EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

William Giesin One Million B.C. was Victor Mature's (Louisville, Kentucky's second "Greatest") second film, and consequently launched a very successful career that encompassed the realm of "film noir" to "sand and sandal epics". His first film was a small part in "The Housekeeper's Daughter". One Million B.C. begins with a group of young people going into a cave to escape a snow storm and an Archaeologist interpreting various cave drawings that tell the story of the people that once lived there. What follows is a saga of two groups of cave people with two totally different cultures that wind up fighting one another. Eventually the two groups have to join forces to fight off several threatening dinosaurs. The special effects are a bit dated as well as disappointing. The viewer gets to watch an alligator with make-up type of fins fight a monitor lizard in one of the key scenes. One can only wonder what would have happened if the S.P.C.A. had been around at that time. Considering the fact that this film was released in 1940 and King Kong was released in 1933 the film makers would have been better served to use a Willis O'Brien type of stop action motion technique. The cave people actors in this film communicate with indistinguishably utterances and a lot of pointing with hand gestures. Lon Chaney Jr. and Victor Mature become engaged in an exciting alpha male battle that conveys the struggle of an evolving culture. The film is very entertaining even if the viewer has to remind himself from time to time that "humans were not living when the dinosaurs existed. Having said that, the film is well worth watching.

PrairieCal I just watched One Million B.C. I hadn't seen this in sixty years and it certainly brought back memories. I remember seeing it at the Rialto Theater in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But no one called it the Rialto, everyone called it the Rat Hole. Why? Because rats ran across the floor in the dark, bats swooped down from the ceiling, and poor old winos slept and snored in the back row. Decent people didn't go there.But on Saturday afternoons, kids took over the place to watch four to five hours of movies, cartoons, and 1930's serials -- which even by 1953 standards were corny – all for only 15 cents. I don't remember that any of us ever questioned whether we were decent people or not; the popcorn was great. How the winos could sleep with all the noise I have no idea. Child audiences were highly proactive with what was going on up on the screen.It was safe then for kids to ride their bikes downtown. And every Saturday afternoon that place was packed. The winos never bothered us, and we'd never heard of child molesters. All we knew was not to accept candy from strangers and since no one ever offered us any, we all felt safe.This movie stuck in my mind because it was unlike anything I'd ever seen. At ten years old it fulfilled my every dream of adventure ... dinosaurs, volcanoes, ancient peoples, jungles, snakes and morals that we could all understand and appreciate: It's better to be kind and unselfish than to be mean and brutal. I'd highly recommend this film but only if you think back to when you were 8 – 11 years old and watch it as you would have then. Even if you find it a tad corny, the child in you will love it.

Hitchcoc I saw this on late night TV some 40 years ago. It has not been available on DVD and I was always curious about it. Behold, it shows up on TCM. I had fond memories. It turns out to be slow moving sludge with very little excitement, reproducing a cave culture of little interest. The dinosaur scenes, which have become stock footage for other bad movies, are just iguanas and alligators with fins on their backs. Victor Mature, one of the dullest actors in history, mumbles and grunts his way through this thing. I had forgotten that it is a story being narrated by a recluse who is being visited by some hikers. They then play a part in the visuals. I don't mean to dis it too much. It's just not what I thought it was. Hal Roach was a bit of a pioneer, but this is just not very interesting or entertaining.

TheUnknown837-1 Imagine a world one million years ago. With people who inhabit a dark and dangerous unfriendly world, where they tend to dwell in the shadows of prehistoric reptiles and other ancient monsters. Where men live in caves and use the most primitive of weapons for competition, defense, and hunting the great beasts of their age. And you have a picture of what you will see in this 1940 adventure film, "One Million B.C." This film, while it may be ahistorical on many accounts, is a rather unique, entertaining little gem reminiscent from the dawn of the 1940s. If this were a documentary, the professors would be offended. Yes, cave men and dinosaurs did not inhabit the same world. And there are no records of iguanas and sail-backed crocodilians in excess of a hundred feet in length. But in my opinion, that is what makes movies like "One Million B.C." special. They are examples of what filmmakers thought about in the past. And the kind of movies that the naive audience found spectacular decades ago."One Million B.C." is pretty much your kind of ancient love story and it may even be trying to symbolize that the people from the ancient world were not all barbarians and like animals and that they had their own way of life with emotions and problems very much like ours today. This is explained after the first five minutes or so, because the film is basically a flashback. Starting in the present day and then remembering what happened long ago. And while it may not be an incredibly powerful romantic film, it is a great look at old film-making.The special effects used on the monsters that no longer exist are acceptable for the time the film was made. Obviously, the constraints of the budget did not allow for the expensive stop-motion animation technique from the 1933 "King Kong" or the even earlier 1925 "The Lost World". Dinosaurs here are portrayed in three different ways: men in rubber suits, puppets and props, and most commonly used graphically enlarged lizards and other reptiles. Its a look into the time when visual effects were still under development. And maybe it was the filmmaker's way of trying to convince the audience that what they were seeing was real. And by adding sound effects as the reptiles opened their mouths, could have frightened the audience back then. Some special effects weren't as keen, though, most primarily the tyrannosaurus and the triceratops. The triceratops was a small prop that was nearly immobile. And the tyrannosaurus was a man in a suit that provided very choppy, revealing motions. Nonetheless, the sequences with these two creatures was quite fun. Campy, but fun. And as for the graphically enlarged lizards, they worked out fine on the most part. But they had to be formatted with the actors to make them appear gigantic. There are many cases in the film where you can see the creatures were altered to make them look ancient. For example, there is a crocodilian in the film with a sail upon its back. Obviously, a small caiman or alligator with a rubber fin placed onto its armored hide. It just shows how the special effects artists at the time were being forced into using their ingenuity and imagination."One Million B.C." is a nice little gem and in my opinion, it's an underrated film. Maybe it started out of a bit of a weak level and kind of rushed through to the main part of the story, but the rest of the film was entertainment at a naturally fine level. Also featuring a very well, Academy Award-nominated musical score that was dark and ominous, perfect for enhancing the appearance of a world gone. In actuality, a world that never really existed according to science. It's an imaginary world, but one that you can look at and believe.