ONE MILLION B.C. (1940) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Hal Roach, Hal Roach Jr.
Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr.,
John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark,
Inez Palange, Edgar Edwards, Jacqueline Dalya
The classic caveman epic starring the Great Victor as Tumak, a young warrior in a prehistoric tribe of Stone People. When he's kicked out of the clan following a dispute with his old man (Lon Chaney Jr.), Tumak floats downstream like Moses and ends up with the Shell People, who are as civilized as the Stone people are uncouth. With his rude disposition and penchant for violence, he doesn't fit in at first, but then he gets to know a Shell girl named Loana (Carole Landis) and learns about music, laughter, spearfishing and table manners. There are giant lizards and wooly mammoths and an erupting volcano and a bear and a snake, and it's just one life-or-death thing after another. The scene where Tumak and Loana exchange names and introduce themselves echoes the scene in "Tarzan the Ape Man" where Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan did that, and suggests that Victor might've missed his true calling by never playing Tarzan. The effects and production values are decent, and this is one case where colorization actually helps, creating a look that's something like an old hand-tinted postcard. The remake with Raquel Welch came out in 1966.
