The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy

Way before Willis H. O'Brien put the king in Kong, this marble sculptor created with the help of a local news cameraman his first film, "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy," in April 1915. He used claymation with stop-motion to tell the story of a caveman, in love with a cave woman, and his attempt to prove his worth to her in a dishonest way by claiming to kill the missing link.

O'Brien, who had run away from home at 11 to take a variety of jobs, including a ranch hand, a cowboy, and a professional boxer, gravitated towards the arts by taking up marble sculpturing while serving as an assistant to the head architect to 1915's San Francisco's World's Fair. Fascinated by dinosaurs, he tinkered around with clay models at that time. He created, with the assistance of a cameraman, a six-minute claymation film, complete with human and animal movements.

His creativeness he displayed in the clip was unique in that, while claymation animation was seen in movies in the past, O'Brien's film was entirely composited of clay figures and typography.

He followed up his "Missing Link" film a year later with 1916's "Prehistoric Poultry." Although half the length as his debut experimental movie, "Pountry" shows a deeper sophistication in movement of his characters. Both of O'Brien's movies were shown to friends and other animated lovers in private settings.

Thomas Edison was shown O'Brien's clips and was impressed by his technological advancements on screen. He had his company hire him to produce a series of dinosaur animated films for young viewers. The Edison Company released his two movies in 1917, which were followed up by several other originals. O'Brien's work in the next decades would both amaze and scare audences worldwide, including his work on 1933's "King Kong," his most famous film.

Whenever we think of modern stone-age humor, we think of THE FLINTSTONES, but before we them let us scroll back to 1915 and see where it really all began. In this claymation short (yes they had claymation back in the silent era), we see a primeval love triangle between The Duke and Stonejaw Steve. They want to marry the girl, but along comes the youngster Theophilis Ivoryhead, and you know where this is going. You are asking, "Hey, where is the dinosaur and where is the missing link? The Missing Link is the villain in the picture and his name is Wild Willie. This Australopithecus (the missing link between man and ape), looks more like a gorilla-chimp hybrid. In fact, Willis O'Brien, who made this short, called him "King Kong's Ancestor." After Wild Willie sneaks in to steal their lunch, which happens to be snakes. (Were you expecting spaghetti? Just go with it.) A flightless prehistoric bird called the Dinornis (referred to as the desert quail), makes an appearance not only to dodge Stonejaw Steve's arrow (which hit's The Duke's rump), but scares the antagonist away. Theophilis Ivoryhead goes fishing and sees the battle between the dinosaur, a Brontosaurus (being the deus ex machina), and Wild Willie. After gang returns, all the youngster says that he fought him, leading him to win the girl's heart. This was Willis O'Brien's first film before the original THE LOST WORLD, before the original KING KONG, and before the original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. This battle between those hairy and the scaly would pop-up again in 1933 with KING KONG, 1948 with UNKNOWN ISLAND (done with men in costumes), Toho's KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, 1976's QUEEN KONG (read my comment), Dino Delaurentiis' 1976 remake (done with a snake), Peter Jackson's 2005 remake (done with three T-Rexes), KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) and RAMPAGE (2018). Wild Willie paved way to many stop-motion animated apes. The gorillas in THE GORILLA HUNT (1926), KING KONG and SON OF KONG (1933), MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), Taurus from EQUINOX (1970) KING DONG (1984) and the yeti from THE PRIMEVALS (which never got made until November 2017 when Charles Band announced that it is coming out sometime in 2018). This short never got remade, until 90 years later. It was remade my me and it came out in the time of Peter Jackson's KING KONG remake and it is up on YouTube and the link is down there. Give it a watch and it is pure family fun. Not rated, but a "G" would be nice.

It's amazing stuff now and it was probably even more so back in 1915. I can't believe it's gotten such low votes! Even if you can't get past its primitive nature (no pun inten ... oh well, what the heck, pun intended), surely you can appreciate it as a dry run for King Kong. Amazingly graceful, fluid movement at times, and O'Brien really must have had some fun scrutinizing every last detail of the missing link's body movements. Obviously the work of someone who cared.

This film is a 1910s version of what would today be called Claymation. It features dinosaurs, apes, and caveman. It is worthy of mention as it was one of the first films made by the legendary Willis O'Brien, who would later do the special effects for "The Lost World" and "King Kong". O'Brien's clay animation in "Missing Link" is certainly not as good as his work in later films(which featured far more advanced models). However, as this was one of the first films with stop-motion animation, it was a pioneering work for O'Brien, and for the film industry in general. It was probably not the first film to use stop motion animation, but it may well be the first dinosaur movie to have done so. These historical notes will make it worth seeing for some people, in particular those interested in film history.

With the 2021 blockbuster of "Godzilla vs. Kong," it doesn't seem the art form has matured much in the 100-plus years since this stop-motion animated split-reeler, with a title that almost takes as long to read as it does to see the film, "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy." Despite its title, this is a quasi-comedic experimental piece of stop-motion animation from Willis O'Brien, the same guy behind the effects in "King Kong" (1933), as well as "The Lost World" (1925) and "Mighty Joe Young" (1949), among other things. How appropriate then that the brief narrative climaxes with a dinosaur making quick work of killing the ape-looking so-called "missing link." The joke, then, being that mankind, or cave men in this case, pretends afterwards that they had anything to do with this prehistoric battle of monsters.

I'm also now wondering whether the origins of Godzilla and King Kong rest on a phallic metaphor--what with this title card setting up the fight: "Wild Willie decides to go down to the stream and catch a few snakes for his dinner." Unfortunately for the gorilla-like Willie, he bites off more than he can chew in the long-necked dinosaur.