As per last week’s request from Greg today’s Sunday Matinee is the Hammer Studios cult classic One Million Years B.C.
Hammer Studios had a string of hits with their horror movies since the 1950’s but those weren’t the only kind of films that they made. They produced a few comedies which never obtained the international success that their horror movies did. In 1965 Hammer had a hit adapting/remaking the classic adventure novel She. In 1966 they made a remake of the 1940 One Million B.C.
John Richardson stars as caveman Tumak. Tumak gets banished from his tribe over a fight. After facing various dangers he runs into another tribe where he falls in love with the fair one – Loana aka Raquel Welch. Tumak helps out the tribe kill an Allosaurus. Another fight ensues after and again Tumak is kicked out of that tribe. Meanwhile back in the old tribe a power struggle results in new leadership. Tumak along with Raquel Welch and her fur bikini goes back to Tumak’s old tribe where Tumak’s old flame Martine Beswick takes issue with Welch. More fights ensue, more dinosaurs attack and then a really big fight happens between the two tribes.
Yes the film is ahistorical and has cavemen and dinosaurs living at the same time. But the dinosaur stop motion is performed by the master Ray Harryhausen and looks awesome. The film was a hit for Hammer and started them making a series of cavewomen movies. Martine Beswick starred in the next one Prehistoric Women aka Slave Girls (1968) but didn’t return for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) and Creatures the World Forgot (1971).
