The Animal World (1956) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Cory Walter ★★★★ 1

  Specifically the dinosaur sequence.

  The animation is excellent, as are the models, outdated they may be along with the narration, but this was released in 1956. Really cool to see, though I wasn't a fan of the puppets used outside of the stop motion. Think the goofy puppet used in close ups in The Black Scorpion (1957) that actively hurt the film.

  The animation was Ray Harryhausen while the dinosaurs were built but by Willis O'Brien. Really cool to see stop motion dinosaurs, especially when those 2 were behind them.

• Review by Jarrett

  "Well, man hadn't been created yet, but if they had been..." *caveman being eaten by Brontosaurus*

  "Man could lose the race against the insect!" Good.

• Review by funwithfilms98 ★★★½

  This is only a review of the
  “Prehistoric Sequence”:
  -
  While clearly outdated and cheaply made, the Prehistoric Sequence of the Animal World gives us a nice look into how the paleontology world viewed dinosaurs during the 1950’s, and is sure todelight fans of retro dinos and stop-motion. It may not be Ray Harryhausen’s best work, but it’s still a fascinating piece of dino film history.

• Review by Gavin McDowell ★★★★

  I only watched the dinosaur segment because it was animated by Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien (the master of the master) and, consequently, it's the only part I cared about. The short segment (about ten minutes) feels like a tournament fighting game, where dinosaur is pitted against dinosaur (Brontosaurus vs. Allosaurus; Stegosaurus vs. Ceratosaurus; Ceratosaurus vs. Ceratosaurus; Triceratops vs. T-Rex) until, in the end, God punishes the dinosaurs for their sins. No, seriously, the narrator implies that dinosaurs were punished for their brutishness and violence. A sort of "live by the sword, die by the sword" situation.

  The narration is hilarious. One of the few things I knew going in is that the director, Irwin Allen, wanted to avoid any…

• Review by funwithfilms98 ★★★½

  In the 1950's, Ray Harryhausen had become well known in the world of stop-motion animation with successful sci-fi films like The Beast From 20'000 Fathoms in 1953, and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers in 1956. However, that same year also featured one of Harryhausen's most overlooked films, that being the feature-length documentary known as "The Animal World". Directed by Irwin Allen, who had previously won the Oscar for best feature length documentary with 1953's Sea Around Us, The Animal World was Allen's attempt to show the progression of life on Earth over time, with Allen shooting real live-action documentary footage of animals in the wild, as well as a short ten-minute long prologue showing the prehistoric world of the dinosaurs…

• Review by Snatchr ★★★½

  Absolutely deranged shit here

• Review by Hatercles

  The cheerful chipmunk, the fearful fish, the troublesome turkey, the randy rhino, th mischievous monkey and even the dreaded dinosaur are featured into this look into the many creatures on our planet, most remembered for a sequence set in prehistoric times via stop motion by Ray Harryhausen. It’s interesting to see a nature doc made for mass audiences from this time. The narrator, big and boisterous, describes the animals with interest and yet a sense of bemused superiority, constantly mocking them, with the result a lot of this feels like America’s Home Videos. However, there’s something sad in seeing all animals and nature from 60 years ago, knowing how much destruction we’ve done to the planet since then, and yet most of these species still exist.

• Review by Luke Shea ★★★★★

  I only watched the stop motion Willis O'Brien/Ray Harryhausen sequence on the BLACK SCORPION blu ray. But that's basically perfect. Can't believe there were Harryhausen/O'Brien stop motion dinosaurs I hasn't seen yet!!

• Review by DanWhitehead ★★★

  Justifiably famous for its short Harryhausen animated dinosaur sequence, but the rest of the movie has its retro charms too. This is the sort of nature film that sits at the exact opposite end of the scale to David Attenborough - actual scientific insight is minimal, it leaps from subject to subject almost every few seconds, and it repeatedly uses comedy voiceovers and sped-up footage to make the natural world wackier and more amusing. There's a tangent about Adam and Eve, and how God put mankind in charge of all the animals. Alexander the Great gets namechecked simply because he rode a horse. At one point the narrator just starts listing off all the popular sayings that mention animals -…

• Review by TempusFugit ★★★

  I came for the Harryhausen dinosaurs but I stayed for the random dad jokes.

• Review by 💜 rowe 💜

  Purely here for the 10 minute Harryhausen dino scene.

• Review by rexfloyd94 ★★

  The Harryhausen/O'Brien segment is great and there's some cool footage in here but by the end the weird tone and jokes started to fall flat. Felt longer than it was.

  also they used the same weird noise for the ants in this movie that they used in THEM! which was a nice surprise