One Million Years B.C. is a 1966 British adventure fantasy film directed by Don Chaffey. The film was produced by Hammer Film Productions and Seven Arts, and is a remake of the 1940 American fantasy film One Million B.C.. The film stars Raquel Welch and John Richardson, set in a fictional age of caveman and dinosaurs. Location scenes were filmed on the Canary Islands in the middle of winter, in late 1965. The British release prints of this film were printed in dye transfer Technicolor. The US version was cut by 9 minutes,[3] printed in DeLuxe Color, and released in 1967.[4]
Like the original film, this remake is largely ahistorical. It portrays dinosaurs and humans living at the same point in time; according to the geologic time scale, the last non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, and modern humans, Homo sapiens, did not exist until about 200,000 years BC. Ray Harryhausen, who animated all of the dinosaur attacks using stop motion techniques, commented on the US King Kong DVD that he did not make One Million Years B.C. for "professors... who probably don't go to see these kinds of movies anyway."
Plot
Opening narration:
This is a story of long, long ago, when the world was just beginning... A young world, a world early in the morning of time. A hard, unfriendly world. Creatures who sit and wait. Creatures who must kill to live. And man, superior to the creatures only in his cunning. There are not many men yet. Just a few tribes scattered across the wilderness. Never venturing far, unaware that other tribes exist even. Too busy with their own lives to be curious. Too frightened of the unknown to wander. Their laws are simple: the strong take everything.[5]
Tribal chief Akhoba leads a hunting party into the hills to search for prey. One member of the tribe traps a warthog in a pit, and then Akhoba's son Tumak kills it. The tribe brings it home for dinner. Tumak and Akhoba fight over who deserves more of the meat, and Tumak is banished to the harsh desert by his angry father. After surviving many dangers such as a giant iguana, ape men, Brontosaurus, and a giant spider, he collapses on a remote beach along the Western Interior Seaway, where he is spotted by "Loana the Fair One" and her fellow fisher-women of the blond Shell Tribe. They are about to help him when an Archelon (which is three times the size of the actual prehistoric Archelon) makes its way to the beach. Men of the Shell tribe arrive and drive it into the sea. Tumak is taken to their village, where Loana tends to him. Scenes follow emphasising that the Shell tribe is more advanced and more civilized than the brunette Rock tribe. They have cave paintings, music, delicate jewelry made from shells, agriculture, and a rudimentary language–all things Tumak seems to have never before encountered.
When the tribe women are fishing, a young Allosaurus attacks. The tribe flees to their cave, but in the panic, a small girl is left trapped up a tree. Tumak seizes a spear from Ahot, a man of the Shell tribe, and rushes forward to defend her. Emboldened by this example, Loana runs out to escort the child to safety, and Ahot and other men come to Tumak's aid, one of the men being killed before Tumak is finally able to kill the dinosaur. In the aftermath, a funeral is held for the dead men – a custom which Tumak disdains. Leaving the funeral early, he re-enters the cave, and attempts to steal the spear with which he had killed the young Allosaurus. Ahot, who had taken back the spear, enters, feeling upset by the attempted theft, and a fight ensues. The resulting commotion attracts the rest of the tribe, who unite to cast Tumak out. Loana leaves with him, and Ahot, in a gesture of friendship, gives him the spear over which they had fought.
Meanwhile, Akoba leads a hunting party into the hills to search for prey but loses his footing while trying to take down a ram. Tumak's brother Sakana tries to kill their father to take power. Akoba survives, but is a broken man. Sakana becomes the new leader. With Sakana at the helm, Tumak and Loana run into a battle between a Ceratosaurus (as with the Archelon, the Ceratosaurus is twice the size as the actual creature) and a Triceratops; the Triceratops eventually wins, charging its opponent and leaving it stunned. The outcasts wander back into the Rock tribe's territory and Loana meets the tribe, but again, there are altercations. The most dramatic one is a fight between Tumak's current love interest Loana and his former lover "Nupondi the Wild One". Loana wins the fight but refuses to strike the killing blow, despite the encouragement of the other members of the tribe. Meanwhile, Sakana resents Tumak and Loana's attempts at incorporating Shell tribe ways into their culture.
