Prehistoric Women (1967)

Jungle guide David Marchand is kidnapped by a tribe of natives who want to sacrifice him to their white rhino god. Just as he's about to be killed, however, he is thrown backwards in time ... See full summary »

Director:

Michael Carreras

Writer:

Michael Carreras (screenplay) (as Henry Younger)

Stars:

Martine Beswick, Edina Ronay, Michael Latimer

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Martine Beswick	...	Kari
Edina Ronay	...	Saria
Michael Latimer	...	David
Stephanie Randall	...	Amyak
Carol White	...	Gido
Alexandra Stevenson	...	Luri
Yvonne Horner	...	First Amazon
Sydney Bromley	...	Ullo
Frank Hayden	...	Arja
Robert Raglan	...	Colonel Hammond
Mary Hignett	...	Mrs. Hammond
Louis Mahoney	...	Head Boy
Bari Jonson	...	High Priest
Danny Daniels	...	Jakara
Steven Berkoff	...	John

Storyline

Jungle guide David Marchand is kidnapped by a tribe of natives who want to sacrifice him to their white rhino god. Just as he's about to be killed, however, he is thrown backwards in time to a kingdom of brunette women and their blonde slaves. David rejects the advances of Queen Kari and sides with the blondes, which leads to him being imprisoned in the dungeon. Can David find some way of returning to his own time? And if he does, what will be awaiting him when he returns?

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Plot Keywords:

big breasts | breasts | breast | cavewoman | psychotronic film | 

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Taglines:

Beware of the lash of the savage Goddess - ruler of a Kingdom of Women - where men are chained...tortured...and made slaves to desire!

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Genres:

Adventure | Fantasy

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shot in only four weeks using sets and costumes from One Million Years B.C. (1966), in order to offset the earlier film's cost of 140,000 pounds.

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Goofs

When David steps into the past, the vegetation in the new land on the sound stage includes a pine tree, not native to Africa.

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Quotes

Kari: Let the dancing continue.
Amyak: Permit me, my Queen, to speak.
Kari: Speak, slave.
Amyak: The women are tired. And when the heart is heavy the feet are not light. Let there be no more dancing.
Kari: You heard my command. Dance!

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Alternate Versions

The UK version was 17 minutes shorter than the US cut, running 74 minutes instead of 91 minutes. This was shown as "Slave Girls" and billed as the weaker support feature with The Devil Rides Out (1968).

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Connections

Featured in The World of Hammer: Lands Before Time (1994)

User Reviews

Hubba-Hubba

"Prehistoric Women" is the most endearing and lovable of Hammer Films' Cave Girls In Trouble films. I fell in love with it instantly during a late night creature feature screening at the age of 14 or so and pursued it for years before finally managing to tape it off cable. Now there are wonderful DVD releases of restored widescreen prints & home entertainment really never had it so good. It's garbage for sure but exquisite garbage, a kitschy sendup of Great White Hunter films that is so poker-faced that one is often tempted to conclude that Hammer was trying to be serious here.

Mesmerizingly filmed on interior soundstages made up to look like what a juvenile might think a jungle resembles, the film packs the visual authority of a classic "Star Trek" episode with a plot more fitting for a Playboy magazine cartoon. It's fun, sexy, campy, never boring, and perhaps the ultimate (sic) Jungal Trash movie, where white Anglo types go to exotic jungle locations to have all sorts of fascinating adventures, while the natives carry the luggage.

Martine Beswick may have found fame as a Bond girl ("From Russia With Love", "Thunderball") but her iconic image as a topless primal sex goddess rising from a dappled fake studio jungle pool will stick with me at least for the rest of my days. One might have wished that the movie had been made a couple years later so she could have turned to face the camera with her wonderful breasts, but half of the film's charm is that it was made during a different era. The tension between the juvenile sex fantasy it suggests and the need for staid British respectability (cough) adds to the fun.

A word must be said about the slack-jawed, lunk-headed portrayal of the native population of wherever this film is supposedly set. It's not racist so much as ignorant, or rather accuracy and cultural sensitivity were not the objectives. Same goes for the misogyny and sexism of the movie, which is buffoonish and groan-inducing, but hey, the target audience was white European males between the ages of 12 and 75, or whenever men stop responding to suggestive fantasies about cavorting with blond slave girls or being dominated by mean, leggy, shapely brunettes. Hubba-Hubba.

If you don't fall into that demographic you might want to try something else a bit more sober, or even better yet just down a couple of adult beverages & have fun laughing at the movie. And surprisingly there really isn't any content that goes beyond PG sensibilities and is actually wholesome enough for subversively twisted family entertainment. Just explain to the kids that it's a cartoon, really, and has about as much in common with the real world as a Three Stooges short. Great escapist guilty pleasure fun, and just as silly as it was in 1967. May it stay just as silly for another forty two years.

7/10; Check out something called "Luana - The Lady Tarzan" for the Italians' take on the themes at work here. The two would make a marvelous double-bill for a kitsch film festival or DVD rental night.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 January 1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

Prehistoric Women

Filming Locations:

Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Seven Arts Productions, Hammer Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

74 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1