Objectif lotus

And it's in my top ten best films. Hilarious from the very start, with Lord Southmere hitching a lift from the yeti ("Thanks for the lift old boy - I don't think you're abominable at all!") and then escaping from the villains in the Natural History Museum disguised as a baby. It may be racist in the same way as Carry on Up the Khyber (most of the Chinese are occidentals in terrible eye makeup) but it's certainly feminist, celebrating the power of women in grey stockings fuelled only by nice cups of tea. (What if this great beast should fall on us, Hetty? Then we would be the first people in two million years to be killed by a dinosaur!) xxxxxx

This is possibly the best film ever. The story of a group of British nannies and a captured spy and their conflicts with the Chinese secret service over the recipe for the mysterious "lotus x" produces a miraculously silly slapstick festival of idiocy that is probably the most watchable film ever to come from Britain. Forget the grossly overrrated "The Full Monty" - One Of Our Dinosaurs is Missing is the funniest film ever to escape our sceptered isle. Of course the British actors playing Chinese characters are unconvincing, but this isn't about realism or diplomacy; it's about non-stop tomfoolery, which it supplies in bucketloads.

This is what British films should be about! Not dark, brooding council estates; tower-blocks filled with the destitute; or the collapse of industry; instead, the power of self-belief and good honest values overcoming adversity.

An absolute film classic, sadly overlooked at the Oscars, this deserves a cinema re-release at some point. Failing that, buy the video - you won't regret it!

Not a perfect film by all means, but it is enjoyable even with its discrepancies. Some of it is very silly, but is still fun. The film is a tad dated and suffers from uneven pacing, but the performances and the sense of fun it has makes up for it. To liven things up, there are a couple of kung fu fights, a silly car chase and a skeleton of a dinosaur that serves the basis of the main. The performances are fun but very over the top, Peter Ustinov's character is so off-the-wall but Ustinov seems to be enjoying himself. Joan Hickson and Helen Hayes are great as two members of a group of nannies that even Mary Poppins fans would love to join perhaps. Derek Nimmo is decent too as the aristocrat who hides a top secret formula in the dinosaur skeleton. A nice soundtrack and good direction help also. Overall, I enjoyed it, I wasn't expecting perfection, I didn't get it, but I liked it. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Lord Southmere has a ring of Chinese spies chasing him because he has in his possession a secret microfilm, the contents of this microfilm reveals the formula for mysterious Lotus X. After being chased into the Natural History Museum, Southmere hides the film in the bones of a Brontosaurus skeleton. After Southmere's capture, it's up to his old nanny and her hardy band of friends to find the film and keep it from the clutches of the evil Hnup Wan.....

.....and so is the plot for Disney's charmingly silly live action venture. It's not masquerading as anything other than a fun family film, it's got bags of energy, and it boasts a quite delightful premise. Obviously taking its lead from Ealing's brilliant The Ladykillers, One Of Our Dinosaur's Is Missing's strength is that a couple of English old dears are taking on {and defying} a gang of Chinese nasties. Some mirthful gags {both visual and oral} light up the film, including a great sequence as the ladies steal the skeleton and whisk thru London with it on the back of a coal fuelled truck!

It's good old harmless fun that doesn't deserve the charge of stereotyping the Chinese, it's 1975 and the cast are having fun, and honestly, so should the family. 7/10

Clearly any film nearly 30 years old is going to have flaws by today's standards and I know many people knock this film because of the now very politically incorrect portrayals of the Chinese.

However (and I am part Chinese myself) I regard the performances as pure pantomime or affectionate parody and not offensive. Besides - the bumbling British upper classes hardly fare any better.

I watched this on DVD last night and I still find it funny. Nostalgia of course plays a big part - I was 8 when it came out, still into palaeontology and visiting the Natural History Museum regularly.

But it still has some cracking dialogue, great slapstick and visual humour and of course the incomparable Helen Hayes and Peter Ustinov.

So if you want a chuckle and to escape back to a gentler (albeit fictitious) time - you could do a lot worse than spend 90 minutes watching this.