He's big, mean, vicious and ugly -- no, not the dinosaur; I'm talking about Richard Boone's character in this cheesy yet weirdly interesting little film from 1977. (I say film, even though it ended up premiering on television rather than making the rounds of cinemas.) I can't help but wonder if her role in The Last Dinosaur actually helped secure Joan Van Ark the part of Valene Ewing. Maybe some big wigs at Lorimar were lounging around one night, happened to catch some of this film, and jumped up exclaiming "That's Valene Ewing right there" once they saw how incredibly annoying and weepy Joan Van Ark was in the role of Frankie Banks. The only difference is that here she falls for a man's man rather than a little girly man like Gary Ewing.

So here's the deal. Masten Thrust Jr. (Richard Boone), who is basically the richest man in the world, announces -- in the surliest way possible -- that some of his men drilling for oil underneath the Arctic ice cap broke through into a "lost world" straight out of the Cretaceous Era -- complete with dinosaurs, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex, according to lone survivor Chuck Wade (Steven Keats). Having devoted his life to hunting and killing anything that moves -- the closer to extinction, the better -- Thrust declares that he will be leading an expedition to find this T. Rex. Accompanying him will be his friend Dr. Kawamoto (Tetsu Nakamura), Wade, his favorite hunting guide Bunta (Luther Rackley), and someone from the press pool. That last someone turns out to be photographer Frankie Banks (Van Ark). Being the womanizing sexist that he is, Thrust vetoes that idea -- until, of course, Banks uses her charms to convince him otherwise. One short Polar Borer ride later, the gang arrives and sets off in search of the king of dinosaurs. They find much more than they bargained for, however, making a fairly quick transition from the hunters to the hunted. Many shenanigans ensue, accompanied by Thrust's constant grouching and Banks' incessant whining. All the while, you'll be hoping that the dinosaur will hurry up and kill every last one of them.

You can't help but get a kick out of the special effects on display in this film, for most of them are borderline awful. I daresay even Roger Corman would have laughed at such bad special effects as these. The T. Rex is OK (albeit rather gooey) on head shots, but you can't help but laugh when he's shown peering down from above the treetops or as he walks around in all of his low-budget glory. Now I know what you're wondering -- are there any dinosaur fights? I am happy to say that there is indeed one little melee between our T. Rex and a different species of dinosaur -- that's basically the one and only highlight of the entire film.

The ending actually has a tiny bit of a philosophical tinge to it -- OK, maybe that's stretching it a bit. Even so, The Last Dinosaur does actually lend itself to at least a couple of literary allusions -- and that is something you cannot say about the vast majority of films in this genre. And Thrush can be funny sometimes in that cute little misogynistic, racist, sexist way of his.