One Million Years B.C. (1966)
One Million Years B.C. (1966), directed by Don Chaffey.
When you see a smoking volcano in a caveman-and-dinosaurs picture, it had better erupt with big lava flows before the end or there is going to be trouble in the theater. No problem here: it looks like the end of the world when the mountain explodes.
An adventure fantasy probably intended for young people, this is worth reviewing because:
Hammer's most successful film.
Ray Harryhausen stop-motion effects. To his later regret, he also used old-style live iguana monsters.
Star-making vehicle for Raquel Welch.
Welch had just done Fantastic Voyage (1966), but it was a dramatic photo and poster that made her a worldwide sensation:
She was on location in the spectacularly primeval-looking Canary Islands for weeks and did not know she had become a famous sex symbol until she returned home.
Notes:
In the first minutes you can't help thinking of the Dawn of Man opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
No English spoken: all caveman talk.
Freezing cold on location, including the swimming scenes.
Welch's leather bikini would stretch and become loose after becoming wet and they had to keep taking it in.
The scenes where she emerges from the water seem to be a quote of Dr. No (1962). Ursula Andress had been offered this part but turned it down.
Other Bond connections: Welch was supposed to play Domino in Thunderball (1965) but the studio pulled her back to do Fantastic Voyage (1966) and this film. Martine Beswick, her opponent in the big girl-fight, was in From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965).
On the non-documentary nature of mixing cavemen and dinosaurs, Harryhausen said: we didn't make it for professors. No one who cares comes to see pictures like this.
Finally, something to think about: in comparing the brutish Rock Tribe with the more advanced and pleasant Shell Tribe, we gather that caveman utopia is just being with people you can trust. This is probably the key component of Utopia in all ages.
Available on Blu-ray from Kino: both the US and International versions on separate discs. The US edition cut 9 minutes, partly for running time, but also to shorten some violent sequences and one sexy dance by Beswick.
A film scholar gives a very good commentary track, both loaded with production details and unexpectedly insightful about the differences between the two tribes.
