La lotta del sesso 6 milioni di anni fa

Hammer follows up their earlier Stone Age features "One Million Years B.C." and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" with another epic about primitive man. As written by veteran Hammer producer & writer (and sometime director) Michael Carreras, it's not STRONG on story but is relatively easy to understand and take. There is nothing in the way of dialogue as we typically understand it; all the cave dudes and gals speak in grunts only.

Basically, the story can be simplified as thus: a power struggle between a "fair" caveman (Tony Bonner, "Quigley Down Under") and a "dark" one (Robin John), as they fight for control of a tribe. Assorted other tribesmen and women are played by the likes of Brian O'Shaughnessy ("The Gods Must Be Crazy"), Sue Wilson, Rosalie Crutchley ("The Haunting" '63), and Marcia Fox ("Old Dracula").

The performances are generally amusing. Bonner and John are fun as the macho opponents, as is Crutchley in what basically amounts to a "Stone Age witch doctor" role. The guys often take centre stage, although it's Norwegian sexpot Julie Ege ("The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula") that's top billed. She and Fox make for very fine eye candy, but they're never as in the foreground as the advertising would have you believe.

Accompanied by atmospheric music by Mario Nascimbene, who also did the score for those other pictures, the movie is attractively shot by Vincent G. Cox on various Namibia and South Africa locations (with some studio work as well). Much of its "creatures" are animals living today, with the exception of a goofy man-in-a-costume thing seen in a cave sequence.

While this isn't as effective overall as Hammers' previous forays into the genre, it still makes for some agreeable entertainment. It IS fairly realistic, however: at no point do humans share the screen with dinosaurs.

Six out of 10.

Of all the caveman movies I have seen, this one is the best because it choose to present early man as realistic as it could. Rather than have dinosaurs, this movie features animals and creatures that were actually around when early man was. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy dinosaurs very much and had I seen this movie as a kid, I might have thought it was a horrible one. However, now that I am able to recognize good acting and filmmaking, I really loved this movie. It presents the story of early man as a bleak time, a struggle for survival where death was around every corner. No doubt, that was how it was for early man. There are a few beautiful women here, but you won't see as much of their figures as you did in say, "1 Million Years B.C.". None the less, if you are a fan of history or anthropology, "The Creatures That Time Forgot" is a great way to spend your time.

This film begins in prehistoric times with a small hunting party killing a gazelle and bringing it back to their tribe located in nearby caves. Not long after their return, however, a volcano erupts which subsequently kills a number of the people to include the leader of the tribe. So having lost their chieftain a new leader emerges and together everybody follows him out into the wilderness. It's during this time that they come upon another tribe and after spending some time with them they proceed on their way with a few members of the new tribe joining them. As it so happens one of the new members is a blonde female who was given to the chieftain to wed and as time passes she gives birth to twin sons-one of them dark haired and the other blonde. Unfortunately, the difficult childbirth proves too much for her and she dies immediately afterward. Strangely enough, at this same time another female of the tribe also gives birth to a young female child who turns out to be dumb. Figuring that this new baby is therefore defective the decision is made by the chieftain to have her killed. Fortunately for her, the shaman of the tribe intervenes and adopts her instead. From that point on the two sons become extreme rivals vying for their father's attention and looking to become the next chieftain while the blonde female trains as an apprentice of the shaman. From that point on it's these three people who will figure prominently in the tribe's success or failure. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a difficult film for me to follow for several reasons. For starters, except for certain grunts and gestures, there is no language used in this film and that created some difficulty figuring out what was going on at times. Likewise, this decision also hampered the character development as well. That being said, while this might have been a decent movie otherwise, the damage resulting from this poorly conceived decision was just too noticeable and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Below average.

This film has got so much in it. Prehistoric society, adventure, romance, true brotherhood, violence, sex, religion; all depicted abundantly..without a single word uttered!!! And how come it sucks so bad? This film will make you rethink the origin of humanity. If this were the product of anthropology, you would rather defy Darwinian theory and Hegelian synthesis all together. You cannot bear to watch this even with your brain shut down. And now you are thinking, "I've got to see this." I warned you. I take no responsibility whatsoever should you regret spending over an hour staring at this piece of art. Well, I did warn you. This should be forgotten and buried for ever.

I didn't expect much of anything when I started the film. In fact I expected to hate it and fast-forward through most of it but I didn't. I was actually entertained to a degree by this one - which surprised me. It's not a good film but it was entertaining enough to watch on an otherwise boring morning.

5/10.