The Neanderthal Man
The Neanderthal Man
| 19 June 1953 (USA)
The Neanderthal Man Trailers

A scientist develops a formula which will cause animals to regress to the form of their primitive ancestors, and tries it on himself with disastrous results.

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Reviews
rodrig58

Ewald André Dupont, an absolutely unknown name in the film business. However, Dupont was a very prolific filmmaker, working in Germany, United Kingdom, Hollywood. As a director, Ewald André Dupont worked also with big names like Charles Laughton, Ronald Reagan, etc. Here are some unknown but very good, very convincing actors. The story is ridiculous, but the quality of the direction and the actors make the movie worthy of being seen. Beverly Garland and Richard Crane they worked together in a much better Horror, Sci-Fi, "The Alligator People" (1959).

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tavm

Before watching this on YouTube, I saw a video of Hotlegs' single "Neanderthal Man" which had some members of a later group called 10cc and also some scantily clad young women dancing. This horror film is pretty talky and the makeup to turn someone into the title character is pretty dreary to the modern viewer but if you're familiar with the way transformation was done in these old movies, it's quite a hoot to watch as is the way a normal tiger is suddenly made to look huge and have saber teeth in one hilarious insert! There's also some pretty women like frequent B-movie starlet Beverly Garland who looks quite gorgeous here, I must say! Overall, this was both a little cheezy and dramatically entertaining. Next, I'll watch a more modern take on caveman-in-present-time movie called Iceman...

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calvinnme

A hunter in the High Sierras spots a huge tiger with tusks, and when he tells his tale at the Webb Café in town, he is laughed at, including by the local game warden Oakes. That is, until he drives home that night and the big cat lands on his windshield intentionally. Armed only with the car's blaring horn Oakes scares the big cat away. Oakes makes a clay impression of the cat's paw and goes to see Dr. Harkness, state university zoologist, in Los Angeles. Harkness at first shoos Oakes away as some kind of crackpot, but then suddenly changes his mind and comes back with him. This time, finding a freshly killed deer, they wait for the big cat to return when he gets hungry. They shoot him and go get local academic Prof. Clifford Groves to show him the big cat - a saber tooth tiger that has been extinct since ancient times. The body is gone and Groves asks them to please stop wasting his time.Meanwhile Groves has gone to a committee of academics with his theories of how Neanderthal man had a much larger brain than current man, and Groves talks about how if somehow man could go back to the Neanderthal state, he would be capable of solving problems he cannot with his current smaller brain. The committee is unreceptive, in part because Groves insults them because they are not jumping up and down with enthusiasm.There are lots of obvious tip-offs in this film. Groves mood growing worse with time, being rude to everybody, including any guests, his own fiancée, and him calling the committee of academics he is presenting before stupid doesn't do his cause any good either. There is a cat caged in Groves' lab that seems agitated at the sight of Groves syringes. Groves' own fiancée tells him he has changed from the nice guy she fell in love with into a grouchy mean guy and is leaving. And the presence of a passive deaf mute servant girl is always a big red flag for potential victimization.There really isn't any mystery in this film since the audience sees what is going on most of the time. It is Oakes and Harkness trying to solve the mystery that takes time, although you can see the Jekyll and Hyde ending coming a mile away. Dr. Groves has conveniently forgotten that Neanderthal man had a bigger everything - brain, strength, temper, bloodlust, etc., and that killing picnickers and carrying away their women is not smiled upon in 1950's California. The acting is not wooden here, but motivations jump around a lot with no real reasons given.I'd say it's a take it or leave it proposition as even the title gives away the plot, but it is by no means boring. Just don't expect to be blinded with science in this one.

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Michael_Elliott

Neanderthal Man, The (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Poor horror film about a mad scientist (Robert Shayne) trying to bring man back to the stone age. He turns his pet kitten into a saber-toothed tiger, he then injects himself with his magical serum and turns into the title character. This film only runs 78-minutes but it felt like three hours considering not too much ever happens. The neanderthal man looks silly but the makeup is certainly memorable. The only problem is that he's not on screen enough. Some of the close ups of the tiger gets a few laughs since you can tell it's just a toy. It's also interesting that most horror films from this period try to play the scientist in a sympathetic view point but that's not the case here. The scientist here has got to be the biggest jerk ever to grace a horror film.

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