One Million B.C.

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One Million B.C.

One Million B.C.
Directed by Hal Roach
Hal Roach, Jr.
Produced by Hal Roach
Written by Mickell Novack
George Baker
Narrated by Conrad Nagel
Starring Victor Mature
Carole Landis
Lon Chaney, Jr.
Distributed by United Artists
Release date(s) 1940
Running time 80 min.
Country  United States
Language English

One Million B.C. is a 1940 American fantasy motion picture produced by Hal Roach Studios and released by United Artists. It is also known by the titles Cave Man, Man and His Mate, and Tumak.

The film stars Victor Mature as Tumak, a young cave man who strives to unite the uncivilized Rock Tribe and the peaceful Shell Tribe, Carole Landis as Loana, daughter of the Shell Tribe chief and Tumak's love interest, and Lon Chaney, Jr. as Tumak's stern father and leader of the rock tribe. Chaney's billing differs from that of his home studio Universal Pictures in that Hal Roach elected to retain the "Jr." instead of billing him under his father's name, possibly because Roach was co-directing the film with his own son Hal Roach, Jr.. The movie was one of the first to portray primitive humans in any sort of a serious manner.

Both One Million B.C. (1940) and the remake/homage One Million Years B.C. (1966) have been criticised for the anachronism of having both dinosaurs and Cro-magnon type humanoids living together Alley Oop style in year 1,000,000 BCE. However, most movie goers recognise both films as "what-if" fantasies rather than as docudramas.

One Million B.C. was a popular success and was nominated for two Academy Awards for its special effects and musical score. The film was remade in 1966 as One Million Years B.C. starring John Richardson as Tumak and Raquel Welch as Loana.

Contents

[edit] Plot

After a modern day prologue, in which a bearded anthroplogist in a cave (Conrad Nagel, billed as the narrator in the opening credits), introduces the story to a group of hikers seeking shelter from a storm, the film opens with a young caveman, Tumak (played by Victor Mature), hunting a small, pig-sized Triceratops. An elderly man in the hunting party falls from a cliff and is left to die. Tumak wrestles the triceratops to death, and he and his brutal tribe feed on the creature. The strongest feed first, then the women and children, lastly the elders pick through the scraps left. During the feasting, Tumak is attacked by his father Akhoba, the tribe's leader (played by Lon Chaney Jr.), after defending his portion of the food. The two fight and Akhoba knocks Tumak over a cliff as his mother watches. He awakens to find a Woolly Mammoth stampeding towards him and after hiding in a tree, the mammoth pushes the tree over a cliff into a river where Tumak floats away.

As Tumak floats unconscious, he is found by Loana (played by Carole Landis). As he awakens, she blows a shell horn, alerting her tribe of trouble. A group of male members of the tribe come and confront the struggling Tumak, who passes out after trying to get up from the river. Inside the tribe's cave, the community gathers together as they help prepare a meal, which everyone shares together, the children, women and elders served first. Tumak awakes and Loana presents him with food, and he guards it as he eats, while the others calmly sit and eat together without fighting over the food.

As Tumak looks on an elder member of the tribe is carving reliefs on a wall, while another sits and ears while an infant bear comes and sniffs out the scraps left over from the meal. Meanwhile, Akhoba leads the Rock men on a hunt and comes across some game, but is injured trying to take down a woolly goat. As the other members of the tribe look on, a younger hunter takes Akhoba's place as leader, challenging the others who quickly back down. They come down from the rocks, leaving Akhoba behind, presumably to die.

Tumak is slowly learning the the people of the Shell tribe that have taken him in aren't like his own tribe. The sighting of an attacking predator sends out an alarm to the tribe who rush to the safety of the cave. As he watches dumbfounded, they all sit and help prepare dinner, some of which he has taken as his own and hidden in his sleeping area. Loana tries to retrieve it, but Tumak stops her. As he soon learns, there is no need to fight over the food: after he takes food from a young male member of the tribe, Loana gives him her share, shaming Tumak into giving his stolen portion to her. Tumac then returns his hidden portion of the tribe's food back to the community pot.

Some time later, Tumak is adjusting to life with the Shell Tribe, and helps in gathering food by shaking the fruit out of a large tree. He tries to fish with Loana, but gets frustrated as he can't seem to spear any fish. However, the predator that attacked before, a miniature Tyrannasaurus Rex, returns as one of the children in the tribe is caught in a tree. Tumak takes the spear of one of the tribe's men and kills the T. Rex, but does not return the spear, thinking that by possessing it gives him the power in the tribe. Loana makes him give it back.

Later that night Tumak steals the spear and a hammer that the tribesman made and attacks him when he tries to take them back. Thinking the tribe will now accept him as leader, he's shocked when the tribal leader, Loana's father, orders him to leave instead. As he departs, Loana, already fallen in love with the savage Tumak, accompanies him as he leaves, much to his chagrin. Tumak, still relying on his own tribe's ways, pulls a couple of apples for himself, but then helps Loana pull down a couple for herself. They slip past a giant bear attacking and devouring a giant tree snake. As they continue they spot another horned dinosaur (actually an armadillo with a couple of glued-on horns) but it sees them and chases them into a tree.

Some time later, Tumak and Loana reach the area near his own tribe where they are trapped between a fight between two dinosaurs, (an iguana and an alligator with a glued on frill resembling a dimetrodon) which frightens Loana into running for the hills, where the new leader of Tumak's tribe watches. He follows after her and gives chase. She blows her shell horn, which sends Tumak running to her rescue. He saves her, and defeats his former tribesman and claims the tribe's leadership.

The members of Tumak's tribe are confused by Loana's actions, and no one is more shocked by her actions than Akhoba, now a broken and neglected crippled shell of his former self. Tumak has Loana handle feeding everyone, which shocks everyone as she feeds the women and children first then Akhoba, who she has sit on his former throne. Once done, Tumak and all the men then grab for the meat.

Akhoba comes outside to see his tribe beginning to farm the fruits and vegetables, with Loana teaching them which to eat and in the case of a boy who has picked a bunch of chilies, which not to eat. Loana and Tumak sit and talk but Tumak is called away to help hunt a goat while Loana helps search for a missing child. A nearby mountain erupts into a volcano, scattering everyone. The tribe's cave is destroyed and the child's mother is killed by the lava, but Loana saves the child from a similar fate in the nick of time.

Tumak searches for Loana as more and more dinosaurs are seen falling into the crevasses that the eruption created. Tumak searches for Loana but finds only a shoe by the lava flow, thinking she's been killed by the lava. However, one of her tribe comes with news she's alive but she and the rest of her tribe are trapped by a dinosaur (portrayed by an iguana), so all of Tumak's tribe join in the rescue. Loana's tribe is running low on food supplies as Tumak and his tribe arrive. He orders the women and children to stay behind as they attack the creature at the cave entrance. They try to attack it but one member of the tribe is eaten. As they fall back and regroup, Akhoba tells Tumak to distract the giant lizard while the rest of the tribe gets to higher ground in order to start an avalanche that kills the monster and saves the tribe from certain doom. Thus the tactical experience of the formerly dispised and discarded elder Akhoba saves the day.

The two tribes now join as one, as Tumak, Loana and the child she saved walk off into the sunset.

[edit] Production

Producer Hal Roach hired D.W. Griffith to produce this film and Of Mice and Men, writing to him, "I need help from the production side to select the proper writers, cast, etc. and to help me generally in the supervision of these pictures."[1] Although Griffith eventually disagreed with Roach over the production and parted, Roach later insisted that some of the scenes in the completed film were directed by Griffith. This would make the film the final production in which Griffith was actively involved. But cast members recall Griffith directing only the screen tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, Griffith asked that his name be removed.[2]

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Musical Score and Best Special Effects. The "dinosaurs" seen in the film include a pig in a rubber triceratops suit, a man in a tyrannosaurus suit, an alligator with a glued-on dimetrodon sail and a Rhinoceros Iguana.

[edit] Legacy

Stock footage from this film had appeared in numerous movies throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. These films include Tarzan's Desert Mystery, one of the chapters of the Superman serial, Two Lost Worlds, The Lost Volcano, Jungle Manhunt, The Yesterday's World episode of The Schaefer Century Theatre, Untamed Women, Robot Monster, King Dinosaur, Teenage Cave Man, Valley of the Dragons, Journey to the Center of Time, Horror of the Blood Monsters (the stock footage was tinted in color for this film), and the Mexican films Island of the Dinosaurs (La Isla De Los Dinosaurios) and Adventure at the Center of the Earth (Aventura al centro de la tierra).[3]. The technique of using optically enlarged lizards to represent dinosaurs has been given the nickname of "slurpasaur" by fans.

[edit] Cast

[edit] References

  1. ^ Richard Lewis Ward, A History of the Hal Roach Studios, p. 109-110. Southern Illinois University, 2005. ISBN 080932637X. In his Biograph days, Griffith had directed two films with prehistoric settings: Man's Genesis (1912), and Brute Force (1913).
  2. ^ Ward, p. 110.
  3. ^ James Van Hise, Hot Blooded Dinosaur Movies, Pioneer Books Inc, 1993. Pg.20

[edit] Compare with

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_B.C."
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