great dinosaurs but it is probably best known as the film that pushed Raquel Welch’s career into high gear. Of course her fur bikini probably helped too.
Finally, on August 24th we’re showing the palaeoblogger’s all-time favourite film, the original 1933 “King Kong”!! Thrill to the dinosaurs of Skull Island and witness the genius of stop-motion animator, Willis O’Brien, who not only brought Kong to life, but actually gave the puppet a human soul. Time magazine recently listed “King Kong” as one of the top 100 best films ever made. They noted that the best special effect ever done was the look in Kong’s eye’s at the end of the film when he’s bloody and weak from the airplane attacks and he realizes that he’s lost Ann Darrow (Fay Wray).
Join Dr. Michael Ryan as he hosts “The Valley of Gwangi” next Wednesday evening at the CMNH.
All films are free with admission to the Museum. For more details please visit the Museum’s web site at Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
