Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

ultramatt2000-1 I read about it on the book "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Screen" by Marc Shapiro. I saw it on Turner Classic Movies and I took a kick out of it. While the acting is great, the music is awesome, the sound effects are imaginative and the cinematography is wonderful, there is one mammoth problem (pun intended), the special effects. While I don't mind the men in dinosaur suits, the lizards, alligators and armadillos, whether they have horns and spikes glued on their bodies or not, and elephants with fur coats on their bodies look super fake. I know, audiences were not sophisticated back then as they are now, but hey, that was the 1940's. Who can not forget the infamous scene where the Dimetrodon and Lystrosaurs (or should I say, dwarf alligator with a fake fin on his back and tegu lizard) fight. In the years that followed, footage and outtakes from this movie was used in other movies (even in foreign films from countries like Turkey and India). That is bound to outrage the ASPCA. If Hal Roach had half a brain, he would let Willis O'Brien do the special effects and have dinosaurs that would look like dinosaurs and not just lizards with horns and spikes glued on their bodies. However, if the special effects were done by Willis O'Brien, it would be a whole lot better and there would be no 1966 remake with Ray Harryhausen's special effects (or would there?) On the plus side, the film did get an Oscar Nomination for Best Special Effects and Best Original Score. It was a big smash at the box-office. If I were you I recommend the remake because it is better than the original, but give the original a watch if you want to.

Rainey Dawn This one had some good special effects for it's day - you can see this kind of special effects used for a few years in Hollywood after this one was made - a far cry from the CGI of today.The story is heartwarming. It's about how the "primitive" humans may have survived and a romance between two people from different tribes that fall in-love with one another. Loana's (Carole Landis) tribe seems more advanced with their use of jewelry, their manners, the way they treat one another etc... while the man she falls for, Tumak (Victor Mature), seems to come from a less advanced group - he's a bit more brutal. Loana teaches Tumak quite a few things including: sharing, gentleness, and love.Akhoba (Lon Chaney Jr.) is the father of Sakana and Tumak. He's a wise man but still has quite a bit he could learn from Loana's ways.It's a good film if you like movies on "cavemen" or prehistoric themed films. I quite enjoyed it.8.5/10

MARIO GAUCI Although I am not that much of a fan of the 1966 Hammer color remake to begin with – or caveman epics in general – I had always been intrigued by the original 1940 black-and-white version which, apart from being arguably Hal Roach's most ambitious undertaking, was (ostensibly) a pioneering work in special effects and, furthermore, served to give Victor Mature his first starring role. Although a friend of mine (who is the No. 1 fan of the latter that I know of) does have a 16mm print of this under its British title MAN AND HIS MATE, I eventually managed to track it down via a TCM USA screening. Having now watched it for myself, I cannot say that it has served to endear the genre in my eyes or make the thin plot any more compelling than in the Hammer version. Firstly, the special effects may have been nominated for an Oscar, have a primitive {sic} charm about them and been re-utilized in many another cheap production thereafter (notably the abysmal ROBOT MONSTER [1953]) but the various anachronistic dinosaurs look far too much like magnified-lizards-shot-on-miniature-sets to be believably dangerous; a long-drawn out battle between two such 'monsters' is a particular liability! Besides, the grunt-laden 'dialogue' grows alternately silly and tiresome as the film progresses; at least, the film-makers have provided a prologue in which modern day travelers take shelter from the rain in a cave and a residing(?) anthropologist entertains them by interpreting the age-old illustrations on the walls as re-enacted by themselves. At the age of just 33, Lon Chaney Jr. is made up to look much older and play Mature's dad while the latter – sporting a full head of hair a decade before SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949) – appears decidedly schoolboyish; still, what is even harder to accept is how blonde Carole Landis blossomed amidst these surroundings! This is not to say that the film is unentertaining or badly made because it really is not; in fact, the climactic volcano eruption is very well staged and the film's undeniable highlight, the set decoration appropriately atmospheric and Werner R. Heymann's rousing score was deservedly singled out by the Academy for Oscar consideration. Incidentally, for years it was believed that forgotten cinema pioneer D. W. Griffith – whose famous two-reeler MAN'S GENESIS (1912) may well have inspired the film to begin with – had been actively involved in the production before getting the sack from Roach, but his contribution has since been disputed as having been all too minimal (unless our resident Griffith expert wants to give his informed account of the matter).

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.