Prehistoric Women

If you ever wondered how the human race first came up with the idea of fire and cooked dinners then this may be the movie for you. Over the course of this little adventure involving prehistoric women and dreamboat guys, both these incredibly important discoveries are made. Although it's interesting to note that these enormous human advances were evidently uncovered only after the discovery of beauty products.

Prehistoric Women is, naturally, camp nonsense of the first order. And it certainly knows it is as well. To ensure some, ah, authenticity these primitive characters only speak in a series of grunts. Events are explained to us by an ever-helpful voice-over man, who often simply describes what we can already see. And what we see includes an exciting fight between a caveman and a small cat…I mean dangerous panther, a girl-on-girl cat fight, an attack by a pterodactyl and, best of all, the fiery demise of a marauding, evil giant. This 50's exploitation flick is generally quite amusing but not really entertaining enough to be fully recommended. It's goofy enough to be quite likable though, although a better example of this kind of thing is The Wild Women of Wongo (1958).

I will be honest.The only reason I bought this DVD was to see more (in every sense of the word) of Laurette Luez.She first caught my attention in the 1950 film "D.O.A." when I wished she could have had a more substantial part.In "D.O.A". I was struck by Laurette's exotic looks and when I looked up her biography on IMDb.com, it did not surprise me that she was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.I have a serious weakness for beautiful 1940s film actresses with raven black hair.I have every film Jennifer Jones ever made as well as examples of Ava Gardner, Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Medina and Vivien Leigh; not that I am putting Laurette Luez on a par with those film goddesses but as said by a reviewer above she meets my need for agreeable "eye candy".

During the film I wondered what Professor Leakey (the famous British anthropologist whose family live in South Africa) would have made or said of the plot!The ladies looked like they had just come out of a Hollywood beauty salon, which indeed they had i.e. the film studio's make-up dept.Tigers are only found in India.Where were the 9 foot giant's mother & father, did they have any other giant children?The giant (I bet he was a cute baby), reminded me of a latter day Richard (Jaws) Kiel.The pterodactyl was extinct by the time man evolved onto this planet.Unfortunately film companies/producers have a stubborn obsession with evolution and insist man must do battle with prehistoric monsters as it looks good on film and is what audiences want.That's the problem with playing chess like I do, it makes you think too logically! But of course the real reason people (mainly heterosexual men) would watch films like these is to see scantily clad beautiful stone age women ministering to the capricious urges of their stone age men folk and I am including myself in that category.There was some S&M scenes in "Prehistoric Women" which will appeal to men of that disposition and persuasion.Again the logical side of my brain kicked in, with all that stone age muscle around, why did the men meekly submit themselves to be held captive by those glamorous primitive women?.Could it be that they wanted to be held by them as their prisoners? Films like this trigger prehistoric urges in all of us.I noticed when I started to pen my review that IMDb.com only rated it 2.7/10.That seemed a little harsh for the entertainment factor alone, so I scored it 4/10.

"Prehistoric Women" was obviously never meant to be taken seriously. It certainly doesn't seem to take *itself* seriously, which helps me overlook its dated plot, "cutesy" narrative and crypto-exploitation themes. By this I mean that this is the kind of film that leers at its scantily clad female characters even as it supposedly celebrates their spunk and grit. It's as if Ed Wood decided to make a family film for Mom and Dad to enjoy along with the kids.

But I am OK with that.

Obvious care and effort went into the sets and the special effects, at least considering the "B movie" nature of the material. The women are cute and the men are personable and virile...although I found it curious that the "hero" of the movie had less muscle mass than a 14 year old girl; that the monster who attacks the clans at the climax of the film looks like a stop-motion rubber chicken with a pteranondon crest taped on; that the men didn't figure out the part where they picked up rocks and threw them back at the women, but managed to invent fire and cooking...etc. etc.If you are looking for logic, consistency or real 'weight' in your adventure story, you won't find it here.

This was probably a lot of fun for a date movie in the local Bijou when it was released in 1950. But it's hard to imagine anyone watching "Prehistoric Women" for anything other than camp or nostalgic value these days. Still a decent effort for what it was.

In the standard prehistoric tribal environment, the women are rightfully subjugated. One rebellious woman has a problem with authority figures and opts to correct that with a rock to the male cranium.

Realizing that this might provoke the other males, she heads for the woods or jungle with a handful of women and girls. Of courses being a moral film in the time fo censorship the females must be punished so, they are dragged off by a giant; thus, they leave a hand full of girls to be brought up without males by a wise old woman.

We come to the opening scene where the women not knowing what they are missing have to dance to exhaustion (we get exhausted watching).

Soon after being told that men can be useful for propagating, they set out to subdue some feeble men for this nefarious purpose.

In the process, we see the invention of fire and its consequences.

I recommend that this film should not fall into the hands of women.

Comparable, I think, to Wiesmuller's Tarzan flicks, Prehistoric Women is honestly kind of good. The voice over, done documentary style, helps. The segments done with stuffed animals are hilarious by todays standards. Its like Tarzan wrestles Lavern and Shirley's BooBoo kitty. The prehistoric women? Champions of women's liberation and really pretty both at the same time. The photography? Decent given what they had to work with back then. The plot? Hey, there actually IS one. Even a sub plot. Characters? They function. Especially the nine foot tall rampaging giant, who is so obviously misunderstood. I'm kidding. But I'm NOT kidding when I say that if you like Tarzan style flicks from that era you'll enjoy Prehistoric Women.