ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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[Also released as: "The Cave Dwellers", "Man and His Mate", "The Cave Dweller and His Mate"]

A bold experiment in film making by director Hal Roach, with assistance by D. W. Griffith. The making of this film about life among prehistoric men has an interesting history of its own. In 1912 D. W. Griffith made a film called "Man's Genesis", concerning life among the cavemen. No dinosaurs were involved in the story. It was simply intended as a parable about reason versus non-reason.

Years later, Griffith's friend, Hal Roach, employed Griffith to provide minor assistance with the production of "One Million B.C.", a stone-age adventure story partly inspired by Griffiths earlier film. In addition to doing some of the casting, Griffith directed Carol Landis' screen test, and supervised many of the special effects scenes involving the lizards. Before the completion of the film, Roach and Griffith had a falling out, and Griffith elected to have his name removed from the screen credits.

"One Million B.C." was Victor Mature's first major role, playing Tumack the caveman, fighting stone age perils to protect his tribe (lead by Lon Chaney, Jr.) and his mate (Carol Landis). Although the special effects area not nearly so impressive as those in "King Kong", done seven years earlier, they are effective in their use of enlarged lizards to depicted the dinosaurs.

In fact, they are so well done they inspired countless filmmakers in later years to borrow the monster footage.

The plot is extremely episodic, but generally speaking it involves (a) Tumack's expulsion from the Rock tribe, (b) his journey to the sea shore where he meets the Shell tribe, (c) his romance with Luana (Landis), (d) and the eventual unification of the two tribes after an earthquake devastates the area.

The film is a true novelty that should be seen by sincere film buffs.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

Victor Mature was that era's idea of "buff".

(The 1940s, that is... not 1 million B.C.)
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Pow]

Dare I lodge my usual complaint with such films?

I dare!

This desperately required stop-motion animation.

[Bud Brewster]

Wait a minute!

You mean those dinosaurs were NOT stop motion? They were just . . . LIZARDS!

Boy, did they have me fooled . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ The special effects were so good that footage from this film was used in numerous other pictures produced well into the 1960s.

Note from me: This statement is not true. The special effects were used over and over because they were easy to pilfer, and it was cheaper than making new ones.

~ When the film was released in Britain, it was heavily edited due to their strict laws against animal cruelty.

Note from me: Ah, this one is easy to believe. There were several movies in the 50s and 60s which also used lizards and alligators as dinosaurs, and they were provoked into fighting each other. That's a practice which strickly prohibited today.

~ The #1 box-office attraction of 1940 (excluding the roll-over receipts for Gone with the Wind (1939)).

Note from me: I had no idea that this movie did so well. It's never impressed me very much.

~ In order to get the lizards to move, heaters had to be turned on full blast because reptiles don't move in cold weather.

Note from me: I read somewhere that one of the movies that used reptiles as dinosaurs induced them to fight by starving them. That would not be allowed today, either.

~ Lon Chaney Jr. designed his own makeup for Akhoba, but couldn't use it owing to Cosmetician's Union rules.

Note from me: Lon's famous father, Lon Chaney Sr., was renowned for his ingenious make-up designs. But I had no idea that Lon Chaney Jr. ever did things like that as well.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)