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Tetrady not as good as all the hype

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Spikeopath For their 100th release, Hammer Films remade the 1940 cavemen groaner One Million B.C. It would prove to be a roaring box office success, whilst simultaneously making Raquel Welch an iconic poster girl and Ray Harryhausen an even bigger hero.Plot is slight. Two tribes exist in prehistoric times, the Rock People and the Shell People. The former are more aggressive and basic, the latter more forward and assured. Tumak (John Richardson) of the Rocks and Loana (Welch) wind up together, fighting prejudices and lots of giant beasties! Hooray!That's really it, the message is clear but ultimately we are here for the dinosaurs and giant creatures (well OK, the scantily clad cave dwellers as well), with Harryhausen once again showing why he was a legend in his field of animation. With good fights, a bit of sexy sizzle and a volcanic finale, it's all good really.It's no history lesson of course, but as Harryhausen was wont to say, they wasn't making a film for history professors! 7/10

classicsoncall I saw the original film "One Million B.C." less than a year ago so I still remember the story line pretty well. This remake is just about the exact same one down to the character names and situations, but with the benefit of Ray Harryhausen's dinosaur creations that appear quite an improvement over other prehistoric monster tales from the Fifties and early Sixties. Even his giant lizard has a scale to it that makes it an improvement over say, "The Giant Gila Monster" from 1959 which looked rather ordinary most of the time.And then there's Raquel Welch. Ah yes, looking divine in that bearskin bikini; the poster that graced the walls of thousands of male teenage bedroom walls a decade before Farrah Fawcett took over when she hit it big with "Charlie's Angels". I had to do a double take here though since I'm not used to seeing her as a blonde. Not bad but I'll take the natural auburn hair.All the expected dinosaurs make their appearance here - a brontosaurus, your requisite triceratops versus tyrannosaurus battle, and a pterodactyl that swoops away with cave girl Loana (Welch) in tow. I wondered how she was going to get out of that scrape but needn't have worried. No way was Raquel going to become dinosaur fodder, even if the pterodactyl nestlings were hungry.Well I can take these cave man/cave girl flicks in small doses so I've had my fill again for the time being. However if your tastes lie in this direction I would direct you to the aforementioned "One Million B.C", along with other luminaries of the genre like 1970's "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth", and a personal favorite of mine if only because of the title, 1958's "The Wild Women of Wongo".

GusF I expected to like the film but not to the extent that I did. I think that this is the only sound film that I've ever seen in which there is practically no dialogue in a real language. (I'm fairly sure that the only proper word used in the film is "Archelon," which is the actual scientific name of the giant turtle which attacks the Shell tribe.) To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about watching the film for that reason as I thought that it would slow the film down significantly but it didn't at all really, surprisingly enough. The excellent musical score certainly adds to the atmosphere.The film is beautifully shot. Don Chaffey, an underrated director, utilises the exotic locations of Lanzarote and Tenerife to wonderful effect, giving it a much different look and feel to most other Hammer films. It has a slightly otherworldly feel which is appropriate in the circumstances. Ray Harryhausen's special effects are absolutely (and typically) brilliant for the time and hold up remarkably well. With one small exception, the dinosaurs even look realistic when they appear in the same shot as people. I don't think that the dinosaur effects were surpassed until "Jurassic Park". Even the pterodactyl flying effects look great. The film is visually striking in other ways too, such as Tumak discovering the ape men's skulls and the severely injured Akhoba's face when he returns to the Rock tribe's cave.I was enjoying the film so much that it was a full hour before I realised that it didn't have a plot per se. It's more of a collection of excellent set pieces loosely held together by Tumak's growing relationship with Loana and his periodic power struggles with his father Akhoba, his brother Sakana and Ahot. However, I can't say that that effected my enjoyment of the film! Due to the lack of any true dialogue, the actors rely on their eyes and facial expressions (as well as frequent acts of violence!) to communicate their emotions and most of them do a very good job of it, particularly Robert Brown (who is far more authoritative as Akhoba than he was as M!) and Martine Beswick, while Raquel Welch and John Richardson make for very appealing and likable leads.

Jonathon Dabell "People did not live in the days of the dinosaurs. You must realise that the picture is being made for entertainment, not for professors…. I think one has to accept that licence with an 'entertainment picture', because it's not supposed to be a documentary," declared Ray Harryhausen. Before this film, dinosaurs in movies were created by shooting lizards in close-up, with extra body-bits glued onto them to create the desired effect. Here, Harryhausen uses his considerable talent as a stop-motion animator to create numerous monsters of the past, including an allosaurus, brontosaurus, ceratosaurus, triceratops and pterodactyl.One Million Years B.C follows the adventures of a caveman named Tumak (John Richardson). The son of a tribe leader, he is banished from his tribe following a fight with his father over a piece of meat. He wanders alone into the wilderness and encounters various strange creatures, before eventually stumbling across a more advanced tribe who have developed things like music, painting, jewellery-making and agriculture. He is welcomed by these new people and lives among them, quickly catching the eye of a cavegirl named Loana (Raquel Welch). Meanwhile back at Tumak's birth tribe, his father is overthrown as leader by the ruthless Sakana (Percy Herbert), Tumak's treacherous brother. Tumak is forced to leave his new tribe after attempting to steal a spear, and is joined on his wanderings by Loana (who has fallen in love with him). They have various adventures before eventually making it back to Tumak's native home. Upon discovering what has happened during his absence, Tumak challenges his brother for leadership of the tribe. The final battle is interrupted by a massive volcanic eruption which wipes out many of the people in its path.The film is the best of the series, helped along by a solid performance from Richardson as the adventurous caveman and Harryhausen's sterling work in the effects department. Welch is on hand to provide the 'eye- candy' while Martine Beswick provides extra sex appeal as an animalistic girl from Tumak's tribe. Also worthy of note is the score by Mario Nascimbene, a beautiful blend of siren-like wailing and clashing cymbals, reminiscent of the operatic music of the spaghetti westerns. It's probably the best score of the entire prehistoric series. On a more negative note, One Million Years B.C. is the ugliest of the films at a photographic level. Despite promising Canary Islands locations, there is something unattractive about the cinematography and the film's poor use of colour. The story structure also becomes a little wearisome towards the end; an endless cycle of walking around – dinosaur attack – walking around – dinosaur attack – walking around – dinosaur attack. Overall, though, this is a good film with enough going for it to make its weaknesses forgivable. Is it the best film Hammer made? No… but it is a lot of fun, and Harryhausen's contributions alone make it worthwhile. We all know it's bogus as history and repetitive as a story, but One Million Years B.C. works well as what it was intended - that is: wild, sexy, adventure-filled entertainment.