At one time One Million BC was considered a real hit at the box office and even earned some Academy Award nominations. Today it’s a pretty clunky albeit ambitious movie that predates Roland Emerich’s “10,000 B.C.” by decades where it tells the tale of a group of cavemen and cavewomen with perfect hair and make up, trying to survive in the wastelands. Said wastelands include dogs dressed as elephants, giant badgers fighting giant snakes, and a lot of stunt animals over a flat screen blown up to look like dinosaurs. Saving the effort of claymation and stop motion, the effect is a major dud most times, as the animals never really look all too menacing.
That said, “One Million BC” is creative in its concept about a movie solely revolving around cavemen and women, all of whom barely communicate with dialogue. Hal Roach and Hal Roach Jr. are clever in leaving a lot of dialogue off the table, as the characters mostly communicate through grunts, hand gestures and single phrases. This made it absolutely accessible to anyone around the world to watch, which is an ambitious and pretty innovative idea considering it was 1940. The picture opens with a group of archaeologists finding a series of drawings in a cave. When the lead archaeologist (Conrad Nagel) decides to read them aloud, he regales his entire group with an epic tale of two cave people and their struggle to survive the predators of the B.C. era.
Said cave people come from the Rock Tribe, led by Chief Ahkhoba (Lon Chaney Jr.). When he tries to steal son Tumak’s portion of a mammoth, Tumak falls off a cliff and floats in to the village of the more docil Shell People. Tumak learns to be peaceful and more passive through them, and falls for tribe woman Loana (Landis) Not nearly exploitative or memorable as the remake “One Million Years B.C.” headlined by a gorgeous Raquel Welch in 1966, “One Million B.C.” is an admirable dud you can appreciate for its attempts to think outside the box. In the realm of blockbusters it has some good ideas, and pulls in good performances from Victor Mature and Carol Landis.
Featured in the new re-release from VCI is an audio commentary by Film Historian Toby Roab, and a photo gallery in 1080p, garnering a lot of key art and stills.