"Professor, there's a big lizard back there and he's heading this way!" - The Valley of Gwangi Trivia

From IMDB

Gwangi is a native American word that means lizard.

Gustavo Rojo is dubbed by Robert Rietty

When this film was first conceived it was supposed to have been a follow-up to King Kong, but was never made. However, version of the "cowboys in Africa" footage was shot, and wound up being used in Mighty Joe Young.

Due to a mishearing of the word "fuck" by the BBFC the 1995 video release was wrongly given a '12' certificate. This was corrected for the 2003 DVD and the rating changed to a 'U' certificate.

In 1971, Warner Brothers cleverly reissued this film in the USA on a double bill with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

Leading lady Gila Golan was re-dubbed, but the voice actress remains unidentified.

The roping of Gwangi was achieved by having the actors hold on to ropes tied to a "Monster stick" that was in the back of a Jeep. The jeep and stick when filmed with Gwangi are on a back rear projection plate and hidden by his body and the portions of rope attached to his body are painted wires that are matched with the real ropes.

Special effects master Ray Harryhausen has said that sequence of the elephant performing its act and its subsequent fight with Gwangi were done with no shots of a real elephant because no such animal was available. However, there is an elephant in the very early scene of the Wild West show's parade through the town, and Ray's animation puppet is a perfect double for it.

The pterodactyl picks Lope up by his shoulders but when T.J. is cleaning his wounds there are several claw marks down his right side and none on his shoulders.

(More After The Break)

Early on, young Lope tells Tuck Kirby that the arena is two miles outside of the town. This is confirmed by Tuck encountering Professor Bromley's paleontological digs in open desert during his return from his first visit to it. However, at the film's climax the arena is clearly within the town.

When Gwangi is chasing the cowboys out of the valley through the rock pass, one person falls off his horse twice.

Gwangi's apparent color changes several times over the course of the movie because there was so much animation to do that Harryhausen did not have enough time to do proper color testing.

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The Monstrous Movie Clip Of The Day: Dinosaur Wrangling Made Easy?

Written By: Ken Hulsey

Way back in 1969 the master special effects Ray Harryhausen created one of the most spectacular stop-motion animation shots for the movie "The Valley of Gwangi". To the casual viewer this sequence may not seem like a hard illusion to pull off but to those who know how the scene was achieved it stands as a true testament to hours of hard work and an amazing attention to detail.

Here is the problem that was presented to Harryhausen, "How do you get live action cowboy actors on horseback to lasso an Allosaurus model (Gwangi) that is only about a foot tall and make it look real?" The effect was achieved by having the actors actually lasso a pole that was the same height as a real Allosaurus that was mounted to the back of a Jeep. The jeep and pole when filmed with the miniature dinosaur are on a back rear projection plate and hidden by the body of the model, and the portions of rope attached to it's body are painted wires that are matched with the real ropes for each individual frame by Harryhausen using his keen eye looking through the camera's viewfinder to ensure everything lined up perfectly. The model of Gwangi also had to be manipulated to make it look like the horses and their human riders were reacting to the dinosaurs movements and not vice versa. Overall the five minute sequence took almost a month to complete via this process.