Sometime after World War I, Lord Southmere (Derek Nimmo) escapes from China back to England with a microfilm containing the formula for something known as "Lotus X". As Southmere is pursued by Chinese agents lead by Hnup Wan (Peter Ustinov) and his conniving assistant Quon (Clive Revill), Southmere stashes the film inside a dinosaur skeleton at the British Museum of Natural History where he has a chance encounter with his old nanny, Hettie (Helen Hayes) who raised him 25 years ago as a boy, and reveals the location of the film to her. When Southmere is captured, Hettie and a group of other nannies set out to find the missing microfilm and rescue Southmere to unravel the plot.
While Robert Stevenson and Bill Walsh aren't the most widely known names in film, it's because their work as director and writer/producer respectively that we've gotten such live-action Disney classics as Blackbeard's Ghost, The Love Bug, the original That Darn Cat, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and the enduring and Academy Award winning Mary Poppins. Bedknobs and Broomsticks was Stevenson and Walsh's final bona fide critical success going into the 70s slump that defined Disney of the time, and while the two would produced some financially successful films, it was clear their best days were behind them. Such is the case unfortunately with One of our Dinosaurs is Missing, a would be comic farce featuring Academy Award winners Peter Ustinov and Helen Hayes in material that doesn't match their talent.
The movie is actually a very loose adaptation of the 1970 novel The Great Dinosaur Robbery by David Forrest (pseudonym of David Eliades and Robert Forrest Webb). While the book was targeted towards an adult audience and set in 1970s in New York against the backdrop of the Cold War, Disney bought the rights to the film keeping only the bare basics of the dinosaur skeleton and the microfilm and setting the film post World War I to erase any political subtext from the material much to the ire and annoyance of Eliades and Webb. The movie also featured major controversy of the time as advocacy groups Asians for a Fair Media and Chinese for Affirmative Action picketed screenings of the film for the yellowface caricatures of Chinese portrayed by Peter Ustinov, Clive Revill, and various other British actors in a manner that was unfavorably compared to Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu.
There's really not much to say about One of Our Dinosaurs is missing as it more or less falls into the framework of other 70s produced Disney comic capers saved for Dick Tracy-esque gangster archetypes that are replaced with bumbling Chinese agents that more or less serve the same purpose. Unlike similar films of the time like those made by Vincent McEverty or Robert Butler, at least Robert Stevenson at his weakest still makes his movies feel like they have scope and scale and belong in a movie theater. The centerpiece for the movie is undeniably the car chase involving an elaborately produced dinosaur skeleton on the back of a coal powered truck and it is a well-produced sequence even if it's very much recycling familiar gimmicks. When you have a cast that includes the likes of Helen Hayes, Joss Ackland, Roy Kinnear, and yes even Peter Ustinov (unfortunate make-up aside) you know you're going to get effort so even if the material is weak there is at least some energy behind it. And then we have the elephant in the room, the yellowface. Maybe if this were still targeted at an adult audience and made with a self-aware satiric bite it MIGHT have been acceptable, I have seen this type of thing done before successfully such Peter Sellers' Sidney Wang character from Murder by Death that was a direct and deliberate send-up of Charlie Chan and the white actors such as Peter Lorre who'd played him. Unfortunately this is a Disney film made in mind for a broad family audience meaning there is no satiric bite, it's just using the stereotypes as the start/stop of the joke on its own.
One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing is an unfortunate close on the career of writer/producer Bill Walsh as this would be his final film before a heart attack took his life the same year. On its own it's a silly if overly familiar formula caper comedy, but it's not benefitted with the passage of time as the yellowface doesn't have any satirical merit or excuse like "it was a different time" that you can really give to it. You'll most likely never see this one on Disney+ but it is available for the morbidly curious if you're so inclined. If you're a Disney completionist wondering how Bill Walsh's career caps off maybe I can recommend it, but for everyone else: if you haven't seen it you really don't have a reason to seek it out.
While Robert Stevenson and Bill Walsh aren't the most widely known names in film, it's because their work as director and writer/producer respectively that we've gotten such live-action Disney classics as Blackbeard's Ghost, The Love Bug, the original That Darn Cat, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and the enduring and Academy Award winning Mary Poppins. Bedknobs and Broomsticks was Stevenson and Walsh's final bona fide critical success going into the 70s slump that defined Disney of the time, and while the two would produced some financially successful films, it was clear their best days were behind them. Such is the case unfortunately with One of our Dinosaurs is Missing, a would be comic farce featuring Academy Award winners Peter Ustinov and Helen Hayes in material that doesn't match their talent.
The movie is actually a very loose adaptation of the 1970 novel The Great Dinosaur Robbery by David Forrest (pseudonym of David Eliades and Robert Forrest Webb). While the book was targeted towards an adult audience and set in 1970s in New York against the backdrop of the Cold War, Disney bought the rights to the film keeping only the bare basics of the dinosaur skeleton and the microfilm and setting the film post World War I to erase any political subtext from the material much to the ire and annoyance of Eliades and Webb. The movie also featured major controversy of the time as advocacy groups Asians for a Fair Media and Chinese for Affirmative Action picketed screenings of the film for the yellowface caricatures of Chinese portrayed by Peter Ustinov, Clive Revill, and various other British actors in a manner that was unfavorably compared to Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu.
There's really not much to say about One of Our Dinosaurs is missing as it more or less falls into the framework of other 70s produced Disney comic capers saved for Dick Tracy-esque gangster archetypes that are replaced with bumbling Chinese agents that more or less serve the same purpose. Unlike similar films of the time like those made by Vincent McEverty or Robert Butler, at least Robert Stevenson at his weakest still makes his movies feel like they have scope and scale and belong in a movie theater. The centerpiece for the movie is undeniably the car chase involving an elaborately produced dinosaur skeleton on the back of a coal powered truck and it is a well-produced sequence even if it's very much recycling familiar gimmicks. When you have a cast that includes the likes of Helen Hayes, Joss Ackland, Roy Kinnear, and yes even Peter Ustinov (unfortunate make-up aside) you know you're going to get effort so even if the material is weak there is at least some energy behind it. And then we have the elephant in the room, the yellowface. Maybe if this were still targeted at an adult audience and made with a self-aware satiric bite it MIGHT have been acceptable, I have seen this type of thing done before successfully such Peter Sellers' Sidney Wang character from Murder by Death that was a direct and deliberate send-up of Charlie Chan and the white actors such as Peter Lorre who'd played him. Unfortunately this is a Disney film made in mind for a broad family audience meaning there is no satiric bite, it's just using the stereotypes as the start/stop of the joke on its own.
One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing is an unfortunate close on the career of writer/producer Bill Walsh as this would be his final film before a heart attack took his life the same year. On its own it's a silly if overly familiar formula caper comedy, but it's not benefitted with the passage of time as the yellowface doesn't have any satirical merit or excuse like "it was a different time" that you can really give to it. You'll most likely never see this one on Disney+ but it is available for the morbidly curious if you're so inclined. If you're a Disney completionist wondering how Bill Walsh's career caps off maybe I can recommend it, but for everyone else: if you haven't seen it you really don't have a reason to seek it out.