We lolled in the sand with our two books (reviews to come)......and enviously drooled over fellow beach-mates digging in to their enormous paper buckets of Thrasher's Boardwalk Fries, freshly extracted from bubbling vats of peanut oil.......(the fries, that is, not the beach-mates.....well, not all of them, anyway....)
Since the only thing we get to munch on these days is baby aspirin and Lipitor, we watched the waves crash in and fondly recalled the hot summer nights of our misspent youth at drive in movie theaters, beloved wellsprings of teenage hormones, jumbo buckets of popcorn slathered with enough unidentifiable yellow goo to give us five more heart attacks.......and some of the gloriously worst movies known to mankind.....
Return with us, as we did last night, to a deliciously ludicrous drive-in double feature, courtesy of the loincloth-and-spear department of Hammer films, Britain's beloved purveyor of horror,sci-fi.....and ugga-ugga Cave-men and Cave-Babe epics like these two gems. Guilty pleasures don't get any guiltier than this.....
In a rare expansive mood, the Hammer High Command laid out the cash for Ray Harryhausen dinosaurs to go stomping after fur-biknini'd Raquel Welch in their 1966 remake of "One Million Years B.C." But why spend the extra time and money on animation models, when they could make one of these wild primitive all-night parties fast and cheap......with no dinos, but with plenty of really cute starlets in really skimpy outfits?
Hence our dopey double feature.......let's start with "Prehistoric Women", the far nuttier of the two, which even Hammer disowned and orphaned, slicing 20 minutes out of its brief 90 minute running time. (Having seen the DVD of the full version, we'd say the cut footage must have come from the endless native dancing scenes.....this movie had more choreography than the two hour season finale of "Dancing With The Stars"....)
We kick off with a morose, foul tempered Great White Hunter (Michael Latimer, very white and morose...) traipsing through an indoor Hammer studio African jungle that looks like somebody's unattended greenhouse......(referring to one of our previous posts, this is how Africa might appear in a Roger Moore "The Saint" tv episode...)
We beg of you, don't ask us to explain how Latimer gets magically transported to another part of this plastic jungle where raven-haired Cave-Babes rule and abuse kinder, gentler platinum-haired Cave-Babes......just accept that he does...please.
These dictatorial hotties are led by their equally sadistic queen (Martine Beswick, famous as one of the wrestling gypsies in "From Russia With Love"). Queenie's a nasty piece of work, allright......keeping a bunch of cave-guys enslaved for occasional procreation, and amusing herself by impaling the poor blonde cuties and leading worship dances around a life-sized statue of a white rhino. You can't say this girl doesn't know how to show you a good time.....
But Great White Hunter won't put with her crap, having fallen head over heels for one of the put upon blondies (Edina Ronay). So it isn't long before we have a full revolt, jungle free-for-all....... with African natives, dark-haired Imperial breast-troopers, the Blonde brigade and the escaped cave-guys all running around through the prop foliage, bashing each other with spears and rocks. Yippeee.
The showstopper comes with the arrival of a supposedly a real white rhinoceros (to save money, it's actually the statue rhino....rolling on wheels). For those of us who dote on blatant sexual symbolism, Mr. Rhino, motoring like an SUV that someone forget to put in "park", uses his horn to teach Evil Prehistoric Queen what real penetration feels like. Ouch.......
Madness, you say? Then let's sing together 'Let's all go the lobby....and have ourselves a snack'.....and move on to, as the newspaper ads might refer to it, the "2nd Big Hit!"....."Creatures The World Forget".....
Unlike "Prehistoric Women", where everyone speaks perfect plummy English or "One Million Years BC", where they communicate in made up gibberish ("Akeeta!"), in this movie, they don't talk at all, preferring to grunt, groan, snarl, bark, gasp and shriek loudly when they stab each other......which happens about every three minutes.
No dinos in sight here either, but these cave-folk don't have the luxury of cavorting in a nice artificial, climate controlled Hammer soundstage.......Hammer plopped this hardy bunch into actual South African deserts, cliffs and shrublands, where they enthusiastically go about the business of snarling, barking , gasping and regularly killing each other off. What's worse, amid all the carnage, the movie rarely affords you a chance to ogle its starring cave-girl. (Julie Ege)
Not much to report or enjoy with this one, other than the surprise cameo appearance of a monster bear....an effect accomplished by, yes, a stuntman in a ridiculous Halloween bear costume....a close rival in unintentional laughter to the strawberry bear in "Prophecy" (see our previous post) or the Rhino on furniture wheels in "Prehistoric Women"
At the conclusion of this woeful, but fun to watch double feature, the BQ chomped on the last remaining crumbs in our 100 calorie mini-popcorn bag (the only kind our cardiologist allows us)......remembering how much we wallowed in these movies when we viewed them under the stars, we generously gave them each 2 stars (**)........we would have given 'em one extra star each if they'd coughed up at least one or two dinosaurs.....or maybe had the Bear Costume guy wrestle with the skateboard Rhino......
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