One Million Years B.C.

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One Million Years B.C.
Theatrical poster with Welch against backdrop of dinosaurs attacking humans
U.S. Theatrical poster by Tom Chantrell
Directed by Don Chaffey
Produced by Michael Carreras
Written by Brian Clemens
Starring Raquel Welch
John Richardson
Percy Herbert
Robert Brown
Martine Beswick
Music by Mario Nascimbene
Cinematography Wilkie Cooper
Editing by Tom Simpson
Studio Hammer Film Productions
Seven Arts
Distributed by Warner-Pathé (UK)
20th Century Fox (US)
Release date(s) 30 December 1966 (UK)
21 February 1967 (USA)
Running time 100 min. (U.K) 91 min. (U.S.)
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget ₤422,816[1]
Box office $8 million[1]

One Million Years B.C. is a 1966 British adventure/fantasy film starring Raquel Welch and John Richardson, set in a fictional age of cavemen and dinosaurs. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions, and was a remake of the 1940 Hollywood film One Million B.C.. It recreates many of the scenes of that film (such as one in which an allosaurus attacks a tree full of children). It was marketed with the taglines "Travel back through time and space to the edge of man's beginnings...discover a savage world whose only law was lust!" and "This is the way it was". Location scenes were filmed on the Canary Islands in the middle of winter, in late 1965. The British release prints of this film were printed in dye transfer Technicolor. The film was released in edited form in the United States in 1967,[2] printed in DeLuxe Color.

Like the original film, this remake is largely ahistorical. It portrays dinosaurs and humans living together, whereas, according to the geologic time scale, the last dinosaurs became extinct roughly 65 million years BC, and Homo sapiens (modern humans) did not exist until about 200,000 years BC. Ray Harryhausen, who animated all of the dinosaur attacks using his famous stop motion technique, has stated that he did not make One Million Years B.C. for "professors" who in his opinion "probably don't go to see these kinds of movies anyway" (this was a comment he made for the DVD of the 1933 version of King Kong).

Contents

Plot [edit]

Akoba (Robert Brown) leads a hunting party into the hills to search for prey. One member of the tribe traps a pig in a pit, and then Akoba's son Tumak (John Richardson) kills it. The tribe brings it home for dinner and Tumak is later banished to the harsh desert because of a fight over a piece of meat with Akoba. After surviving many dangers such as a giant lizard, ape men, Brontosaurus and a giant spider, he collapses on a remote beach, where he is spotted by "Loana the Fair One" (Raquel Welch) and her fellow fisherwomen of the Shell tribe. They are about to help him when an Archelon (which is three times the size of the actual prehistoric Archelon) makes its way to the beach. Men of the Shell tribe arrive and drive it back into the sea.

Tumak is taken to their village, where Loana tends to him. Scenes follow emphasising that the Shell tribe is more advanced and more civilized than the Rock tribe. They have cave paintings, music, delicate jewellery made from shells, agriculture, and rudimentary language – all things Tumak seems to have never before encountered.

When the tribe women are fishing, an Allosaurus attacks. The tribe flees to their cave, but in the panic, a small girl is left trapped up a tree. Tumak seizes a spear from Ahot (Jean Wladon), a man of the Shell tribe, and rushes forward to defend her. Emboldened by this example, Loana runs out to snatch the child to safety, and Ahot and other men come to Tumak's aid, one of the men being killed before Tumak is finally able to kill the creature.

In the aftermath, a funeral is held for the dead men – a custom which Tumak disdains. Leaving the funeral early, he re-enters the cave, and attempts to steal the spear with which he had killed the Allosaurus. Ahot, who had taken back the spear, enters and is angered by the attempted theft, and a fight ensues. The resulting commotion attracts the rest of the tribe, who unite to cast Tumak out. Loana leaves with him, and Ahot, in a gesture of friendship, gives him the spear over which they had fought.

Meanwhile, Akoba leads a hunting party into the hills to search for prey but loses his footing while trying to take down a goat. Tumak's brother Sakana (Percy Herbert) tries to kill their father to take power. Akoba survives, but is a broken man. Sakana is the new leader. While this is happening, Tumak and Loana encounter a battle between a Ceratosaurus and a Triceratops. The battle is eventually won by the Triceratops which fatally gores its opponent.

The outcasts wander back into the Rock tribe's territory and Loana meets the tribe, but again there are altercations. The most dramatic one is a fight between Tumak's current love interest Loana and his former lover "Nupondi the Wild One" (Martine Beswick). Loana wins the fight but refuses to strike the killing blow, despite the encouragement of the other members of the tribe. Meanwhile, Sakana resents Tumak and Loana's attempts at incorporating Shell tribe ways into their culture.

While the cave people are swimming – seemingly for the first time, and inspired by Loana's example – they are attacked by a female Pteranodon. In the confusion, Loana is snatched into the air by the creature, and dropped bleeding into the sea, when a thieving Cearadactylus intervenes. Loana manages to stagger ashore while the two pterosaurs are battling and then falls down. Tumak arrives but is only greeted by the sounds of the Cearadactylus eating the Pteranodon's young (the latter had lost the battle), actually believing it is eating Loana.

Tumak initially believes her dead. Sakana then leads a group of like-minded fellow hunters in an armed revolt against Akoba. Tumak, Ahot and Loana (who had staggered back to her tribe after the Pteranodon dropped her into the sea), and other members of the Shell tribe arrive in time to join the fight against Sakana. In the midst of a savage hand-to-hand battle, a volcano suddenly erupts: the entire area is stricken by earthquakes and landslides that overwhelm both tribes.

As the film ends, Tumak, Loana, and the surviving members of both tribes emerge from cover to find themselves in a ruined, near-lunar landscape. They all set off – now united – to find a new home.

Cast [edit]

Welch in fur bikini, in smoky, rocky surroundings, stands with feet braced apart, hands away from sides, tensed as if seeing a threat in the distance.
Welch as Loana the Fair One

Production notes [edit]

The exterior scenes were filmed on Lanzarote and Tenerife in the Canary Islands in the middle of winter. The film features the Echium wildpretii plant, as a homage to Tenerife's unique endemic flora. However, the plants are set in scenes filmed on the Lanzarote beach. In actuality, this plant only flowers from May to June, and is found in Tenerife mountain zones higher than 1600m. As there were no active volcanoes in the Canary Islands, the studio had to construct a 6–7 foot (2 metre) high volcano on the ABPC studio back lot. The eruption, lava explosions and lava flows were composed of a mixture of wallpaper paste, oatmeal, dry ice and red dye.[citation needed]

This was one of the later Ray Harryhausen stop motion animation films, he only created four more films after this one. Harryhausen, as usual, filmed the dinosaur visuals in his personal studio in London.

As the Shell people are attacked by a giant turtle, the women call it "Archelon" which is the real scientific name for the animal. The film uses two live creatures: a green iguana and a tarantula (a cricket can be seen at the tarantula's side). Ray Harryhausen was asked repeatedly about these two unanimated creatures, and he confesses they were his idea. At the time, he felt the use of real creatures would convince the audience that all of what they were about to see was indeed real.

Robert Brown (Akhoba) wears makeup similar to that worn by Lon Chaney, Jr. in the same role in the 1940 version, One Million B.C..[citation needed]

The publicity photograph of Welch from the movie became a best-selling pinup poster[3] and something of a cultural phenomenon. Many noted photographers had been flown to Tenerife by 20th Century Fox on a publicity junket,[citation needed] but the iconic pose of Welch was taken by the unit still photographer (as recalled by Welch in an interview[4]). The poster was a story element in the film The Shawshank Redemption.[5][6]

Originally Hammer offered the role of Loana to Ursula Andress, reuniting her with her She co-star John Richardson. When Andress passed on the project due to commitments and salary demands, a search for a replacement resulted in the selection of Welch.[7]

In 1968 James Carreas toyed with the idea of a TV series based on the film but it was never realized.[citation needed]

Release [edit]

Roughly nine minutes were cut from the American print, including a provocative dance from Martine Beswick and a gruesome end to one of the ape-men in the cave. Some footage of the allosaur attack on the Shell tribe was also deleted from the initial release, but restored decades later.

The film was popular and made $2.5 million in rentals in North America during its first year of release.[8][9]

Stock footage depicting the landslide was reused for Alex's dream (Beethoven's 9th Symphony) in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film Clockwork Orange[10][citation needed]

Further films from Hammer, which traded on the attractions of scantily clad cave girls, were Slave Girls (1968), When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) and Creatures the World Forgot (1971).[11]

All the dinosaur models from this film still exist. The Ceratosaurus and the Triceratops however were remodeled for Gwangi and the Styracosaurus respectively, in The Valley of Gwangi (1969).

Fur bikini [edit]

Welch stated in a 2012 interview that three form-fitting bikinis were made for her, including two for a wet scene and a fight scene, by costume designer Carl Toms: "Carl just draped me in doe-skin, and I stood there while he worked on it with scissors."[4] Welch was described in the studio's advertising as "wearing mankind's first bikini"[12] and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s".[3] One author said, "although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers."[13] The photo of Welch in the fur bikini was turned into a best-selling pinup poster.[3] Later, on TV, actress Jennifer O'Dell did a tribute to Welch when she wore a loin cloth style bikini that looked like Welch's fur one. O'Dell played a girl of the jungles named Veronica on the TV show Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. In 2011, Time listed Welch's B.C fur bikini in the "Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture".[14]

In other media [edit]

The film was adapted into a 15-page comic strip for the May 1978 issue of the magazine House of Hammer (volume 2, # 14, published by Top Sellers Limited). It was drawn by John Bolton from a script by Steve Moore. The cover of the issue featured a painting by Brian Lewis of Raquel Welch in the famous fur bikini.

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b Marcus Hearn & Alan Barnes, The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films, Titan Books, 2007 p 105
  2. ^ One Million Years B.C. Trivia. Turner Classic Movies.[dead link]
  3. ^ a b c Mansour, David (2005). From Abba to Zoom: a pop culture encyclopedia of the late 20th century. Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 345. ISBN 978-0-7407-5118-9. Retrieved 28 August 2012. 
  4. ^ a b Spitznagel, Eric (March 8, 2012). "Interview with Raquel Welch". Men's Health. Retrieved 25 November 2012. 
  5. ^ Carr, Jay (September 23, 1994). "Captivating Shawshank". The Boston Globe (Highbeam Research).  (subscription required)
  6. ^ Harvey, Neil (October 7, 2004). "Shawshank Redemption gets the treatment it deserves". The Roanoke Times (Highbeam Research).  (subscription required)
  7. ^ Smith, Gary A. (1991). Epic Films: Casts, Credits and Commentary on over 250 Historical Spectacle Movies. Mcfarland & Co. p. 162. ISBN 978-0899505678 Check |isbn= value (help). Retrieved February 2013. 
  8. ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. 
  9. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1967", Variety, 3 January 1968 p 25. Please note these figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors.
  10. ^ Ninth Symphony on Youtube[dubious – discuss]
  11. ^ McKay, Sinclair (2007). A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films. Aurum. p. 105. ISBN 978-1845133481.
  12. ^ Filmfacts 1967 Vol. 10 No. 4. University of Southern California Division of Cinema, American Film Institute. 15 June 1967. p. 42. Retrieved 25 November 2011. 
  13. ^ Otfinoski, Steven (April 2007). Latinos in the arts. Infobase Publishing. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-8160-6394-9. Retrieved 28 August 2012. 
  14. ^ Gayomali, Chris (July 5, 2011). "Raquel Welch's Fur Bikini in One Million Years B.C. - Top 10 Bikinis in Pop Culture". Time. Retrieved 28 August 2012. 

External links [edit]

See also [edit]

Films directed by Don Chaffey
1950s
1960s
1970s
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