Most of you are probably more familiar with Hammer than you realize and that would be due to this film which any cinema laymen should at least be aware of its existence. One Million Years B.C. not only sparked a flurry of prehistoric knockoffs in the late 1960's and 70's it also established the career and sex symbol status of one Raquel Welch. Yes, before the iconic Farrah Fawcett poster was gracing the walls of teen age boy's bedrooms it was Raquel Welch's iconic pictures of her in a fur bikini that was pinned to boys walls.
Which one you see, MVP? The US or British cut? The Brit one is something like 9 minutes longer. I have it, but haven't gotten around to looking at it yet. I think there's more monster footage in it, too.
ReplyDelete@venoms5 - this was the British cut, part of the UK's Hammer Collection box set. Run-time 96 minutes.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember right, that longer cut was released here back in the 90's on laserdisc. The Fox DVD is the shorter US version. I'll have to break down and check out the Brit one to see what I'm missing.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, the US cut is only 5 minutes shorter. Maybe they cut out the live Iguana that they made to look like a monster, that was one of the creatures I thought felt out of place when all the other creatures were animated.
ReplyDeleteI found this about it from dvddrive in. Either way, I'll have to watch both as I haven't seen the US cut in a few years and wouldn't know what was different...
ReplyDeleteThe huge disappointing blow with this release is that 20th Century Fox Home Video has released the shorter, U.S. version of the film, which is missing a full nine minutes of footage. The full 100-minute version was released on laserdisc in 1996 (which opened with "Associated British Pathe presents a Hammer Production" rather than "A Seven Arts/Hammer Production"), so there is absolutely no excuse for this. Some of the footage missing from this version include where cavegirl Martine Beswick performs a sexy tribal dance, violence during a fight between some savage apemen, and a good chunk of Harryhausen's animation. A "Restoration Comparison" (one of the disc's few supplements) explains that the original negative was lost, and that two 35mm duplicate negatives were used for this transfer. Using a split-screen, the superior transfer is shown in comparison with the earlier ones done for the 1993 film master and the 1996 laserdisc release, which again, was UNCUT. This DVD is missing nine minutes, so what was the point of going through all the trouble on a new transfer?
hmmm, yea my version had all that but the stats say 96 minutes, although I think that because it's PAL encoding the run-times are stated different so it probably is 100 minutes.
ReplyDeleteMartine Beswick's dance sequence is pretty lame, it really makes no sense in the story so cutting that out wouldn't be a big deal in my opinon. The best scene with her is the one on one fight with Raquel. The apemen fight is pretty cool, they kill one of their own and chop off it's head. That definitely adds some grit to the film.
Yes, but 'When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth' uncovers two giant monsters that 'One Million Years BC' doesn't! :-)
ReplyDelete@Watching Hammer - I think B.C. has Dinosaurs beat in almost every aspect, a couple different monsters makes no difference to me. Besides Dinosaurs doesn't have blood thirsty ape men!
ReplyDeleteThe cut was badly missed. There beautiful wild woman dance ( Beswick ) and fight with Welch both was cut is real shame. I've watch full on TV which is far enjoy than I have 2 crap DVDs. :(
ReplyDelete