Janelle Shane

My grandma told me that she saw a movie at around age 6 in which a big dinosaur rampaged through a city and picked up skyscrapers in its hand. For years she was afraid of “dinosawers”.

This would have been around 1933 or 1934 so NOT Godzilla which was my 1st guess.

Any ideas what film it was?

Feb 9 at 6:20pmWeb
Show threadGeorge BFeb 9

@janellecshane

This looks like a useful resource if you haven't seen it yet: https://wikizilla.org/wiki/1933

1933

Wikizilla
Show threadGeorge BFeb 9

@janellecshane

There were some dinosaurs in the original 1933 King Kong so it could be a 6 year old confusing 2 different parts of the movie

Show threadJanelle ShaneFeb 9
@gbargoud yeah, could be! I’ll see if she remembers King Kong being in it
Show threadMedea Vanamonde 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 9
@janellecshane @gbargoud there was a version of The Lost World in 1925. At least one of the Black and White versions had dinosaurs running amok in London
Show threadPhil NelsonFeb 9
@janellecshane There is a 1942 Superman cartoon called The Arctic Giant. A bit later than you mentioned but a strong candidate.
Show threadJanelle ShaneFeb 9
@philnelson hmm I could imagine her being off by a year or two but not 10 years at that age
Show threadCurioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)Feb 9

@janellecshane

According to this article, there was a The Lost World version on 1925 with a dinosaur terrorizing a city; but it was a brontosaur, so no hands. Maybe she made up the picking skyscrapers in its hand bit? Time is a bitch, and kid's imagination tends to run wild.

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/the-evolution-of-hollywood-dinosaurs/

You have a good list of possible candidates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_dinosaurs

The Evolution of Hollywood Dinosaurs

The big screen dinosaur rampage that started in the 1900s continues this summer with Jurassic World. Let's take a look at the history of Hollywood dinosaurs.

The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat
Show threadAndrew WhiteFeb 9
@jgg @janellecshane I was going to suggest the Lost World as well. It's on the Internet Archive if that's helpful: https://archive.org/details/TheLostWorldCompleteVideoQualityUpgrade
THE LOST WORLD complete & video quality upgrade : Earl Hudson (uncredited) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This restored and reconstructed version is 8 minutes longer than the other IA copies. The glitch-free print is significently sharper. The landmark fantasy...

Internet Archive
Show threadCurioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)Feb 9

@janellecshane

Sorry, I got the last link wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_dinosaurs

List of films featuring dinosaurs - Wikipedia

Show threadThe Tattooed Nonna 🧙‍♀️Feb 9
@janellecshane the lost world? It's earlier, but they bring a dinosaur to London https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0016039/
The Lost World (1925) ⭐ 7.0 | Adventure, Fantasy, Horror

1h 50m | Passed

IMDb
Show threadJanelle ShaneFeb 9
@Tattooed_Mummy hmm could be! This was rural Minnesota, maybe they sometimes played older movies. I’ll ask her!
Show threadsettimaFeb 9

@janellecshane If it's *not* King Kong – but that's the only one that pops up when I look for dinosaur movies from the 30s – it may have been the short Winsor McCay #animation Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet from 1921. It could've played as part of a matinée, or before the main feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2SinJ35as

#WinsorMcCay #film #cinemastodon

Winsor McCay's Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet (1921) | Horror Historia Reference Videos

YouTube
Show threadliferstateFeb 9

@janellecshane Gertie the Dinosaur?

[Edit: the clip starts with a live-action frame story, drawing/animation starts around 6:50]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32pzHWUTcPc

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

YouTube
Show threadJanelle ShaneFeb 23
@liferstate hmm she is now very definite that the dinosaur was knocking down skyscrapers in New York
Show threadAisling "deer transition baby" FawnFeb 9
@janellecshane Didn't Winsor McCay make some movies that were kinda like proto-kaiju stuff?
Show threadAisling "deer transition baby" FawnFeb 9
@janellecshane oh other people already answered Winsor McCay
Show threadAndrew WhiteFeb 22
@janellecshane Curious: was the mystery solved?
Show threadJanelle ShaneFeb 23

@awhite I showed her a bit of The Lost World today and she said it’s definitely not that. She thought the dinosaur was in New York knocking down skyscrapers as if they were blocks.

Furthermore she says it could have been part of a weekly serial like the Perils of Pauline (though it wasn’t Perils of Pauline because by then she had figured out that Pauline would always survive so that didn’t scare her like the dinosaur did)

Show threadAndrew WhiteFeb 23
@janellecshane Good luck in hunting it down! (I'm afraid I've shot my bolt in helping out!)