One Million Years B.C.

One Million Years B.C.
by Don Chaffey

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DVD details

Actor: John Richardson, Martine Beswick, Percy Herbert, Raquel Welch, Robert Brown
Director: Don Chaffey
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-03-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

DVD Reviews of One Million Years B.C.

DVD Review: Worth it for the special effects
Summary: 3 Stars

Ok, so the cavemen are relatively clean. And they wear relatively little clothing. And yeah, dinosaurs and humans didn't coexist. But it's a 60's movie and who cares? It's a fun movie just for the special effects.

Those are amazing, considering computers weren't even in use then. I'm still floored by their ability to do some of those specials effects and look pretty convincing, given the time period.

There aren't any real words in this whole film, so in that you may be disappointed. The action is 60's type so there's really little blood. And I wasn't too happy that the violent tribe was made up of brunettes and the non-violent tribe was made up of blondes. That's really "hairist."

I'd watch this movie more for the special effects than for any historical value. There's really not much. But there wasn't supposed to be I don't think.

DVD Review: What a pair of classics!
Summary: 4 Stars

The two best things about One Million Years BC are Raquel Welsh... oh, and the special effects of Ray Harryhausen. A classic movie set around two tribes of cavemen and their interaction with prehistoric monsters. I grew up loving this movie, and for me, it is every bit as good today. A refreshy break from hollywood CGI!

DVD Review: Widescreen Lovers Beware!
Summary: 1 Stars

This is the best cavemen-and-dinosaurs movie ever made! The acting is superb, and, yes, there is a lot of scope for acting in this movie. The plot isn't very subtle, but it concerns the most powerful of all dramatic themes -- survival -- and it is utterly gripping. The scenery is magnificent, and magnificently filmed. The animation by Ray Harryhausen is brilliant and realistic. The score by Mario Nascimbene is awe-inspiring and perfectly appropriate to the action. No, the movie is not scientifically accurate, but that doesn't matter. The movie is fantasy, and should be viewed as a picture, not of the world we live in as it was long ago, but of another world, which might have existed if things had gone differently.

There are some people who laugh at the scene where Tumak is chased by the giant blue iguana, but Ray Harryhausen may have the last laugh, as this is the most realistic part of the movie. In Australia 50,000 years ago, there really were gigantic carnivorous lizards, and there can be no doubt that on some occasions they really did chase down, kill, and eat the ancestors of the Australian aborigines. The lizard is called Megalania today, and it was 30 feet long and 7 feet high in the middle of the back. Its small relative the Komodo dragon is a known man-eater. Of course, Megalania did not look exactly like an iguana, and the shot would have been more realistic with a real Komodo dragon, but a real Komodo dragon would try to eat the cast and crew, and its bite is almost as dangerous as a cobra's. In addition to venom glands which run the whole length of its lower jaw, it harbors a host of nasty bacteria in its mouth. One of these is Yersinia Multocida, which translates roughly as "the bubonic plague relative that kills everything". Iguanas are harmless.

By now you're wondering why I gave the movie one star instead of five.

A close comparison between the DVD version (Region 1) and a full-screen version shown on television reveals that, contrary to the advertising, this is not a widescreen version of the movie. It was made by cutting off the top and bottom of the fullscreen version.

Nor was it made by a careful pan-and-scan process, like the one used to convert movies filmed in Cinemascope into fullscreen versions for television, which tries to ensure that the most important parts of the picture remain centered on the visible screen. Instead, they seem to have cut off the same parts of the picture without regard to what was being shown. Heads and legs of people and dinosaurs are cut off. Spectacular mountain peaks are cut off, leaving a dull brown scene without distinguishing landmarks. In extreme close-ups, people's foreheads and chins are cut off.

If they had advertised this version as a fullscreen version cut down to fit a widescreen TV, that would be truthful and I would have no complaint. But to advertise it as a "widescreen" version, "preserving the original theatrical aspect ratio", is deceptive and misleading.

DVD Review: If you like older movies?
Summary: 3 Stars

This movie wasn't too bad. It's about a caveman getting cast out of a male dominated, barbaric, black haired clan. Then stumbling onto another gentle (but able to protect themselves), more advanced, blond clan where he finds a woman (Welch) and they fall in love. He evenually gets cast out of that clan he, then, takes Welch and goes back to his own. He finds his brother had tried to kill the leader (their father), made him blind and lame, and has now taken over the clan. Welch goes back to her clan and gets help as there is about to be a battle. When the final battle starts, an earthquake rips up the land killing many from both sides. After all is over, the blond and black haired people join to form one clan. Of course, the love birds get to stay together.

This movie is a classic 60's portrail of how women were in movies. But in this one the women fought back so there wasn't too many damsal in distress scenes. Everyone is cavemen but they also have trimed beards and styled hair, if kind of frizzy. The monsters are lizards made to look gigantic. There is even a huge sea turtle that is supposed to be scary, but... well, falls short of the mark.

I'm the kind of person that can look past the bad effects and take it for the story. I think the story wasn't too bad so I couldn't bring myself to give it a 2 star.

DVD Review: ok
Summary: 3 Stars

this movie was not too bad for an old b rated caveman movie if you liked caveman or quest for fire you may like this movie

Description of One Million Years B.C.

In this vivid view of prehistoric life, a man from the mean-spirited Rock People (John Richardson) is banished from his home. He soon finds himself among the kind, gentle Shell People and falls in love with one of their loving tribeswomen (Raquel Welch). The twosome decide to face the world together, cut off from all tribal support, alone in a deadly world of hideous beast and earthshattering volcanic eruptions. The film's pioneering special effects have made it a true science-fiction classic.

Raquel Welch in a two-piece fur bikini. That and the title is pretty much all anyone needs to know. If that indeed isn't enough, there are the dinosaurs of technician-artist Ray Harryhausen (along with some superimposed iguanas), and a prologue that tells you all you want to know about this "brutal world." Want more? There are volcanoes, barehanded wrestling with warthogs, and rival, subhuman, cannibalistic tribes--Lord, the list goes on and on! The portrait of humankind isn't the most flattering: we're petty, greedy, we grunt a lot, and we don't play well with others. Welch portrays a cavewoman from the tribe of the Blondes trying to make a life for herself with an outcast from the tribe of the Brunettes, which doesn't sit well with anybody. --Keith Simanton

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