Easy Flyer

This was pretty much a character driven movie. I watched the entire movie only because I found the characters interesting. The acting by the main characters was fine given the constraints of a low budget horror flick. I would recommend watching this movie only if you want to see another good examine of the uncouth man uncivilizing the resistant and cultured woman. Otherwise, try to ignore the weak "special effects".

Boozily priapic Helicopter pilot (Peter Fonda) reluctantly takes beautiful anthropologist (Deborah Raffin) into the boiling jungle inferno and are soon fearfully beset by diminutive, conspicuously carnivorous reptilian cryptids!!! Shot against the wild exotic fauna of the Philippines, this enjoyably rumbustious horror-inflected adventure succeeds due to the energetic lead's amiability, as one hopes that they might prevail against the bloody scourge of weirdly winged pygmies of death!

Our squabbling adventurers fractiously find romance blossoming in the roiling crucible heat of their increasingly dangerous travails deep in the jungle! B-Horror fans should appreciate the rousing action, grimy synths, boisterous badinage, and sporadic outbursts of beastly bloodletting! For me, Dance of The Dwarfs frequently feels like a zesty, Gung ho, Golan-Globus'd 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison' and that's no bad thing at all! I really couldn't say if this film is particularly obscure, it kinda feels as if it might be, and, frankly, Dance of The Dwarfs deserves better, as sparky screen couple Raffin & Fonda are fun to watch, and happily, Trikonis keeps things dancing along nicely!

Last summer I picked up a copy of Geoffrey Household's novel, DANCE OF THE DWARFS. I had recently taped the film on late-night TV and figured someday it would be interesting to compare the two versions of the work. I have now read the book and watched the film, and I must say that a comparison is difficult; if I hadn't known from the credits that the book had inspired the movie, I'd have thought the few vague similarities between the works were pure coincidence! The novel is written in the form of an agricultural researcher's journal and, while it has its flaws, manages to be suspenseful and to introduce some interesting ideas. The film, on the other hand, is a painfully unthrilling adventure movie reminiscent in many ways of the unfortunate 1985 remake of KING SOLOMON'S MINES. The most tragic difference between the book and the film is that the interesting and graceful creatures of the novel have been replaced here by guys jumping around in rubber suits. The novel wasn't that great, but it didn't deserve this horrible treatment.

I saw this movie quite often when I was a young child, unfortunately I have not seen it since the 1980's so forgive me if I can not remember all the details of this flick. The title is rather funny though, as from the title I get the image of Gimli from the Lord of the Rings films and other drawfs doing the river dance or something. However, that is not the case as this movie is about some sort of creature from what I remember, and this creature is virtually unseen throughout the movie as it is confined to a rather monster infested finale. There is also a scene in which one guy is running from the unseen monsters and ends up somehow in really hot boiling water where part of his face gets burned away. However, a lot of the film is very forgettable as I am having the hardest time trying to recall plot points and stuff of that nature as most of what I remember is the monsters final attack at the end rather than any of the other scenes aside from the aforementioned guy above. So as much as I liked this movie as a kid I, that may be just a case of really enjoying cheesy monsters so I will give this movie a five and remember it for what it was unless I happen to catch it on television or something.

In fact, this puddle of cinematic up-chuck came in a full year before Zemeckis' adventure/romance. But whereas Douglas and Turner were able to generate a few sparks, Fonda and Raffin's relationship just kind of sits there, forlorn and pathetic, like a wet lump of used Kleenex.

Fonda is the only helicopter pilot in the entire South American country of Whereeverania. Raffin is the US anthropologist who hires him to fly out into the jungle so she can visit a colleague about a mysterious tribe of pygmies he's discovered. Along the way insults get flung, tables get turned, and the dad from "Good Times" shows up as an African witchdoctor who has inexplicably decided to take a holiday trip to the amazon.

If that last bit sounds stupid, well, it only gets worse.

The entire production is about as exciting as an NPR pledge drive and by the time this thing finally drags to a climax it makes "A Prairie Home Companion" seem like Bullitt by comparison. Unless you're the hardest of hard core bad movie fans, avoid this one like you would a rabid dog.