While I also remember having seen this film broadcast on television in the '60s, I recall it having been theatrically re-released - on a small scale, as Saturday matinée fare - in the early '70s.
I was in college back then, and looking through the paper I noticed an advertisement for a film titled *Journey to the Beginning of Time* showing in several of the suburban theaters around Philadelphia. Curious as to whether it was the same film I'd caught on TV about a decade before, I gave up a Saturday morning's worth of sleep - precious to a college student! - and SEPTA'd to the nearest movie house named in the advertisement.
My suspicions proved correct. Rather badly dubbed and obviously edited in a fairly clunky fashion, with cruddy sound and picture, it was nevertheless the same interesting flick with a novel science fantasy premise and good pacing. Surprisingly, it had pretty good "sense of hazard" elements (including the river petering out in a carboniferous-era swamp too shallow to float the Central Park rental boat through) to keep the audience's attention.
Given my grandkids' present fixation upon all things dinosaurian (they've worn out every *Land Before Time* VHS tape we'd bought for them, and my youngest grandson - five years old - is presently pestering us to buy them anew in DVD), I've got two questions about this old Czech film.
(1) Why the heck hasn't a somewhat cleaned-up version been released for home viewing? There's obviously a market for it, antique stop-motion animation notwithstanding.
(2) Why has there been no apparent interest in the entertainment industry regarding a modern-day remake of the film? Given current advances in CGI - and the lower costs of more mature special effects technologies - it could be done for a much lower budget than something like *Jurassic Park* (1993; approximately $62,000,000).
Considering the staying power of the *Land Before Time* franchise (one released theatrically and nine more direct-to-video, if memory serves), both the original Czech movie and a well-devised remake could find sales as "safe" viewing fodder for pre-teens like my grandkids.
The video sales would be just as much an evergreen, too, as I've found to my continuing sorrow as I've had to buy a copy of each *Land Before Time* movie for each of my kids' families as the grandchildren grow into an interest in Littlefoot & Co.
I was in college back then, and looking through the paper I noticed an advertisement for a film titled *Journey to the Beginning of Time* showing in several of the suburban theaters around Philadelphia. Curious as to whether it was the same film I'd caught on TV about a decade before, I gave up a Saturday morning's worth of sleep - precious to a college student! - and SEPTA'd to the nearest movie house named in the advertisement.
My suspicions proved correct. Rather badly dubbed and obviously edited in a fairly clunky fashion, with cruddy sound and picture, it was nevertheless the same interesting flick with a novel science fantasy premise and good pacing. Surprisingly, it had pretty good "sense of hazard" elements (including the river petering out in a carboniferous-era swamp too shallow to float the Central Park rental boat through) to keep the audience's attention.
Given my grandkids' present fixation upon all things dinosaurian (they've worn out every *Land Before Time* VHS tape we'd bought for them, and my youngest grandson - five years old - is presently pestering us to buy them anew in DVD), I've got two questions about this old Czech film.
(1) Why the heck hasn't a somewhat cleaned-up version been released for home viewing? There's obviously a market for it, antique stop-motion animation notwithstanding.
(2) Why has there been no apparent interest in the entertainment industry regarding a modern-day remake of the film? Given current advances in CGI - and the lower costs of more mature special effects technologies - it could be done for a much lower budget than something like *Jurassic Park* (1993; approximately $62,000,000).
Considering the staying power of the *Land Before Time* franchise (one released theatrically and nine more direct-to-video, if memory serves), both the original Czech movie and a well-devised remake could find sales as "safe" viewing fodder for pre-teens like my grandkids.
The video sales would be just as much an evergreen, too, as I've found to my continuing sorrow as I've had to buy a copy of each *Land Before Time* movie for each of my kids' families as the grandchildren grow into an interest in Littlefoot & Co.