This movie is still brilliant. It has a cracking start. Lord Southmere, desperate to preserve a secret formula, flees from the Chinese gang - in the Natural History Museum - among dinosaur skeletons. He takes refuge in a pram (donning a baby's bonnet), but this is not enough to fool the dastardly villains. But before they drag him away he has time to tell his old nanny (Helen Hayes) where the formula is hidden - somewhere on the diplodocus. She, Joan Sims and a gang of other nannies pursue the Chinese and eventually kidnap the dinosaur (now on the back of a steam powered truck). There is a great comedy chase through London and the English countryside. Great British character actors pop up to perform cameos (Joan Hickson, Derek Guyler, Geoffrey Pearson, Jane Lapotaire, Hugh Laurie). I agree with other commenters that the portrayal of the Chinese is just pantomimic (and a parody of Charlie Chan movies et al). Peter Ustinov was British, but not English: he was Russian, French and Ethiopian. (Peter Lorre, who played a Japanese detective, was Hungarian-Jewish. Other orientals have been played by Nils Asther (Swedish) and Warner Oland (Swedish).) Peter Ustinov is brilliant in this movie.

What enormous fun! Nannies, toffs with monocles, drunken Scots, loud Yanks, inscrutable Chinese ... every cliché under the sun chases around London in pursuit of a dinosaur skeleton on the back of a lorry.Such energy, fun, and real "oomph" make this film utterly lovable. it's not subtle, but it's not meant to be. It's a kids' film. I love it as I love the Carry Ons: rip-roaring laughter, unsubtlety, old gags, and corking performances from a range of brilliant character actors.Look at the cast list! How can anyone not love this film, just from the cast list alone?! Peter Ustinov and Helen Hayes lead the proceedings. Derek Nimmo has a key role. Carry On-ers Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Amanda Barrie and the supreme Joan Hickson give 100% to their roles.People seem to be a bit sniffy about this film, but it's so good-natured, warm and funny that it's really rather rude to pick it to pieces for its stereotyping or its clichés. This film is glorious as it is.

I can remember going to see this stinker in the Disney Summer Film Festival back in the 70's with my father and sister and coming out of the theater, each looking at each other saying "What the he11 was that?!?". I mentioned that I remembered this being the worst movie I had ever seen to my girlfriend and she bought the video for me for my upcoming 40th birthday as a gag gift. I hadn't seen it in almost 30 years and I just watched it tonight. Boy, I've got a good memory! It stinks just as bad as I remembered! Not even Helen Hayes and Peter Ustinov could dig this one out of the cellar. Do yourself a favor and watch Mary Poppins!

And it's in my top ten best films. Hilarious from the very start, with Lord Southmere hitching a lift from the yeti ("Thanks for the lift old boy - I don't think you're abominable at all!") and then escaping from the villains in the Natural History Museum disguised as a baby. It may be racist in the same way as Carry on Up the Khyber (most of the Chinese are occidentals in terrible eye makeup) but it's certainly feminist, celebrating the power of women in grey stockings fuelled only by nice cups of tea. (What if this great beast should fall on us, Hetty? Then we would be the first people in two million years to be killed by a dinosaur!) xxxxxx