This is by far Ray Harryhausen's worst work, a disappointment on every level. Although there is some good stop motion dinosaur action,there is also plenty of disappointing lizards on green screen action. It has a slow moving story and absolutely NO dialogue. They should have gone with less grunting and more action.The cave people seem to know everything except how to communicate with each other and that's lame.And why do they all live in one cave?Being able to watch a young Raquel Welch makes it bearable. I'd recommend this to fans of Welch and Harryhausen but all of them have probably seen it already.Otherwise,only watch this if you like to be very bored.

Back by popular demand, it is time for "Matthew Praises." I remember seeing a brief clip of on READING RAINBOW in the episode "Digging Up Dinosaurs." That clip made me believe that dinosaurs looked and sounded like that. (I was four so this was before JURASSIC PARK which came out when I was nine.) Although Raquel Welch's beauty was there to make the picture sell, I think it was Ray Harryhausen's animated beasts that really made it enjoyable to me. The music is great, but by today's standards it looks good, but the iguana and tarantula (eating crickets) made it look cheesy. After all, they wanted to pay homage to the original 1940 classic. I mean, the 1940 film ONE MILLION B.C. was clunky. It had dinosaur effects ranging from lizards with horns and spikes glued on their bodies to men in suits. Kind of like those FLASH GORDON serials from the 1930's by Universal. This movie had better monster effects. If anyone asks me what is your favorite movie where the remake is better than the original, I would say ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. made by Hammer. Hammer was planning to make a big monster movie after the success of making their Gothic horror films like THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF Dracula, and the 1959 remake of THE MUMMY. They wanted to remake KING KONG, with Ray's special effects skills, but they couldn't afford the rights form RKO so they ended up remaking ONE MILLION B.C. I saw this movie on Turner Classic Movies and I highly recommend it. The film was such a success, that there were cartoons that cashed in on it like Pink Panther's EXTINCT PINK (1969) and PREHISTORIC PINK (1968) and a porno parody called ONE MILLION AC/DC (1969) (Read my review, it's a "Matthew Rants" one). Followed by WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH (1970) (read my review on that one). Not rated, but it contains violence, nudity, peril, some gore and one scary scene (specifically that tarantula). Best viewable for children over the age of 7.

I expected to like the film but not to the extent that I did. I think that this is the only sound film that I've ever seen in which there is practically no dialogue in a real language. (I'm fairly sure that the only proper word used in the film is "Archelon," which is the actual scientific name of the giant turtle which attacks the Shell tribe.) To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about watching the film for that reason as I thought that it would slow the film down significantly but it didn't at all really, surprisingly enough. The excellent musical score certainly adds to the atmosphere.The film is beautifully shot. Don Chaffey, an underrated director, utilises the exotic locations of Lanzarote and Tenerife to wonderful effect, giving it a much different look and feel to most other Hammer films. It has a slightly otherworldly feel which is appropriate in the circumstances. Ray Harryhausen's special effects are absolutely (and typically) brilliant for the time and hold up remarkably well. With one small exception, the dinosaurs even look realistic when they appear in the same shot as people. I don't think that the dinosaur effects were surpassed until "Jurassic Park". Even the pterodactyl flying effects look great. The film is visually striking in other ways too, such as Tumak discovering the ape men's skulls and the severely injured Akhoba's face when he returns to the Rock tribe's cave.I was enjoying the film so much that it was a full hour before I realised that it didn't have a plot per se. It's more of a collection of excellent set pieces loosely held together by Tumak's growing relationship with Loana and his periodic power struggles with his father Akhoba, his brother Sakana and Ahot. However, I can't say that that effected my enjoyment of the film! Due to the lack of any true dialogue, the actors rely on their eyes and facial expressions (as well as frequent acts of violence!) to communicate their emotions and most of them do a very good job of it, particularly Robert Brown (who is far more authoritative as Akhoba than he was as M!) and Martine Beswick, while Raquel Welch and John Richardson make for very appealing and likable leads.

OK, I know that I open the hell's gates by saying that; but Raquel Welch doesn't look any sexy in this movie, in fact, my fat uncle is more sexy compared to her! Raquel is undoubtedly beautiful, many movies can witness that she's one of the oomph queens of cinema. The thing is in this movie something was wrong; the outfit?, her body?, the movie itself?, all of the above? I go with all of the above! In this, Raquel looks like a brunette copy of Pamela Anderson at her worst shapes in Baywatch's episodes (and I hate Pamela Anderson even in her best shapes !). So how come that Raquel turned into a sex goddess after this, having her looks, with that stone age bikini, to be in every list made to date about the sexiest moments ever been on the silver screen ??! It's not historical, it's more like historical enigma to me !Maybe it's something related to the Americans back then. They got board with the voluptuous blondes and looked for something different, something leaner and darker. However, in a bathing suit competition, done exclusively for the brunettes of the late 1960s, I believe that Sophia Loren could have kicked some Raquel's butt, and won by a landslide ! Maybe it was the idea itself. The cheekiness and the loveliness of it. It wasn't fit or familiar at the moment for the movie's heroine to wear a bikini FOR ALL THE MOVIE'S TIME! I recall Marilyn Monroe's movies, Beigitte Bardot's movies, Elvis movies, Bond's movies, Matt Helm's spoofs along with the era's beach musicals; none of them had that offer. So, sure it presented some outrageous sexuality that was too rare to find.Let alone how that wild fantasy was shown as a barbarian girl; namely someone spends a little of her time speaks gibberish, and most of her time acts violently. Wow, that should have been an event. Most of the movie's dolls / heroines up to that moment used to be infantile, rational, or a little bit of both (Doris Day-type), but no wrestler. I began to understand the formula that dazzled the 1966's *male* viewer : different beauty, nearly naked, no talks, loving, with on demand fangs. Well, this had to be enchanted as well as groundbreaking mix ! Now to the movie. Pardon me.. What movie? Was there a movie around? I didn't meet any! There were some ugly people in fur, beating up each other, cat fights, dinosaurs, volcano for the end, and everybody saying in every event nothing but : AKITA TUMAK, AKITA TUMAK !!!As an action, cleaning my room has more steam. As a fantasy, Ray Harryhausen made better, more memorable, stuff. As a sexy movie; just UGH! For my taste; the word hot doesn't apply to anybody here, including one of my early obsessions : Martine Beswick; that girl had a real, original and ultra raunchy cat fight 3 years earlier in From Russia With Love, this time it's the poor, dirty and untalented copy of it !On the other hand, as a movie with acting it's outright hilarious. For small instance look to Percy Herbert; he deals with all the situations, all the feelings, by one unchangeable reaction: gazing in anger while constricting one of his eyes; This is unforgettable ! As a sci-fi it's more than inspiring; it propounds such a brilliant idea; what if all the language became one word? Ahh, it would have been a blast. I think our life could have been finally about deeds not talk. Imagine how spouses' arguments, political speeches, schools' curriculums could be all summarized by just one AKITA TUMAK. Sheer magic !Watch this movie to believe that it was made one day. Exploitation wasn't deprived of anything interesting like this before. It served only Raquel Welch, and serves only her die-hard lovers. For me; when I firstly watched it, back in the late 1990s while being in my early twenties, I put it in the top 10 list of the worst movies I have ever seen. Now, I got matured, putting it in the top 10 list of the best unintentional comedies ever made, where it's in the list's end by the way due to its status among its peers as the most boring ! I wonder, if the cavemen did a movie about their life, wouldn't it be more sexy and dramatic ?!