Main Cast: Laurette Luez, Allan Nixon, Joan Shawlee, Judy Landon, Mara Lynn
Release Year: 1950
Country: US
Run Time: 74 minutes
Plot
Partially filmed at Whittier, CA, and at Hollywood's General Service Studio, this low-budget exploitation melodrama features Laurette Luez as Tigri, the head of a tribe of Amazonian women charged by an elder (Janette Scott) to find and capture husbands by the next full moon. Tigri finds and captures Engor (Allan Nixon), but a rival, Arva (Mara Lynn), also claims the handsome cave-dwelling tribesman. Tigri, however, manages to hold on to her man, but Engor gets the upper hand after accidentally discovering how to make fire by striking two stones together. The women are soon turned into slaves, but this little idyll is rudely disrupted by the arrival of Guaddi, an eight-foot giant who threatens to destroy them all. The giant is eventually slain by the men and Tigri, who has fallen in love, persuades Engor to return with her to the women's camp where the elder marries them. Sold on the independent exploitation circuit, Prehistoric Women reportedly made a mint for its producer, Albert J. Cohen. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Already high camp when it premiered in March of 1950, Prehistoric Women is even more so today. An absolutely ludicrous film that makes Hal Roach's One Million B.C. (1940) and its remake look like cinéma vérité, this little blunder may be enjoyed by anyone who likes to watch scantily clad starlets run about grunting. That the girls are Max Factored to the nth degree only adds to the general fun. Fire, after all, is supposed to be discovered during the course of the plot, but here they are in full war paint and wearing the latest in Hollywood coiffures. The grunting is occasionally interrupted by an equally ludicrous stream of consciousness by a gentleman calling himself David Vaile, but this running commentary strikes a modern viewer as chauvinistic rather than the humorous soliloquy that was obviously intended. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Jo Carroll Dennison - Nika; Kerry Vaughn - Tulle; Dennis Dengate - Kama; Jeanne Sorel - Tana; John Merrick - Tribe Leader; Janette Scott - Wise Old Lady
Credit
Jerome Pycha, Jr. - Art Director, Bella Lewitsky - Choreography, Gregg G. Tallas - Director, James Graham - Editor, Raoul Kraushaar - Composer (Music Score), Lionel Lindon - Cinematographer, Sam X. Abarbanel - Producer, Albert J. Cohen - Producer, Sam X. Abarbanel - Screenwriter, Gregg G. Tallas - Screenwriter
Prehistoric Women is a 1950science fictionadventure film, written and directed by Gregg C. Tallas and starring Laurette Luez and Allan Nixon. Released by Alliance Productions, this independent film was also titled The Virgin Goddess. Prehistoric Women is seemingly influenced by and is similar to the 1940 film One Million B.C.. A remake (sometimes known as 'Slave Girls' ) was made in 1967, and starred Martine Beswick.
Plot
Tigri (Luez) and her stone age friends, all of which are women, hate all men. However, she and her Amazon tribe see men as a "necessary evil" and capture them for potential husbands. Engor (Nixon), who is smarter than the rest of the men, is able to escape them. He discovers fire and battle enormous beasts. After he is recaptured by the women, he discovers fire and drives off a dragon-like creature. The women are impressed with him, including their prehistoric queen. Engor marries Tigri and they begin a new, more civilized, tribe.
Quotes
The Commentator: Strangely enough, the swan dive was invented before the swan
