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Prehistoric Women

Prehistoric Women

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I had dreams in puberty just like this!
Review: All right, We can tell this isn't going to be an award winner just by looking at the title. Prehistoric Women (AKA The Slave Girls) is a bit of mindless candy that lets us look at busty blondes/brunettes in what we guys like to consider their natural habitat. A big game hunter/guide David Merchant (Michael Latimer)is captured by some tribal misfits and is taken to the temple of the white rhino (plaster statue) there, something kooky happens and the native guys freeze when the wall of the temple splits, and Merchant is introduced to a new world where the dark haired women are in control, the blonde women serve them and are sacrificed to the white rhino, and the men are forced to work the mines or something.....See! I told you it was just like puberty! Anyway, the evil Queen Kari(Martine Beswick) is every mans ideal ex-wife, as she tries to force Merchant to be her man. Merchant can't force himself to love her because he is smitten with the beautiful blonde slave girl Saria. The battle begins. Don't forget to watch the trailers at the end. Relive the excitement of being a kid again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Campy and Fantastic!
Review: Any red-blooded male WILL LOVE this film if you enjoy watching movies. It's a society that you will, at least twice in your life, dream of being in.

If you are a woman you will probably hope for it more than twice. Perhaps it is already reality for you.

I was exposed to this movie via the Hammer Trailer extra DVD included on another DVD and had to order it right away. I've seen this film only once before - probably chopped up on TV. Unfortunately the male lead is never truly dominated by The Goddess Kari -- "yeah" for some of you and a negative for others.

Well, I only judge the films by the quality of the DVD. This one is three stars -- the middle of the lot. Pure mono soundtrack, however it does not fade during loud parts. The picture is not too bad, a nice widescreen presentation at 2:35 to 1 and it's not totally clear but for a 1966/1967 films it sits well with me.

Most ordinary people probably won't like this movie -- and I can tell that already by the reviews, but if you are building a Hammer collection this should be included. I would like to go back in time to see how this film was received when originally released. I can almost hear the guffaws! Personally, I like it a lot and it's one that I will watch more than once per year.

What's the best part of this movie? Martine Beswick -- just like everyone else says! Her appeal is powerful, and the Hammer studios captured it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It all ends too soon!
Review: Any red-blooded male WILL LOVE this film if you enjoy watching movies. It's a society that you will, at least twice in your life, dream of being in.

If you are a woman you will probably hope for it more than twice. Perhaps it is already reality for you.

I was exposed to this movie via the Hammer Trailer extra DVD included on another DVD and had to order it right away. I've seen this film only once before - probably chopped up on TV. Unfortunately the male lead is never truly dominated by The Goddess Kari -- "yeah" for some of you and a negative for others.

Well, I only judge the films by the quality of the DVD. This one is three stars -- the middle of the lot. Pure mono soundtrack, however it does not fade during loud parts. The picture is not too bad, a nice widescreen presentation at 2:35 to 1 and it's not totally clear but for a 1966/1967 films it sits well with me.

Most ordinary people probably won't like this movie -- and I can tell that already by the reviews, but if you are building a Hammer collection this should be included. I would like to go back in time to see how this film was received when originally released. I can almost hear the guffaws! Personally, I like it a lot and it's one that I will watch more than once per year.

What's the best part of this movie? Martine Beswick -- just like everyone else says! Her appeal is powerful, and the Hammer studios captured it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Beware of this one, Bwana...
Review: I really didn't have high hopes for Prehistoric Women (1967) on the outset, but I never one to shy away from the potential goodness to be had in a film with fur-lined, bikini clad, prehistoric women, so I decided to give it a try. Then I saw the opening credits...produced, written and directed by Michael Carerras?! This is the man responsible for other Hammer Studios bum rides as The Lost Continent (1968) and Shatter (1974). It might as well have said 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here...' Oh well, bring on the pain...

The film stars Michael Latimer as David, a hunter with a conscious, and one who guides less experienced hunters through the jungle in search of big game. After his current client wounds a jungle cat, David tracks it to put it out of its' misery, and finds himself trespassing on sacred land, the Land of the White Rhino. Apparently hunting on these lands by outsiders is forbidden, and after David kills the cat, he's quickly accosted by a group of natives. The penalty? Death...but before the sentence can be carried out, something happens, and David finds himself transported to another land, maybe even another time...the time of the prehistoric women!

After coming across a fair-hair girl in a fur bikini, David and the girl, named Saria (Edina Roney), they're both captured by a group of dark haired women, also in fur bikinis. The two are taken to a populated clearing, and here we meet Kari, played by Martine Beswick. Kari also sports the same type of wardrobe as the other women, but she has more adornments, suggesting she might be higher up in the social food chain. And she is, as we soon learn that she is the queen. So Kari is the queen, the dark haired women are her power base, and the blonde haired women are slaves. Well, that certainly makes things easy to keep track of...but where are the men? A case of spontaneous female population? And all lovely ones at that?

Kari, taken with David, decides to take him for herself, but David has already made a connection with Saria, and, after witnessing Kari's cruelty towards the blonde hair slaves, he's not inclined to fall in with her, refusing to become a willing slave himself. This angers Kari, and she orders him to be thrown in a cave. Within the cave we see chained men slaving away doing busy work, all looking much worse for wear. It was around this time I started getting an ache in my head...

So what happens? Well there is a plot thread dealing with the blonde haired women speaking of rebelling against the tyrant Kari and her group, another plot thread involving the marrying of slave girls to jungle demons as a sort of sacrifice to appease the demons, and yet another dealing with a legend of the white rhino linked with spiritual bondage, none of which made very much sense. There is plenty of dancing and jungle music throughout the film, both men and women, so if that's your thing, you be pleased. It's not my thing, and I got even more of an ache in my head.

The film finally begins to wrap up after awhile (it has a 90 minute running time) and we are treated to a somewhat exciting climatic battle royal involving the brunettes, the blondes, the male slaves, David, supposedly demon jungle spirits...and a white rhinoceros...criminey...I guess if you have really lame and inane plot threads running throughout your movie, it's best to keep throwing different elements at the audience, in hopes that they won't notice how little sense it all makes. It reminds me of a magician, drawing your attention to one hand while doing something with his other hand. Only problem here is both hands, figuratively speaking, contained steaming piles so drawing our attention any which way only further highlighted how lame an affair this really is...oh, I will say the women were nice to look at, but given they were supposed to be of the prehistoric kind, they seemed to be awfully well groomed, despite the obvious lack of personal hygiene products. They also had quite the excellent grasp of English, some even having English accents! So, does David escape this savage land, ruled by half nekkid women? Would he want to? What's the secret behind the legend of the white rhino? Honestly, I stopped caring about much of anything regarding this film long before it this point, but I always try to finish what I start, so I clung on until the bitter end. And it did end, with a twist that was so very obvious and contrived I literally groaned.

Anchor Bay Entertainment provides a good looking, wide screen print here along with a few nice extras. Included is a theatrical trailer, TV spots, and a World of Hammer episode titled Lands Before Time, highlighting some of Hammer's cinematic forays into times long since past. There is also a nice little reproduction of the original theatrical poster for the film inside the DVD case. I'll leave you with a nugget of goodness from the film...after killing a slave girl, Queen Kari commands the other slave girls to dance, to which one replies, "When the heart is heavy, the feet are not light."

Cookieman108

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Granted this is not the best movie ever, BUT...
Review: It's a given that this movie does not have the best storyline in the world. I didn't take to the rhino worshiping either, but I dont care! Edina Ronay is so incredibly beautiful! She could be 80 and still be a knockout! I love her!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Campy but no classic - but Beswick is wonderful
Review: Made on sets left over from One Million BC (although that movie was largely filmed on lacation in the Canaries), this is a silly, campy, sexist and racist little movie that's unfortunately played far too straight for its own good.

Latimer plays a white hunter who, about to be sacrificed by an African tribe, stumbles into a hidden valley ruled by dark-haired white women who keep all the blondes and the men as slaves. Beswick is the evil queen who spends most of the film on heat trying to get Latimer into her bed (at one point she bathes in milk and at another wraps a whip round him as she pulls him towards her bed). Incomprehensibly, the silly man resists her advances and prefers slave Ronay. Common guy - get a life; Beswick is clearly the horniest bird in the jungle.

Apart from this we have a cat fight between Beswick and a slave and the film stops frequently for various dance routines (Beswick does a seduction one for Latimer, the slave girls do one, and a sexy African girl does one at the beginning). There's also "the devils of darkness" (i.e. black guys hidden by animal skins) to whom sacrifices must be made on a frequent basis. At the end, the slaves all revolt, Beswick gets gored by a rhino and Latimer wakes up to discover it was all a dream.

Hammer's decision to go for a PG certifcate unfortunately means that there is no nudity.

It's a mess of a film and one wonders what the intended audience was - in the UK the running time was cut down to 74m so it could be released as a B feature. The video is the full length version and is in the correct Scope ratio. Some of the Amazon comments above confuse this with another movie from 1950 also called Prehistoric Women. This has the alternative title of Slave Girls (the UK release title).

One Million Years BC is much more fun and also has dinosaurs and real locations.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Slave Girls of the White Rhino!
Review: Not to be confused with a low-rent American movie of the same name made in 1950, Prehistoric Women was written and directed by Hammer producer Michael Carreras in 1966, on redressed sets left over from Hammer's One Million BC.
Definitely an excuse to find a way to reuse the sets, and no dinosaurs this time around, but the film is so outrageously, unapologetically campy that it's complete bliss.

Terminally sincere great white hunter David touches the sacred horn of the statue of the White Rhino while in Africa, and is transported back in time, where he discovers a tribe of White Rhino-worshipping brunettes, who have enslaved all the blonde women, and sent all the men to an even worse fate doing hard labor.

Martine Beswick is just great as the evil and cruel queen Kari, who chooses David for her love slave. Unfortunatly, David has eyes for innocent blonde slave girl Saria, and....

This flick has everything, wildly loopy Amazon dance numbers, sacficial rituals, catfights, jungle action, babes in fur bikinis, outrageous dialog ("Cruelty is what makes me cruel!"), and a climax where the White Rhino comes to life (who cares if it moves like it's rolling on wheels....besides, no real rhino could have such an wonderfully phallic horn). Beswick puts a lot more into the role of Queen Kari than one would expect from this sort of movie--she definitely has more commanding presence (in more ways than one) than Raquel Welch, for example.

It's obvious director Carraras didn't take any of it with an ounce of seriousness, even though it's all played as though it is. His original working title was "Slave Girls of the White Rhino", which I think is a much better title than Prehistoric Women. Still, a sheer, delerious delight.

Anchor Bay's letterbox transfer is great (and is featured on the VHS tape as well as the DVD). The letterboxing is vital for this flick, since for some reason Carreras decided to go against typical Hammer practice and do this one in genuine widescreen Cinemascope....probably because you can fit a lot more prehistoric babes in one shot that way.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Defines "camp classic"
Review: Rhino-worshipping jungle brunettes dominate hapless jungle blondes who strive to be free in this fantastic nonsense-movie. For a film with such a simple dynamic, there are a surprising number of diversions from the main plot. These are very entertaining (dances, weddings, catfights) although they're obviously filler, padding out the film to feature length with eye candy. Definitely a late-night or rainy Saturday afternoon feature.

Some reviewers have said that "Prehistoric Women" is missing 16 minutes of footage, but that's incorrect! Actually "Prehistoric Women" is the American version that runs 16 minutes longer (90 minutes) than the 74-minute British release, titled "Slave Girls." THIS IS THE U.S. RELEASE - THE LONG VERSION. Thanks Anchor Bay!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Defines "camp classic"
Review: Rhino-worshipping jungle brunettes dominate hapless jungle blondes who strive to be free in this fantastic nonsense-movie. For a film with such a simple dynamic, there are a surprising number of diversions from the main plot. These are very entertaining (dances, weddings, catfights) although they're obviously filler, padding out the film to feature length with eye candy. Definitely a late-night or rainy Saturday afternoon feature.

Some reviewers have said that "Prehistoric Women" is missing 16 minutes of footage, but that's incorrect! Actually "Prehistoric Women" is the American version that runs 16 minutes longer (90 minutes) than the 74-minute British release, titled "Slave Girls." THIS IS THE U.S. RELEASE - THE LONG VERSION. Thanks Anchor Bay!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A genuine stinker. Don't confuse with the camp 1966 film.
Review: This film has nothing to recommend it. It's incorrectly linked-to in Amazon's data base from the 1966 film with the same title. THAT film is a camp classic--at least for those who can appreciate blond bimbos in doeskin bikinis worshipping a white plaster rhino.


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