One Million Years B.C.

[polymorphikos]

(Gushing fan-boy warning. May contain gratuitous praise).







One Million Years B.C.



Hammer - 1966



Director: Don Chaffey



Starring: Raquel Welch – Loana

John Richardson – Tumak

Martine Beswick – Nupondi

Percy Herbert – Sakana

Robert Brown – Akhoba

Jean Waldon – Ahot.



I shall begin with a potentially ruinous statement. This is one of my all-time favourite movies. I first saw it roughly four months ago, give or take, on Encore, and was simply blown away. I have already posted a brief thread, some time ago, upon the qualities of this film, but I feel that it deserves a second look, this time with a slightly greater depth of insight than my former “Gee whiz golly this film sure did rock!” appraisal.



To begin with, the nature of the beast. One Million Years B.C. was a remake, pure and simple, launched by Hammer because it had had considerable success remaking popular horror films from the early days of talkies, such as She, Dracula, and the like. It was not conceived so much as a film with any literary merit, as a film of incredible artistic beauty and action. Peter Jackson recently described King Kong by saying “At the end of the day, it’s about dinosaurs, it’s about a hidden island, and it’s about a big gorilla” (note: possible paraphrase), and the same should be applied to this film. Watching it is not about anything other than spectacle.



Thusly put in context, One Million Years B.C. is a brilliant piece of visual and sonic artistry. The shots are in many cases flawless, the vistas long and stark and harsh. The film opens in the desert, remaining there for the better part of its length, and when the ocean does finally break upon the scene, the viewer is almost dazzled by the endless stretch of blue, much as is Tumak, the main protagonist.



The dinosaurs, crafted by Ray Harryhausen and his team, are spectacular. The attention to detail is minute. This film is in many ways simply a backdrop for the dinosaurs, their battles, and their interaction with the landscape. The human drama, played out across the epic landscape of the prehistoric desert, is forever influenced by the sudden appearance of the dinosaurs, thus providing the film with one of its principal themes.



Directorial and cinematographically, the film is gorgeous. Chaffey shoots everything in a unique, engaging way, forever placing the humans as small amidst the vastness of their surrounds. Enduring images will leave the more imaginative viewer concocting little fantasies for days afterwards.



With the vibrant, colourful, thoroughly individual look of the film established, I’ll move on to the plot. This centres, principally, around the politics between the two sons of a chief of brutish cavemen. Both lusting after the same woman, a fight erupts and Tumak is knocked by his brother from the cave, down a cliff to the brush below. Cast from his tribe, he travels across the land searching for a new home, encountering ape-men and monsters until he is taken in by the beautiful Loana and her kinder, more advanced tribe.



Eventually the two are forced to leave, attempt to rejoin Tumak’s tribe, and the plot leads from conflict to conflict until it finally erupts in a savage battle and a truly awesome conclusion.



Thematically, I love the message of the film. It is pessimistic, almost Lovecraftian, but with a shining beacon of hope at the end and the knowledge that good does prevail. In short, the film shows, systematically and thoroughly, the absolute inconsequentiality of human kind. This is the popular motif of all such films, the savage man struggling with only native cunning and his puny physique against the mighty forces of nature, but everything in this film seems designed to establish the harshness of their lives. This is carried through superbly near the end, when, just as human issues have entirely overwhelmed the film and nature has once again been “set in its place”, as it were, the absolute power of nature and ineffectuality of humanity is established firmly, once and for all. It reminds us that there are some things over which we have no control, and that we should not be so self-assured in our superiority. True, it does this is a simplistic, heavy-handed, somewhat cliché manner, but it does it well nonetheless.



And so I leave to you the finest dinosaur movie I have yet to see, standing-up to Jurassic Park better under repeat viewings, with gouts of imagination and raw, unadulterated adventure. For if adventure is the excitement of being thrust into the unknown and uncontrollable, then this is the very epitome of the thing.



Ahem, yes, so more than hot cave-chicks in bikinis here, it appears. I’ll be off then.



:: grins sheepishly and sidles into a corner

[I, Brian]

I haven't seen this since I was a kid - I really should revisit it. And thanks for the review.

[Foxbat]

I also love this film and it's certainly worth a revisit. Raquel never looked better than here.

[polymorphikos]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

I also love this film and it's certainly worth a revisit. Raquel never looked better than here.

I will forever mantain that Martine Beswick is the hotest woman in that film

[Foxbat]

I will forever mantain that Martine Beswick is the hotest woman in that film

It's a close run thing but I'm afraid we shall have agree to differ on this most important of points