ONE MILLION B.C. (1940) (VCI Blu-ray Review)

ONE MILLION B.C. (1940)

Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 80 Minutes 
Audio: English PCM Mono with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)
Director: Hal Roach Jr.,
Cast: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark

Since I was a kid I have always been a fan of the 60s Hammer remake of this, the one starring Raquel Welch with the awesome stop-motion monsters of Ray Harryhausen, but I'd never watched the original caveman versus dinosaurs classic, till today. In One Million B.C. (1940) we have Hollywood beefcake Victor Mature (Kiss of Death) starring as caveman protagonist Tumak, a young caveman who is banished from the savage Rock Tribe by his own father Akhoba (Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolfman), after arguing over piece of meat! 

Tumak is taken in by a pretty blond cavegirl named Loana (Carole Landis) who belongs to the peaceful Shell Tribe, but he doesn't adjust to their agrarian and peaceful ways right away, but he win  them over by defending them against attacks by a ferocious dinosaur, but his aggressive and possessive ways again get him in trouble with the peaceful Shell tribe, who show him the cave door once again! The man vs. dinosuar epic is a fun slice of vintage fantasy-adventure, allowing for some prehistoric fish out of water story lines, mixed in with some great dinosaur monster special effects and lush jungle scenery. 

The film is well-crafted and directed by Hal Roach along with the special effects team-up of Roy Seawright and Elmer Ragus who employ several different tricks to bring the dinosuars to life. We get a schlocky man in a T-Rex rubber suit, and the more effective animals in costumes to achieve monsterdom,  including a pig in a baby triceratops costume, and an elephant dressed as a woolly mammoth - which is not as cheesy at it sounds. There are also some great matte paintings, and superimposed images of an real lizards on miniature sets mixed in with the live-action. There's a  crocodile dressed up with a spinal fin doing real battle with another lizard, though one has to assume these poor creatures were mistreated as they are right there taking bites out of each other and being subjected to flames - this sort of thing would never pass muster in a more enlightened age. Looking back on this in historical context though, audiences in the 40's this must have been delighted with the on-screen action. 

The craggy cave interiors and jungle sets are surprisingly lush creations and hold up very well, there's even a rather effective volcano eruption which buries a woman in its hot-lava flow, which I found impactful, this was a lot of fun and made me feel like a kid sitting on the living room floor in front of the TV watching the Saturday Afternoon Matine on WPIX. 

Audio/Video: One Million B.C. (1940) arrives on Blu-ray from VCI Entertainment in the full frame 1.37 aspect ratio, in what has been advertised online as a 2K restoration from the original 35MM negative. The image is decently sharp with good black and white contrast, there's some nice fine detail on display but the image is problematic, with what appears to be strange artifacting by way of vertical lines that look like some form of interlacing, you get that combing affect, which to my mind would be something to do with the disc authoring or encoding. It's unfortunate because you can see this would have been a fine looking release otherwise with good clarity and fine detail, VCI have acknowledged the issue online but as of yet there is no disc replacement program I am aware of.

Audio comes by way of an English LPCM Mono track with optional English subtitles, the old dramatic Hollywood score by composer Werner R. Heymannand and limited caveman dialogue sounds good, a bit tinny at times,which is not unusual for a nearly eighty year old film. Extras are limited to a scholarly  (read: slightly dull) info-laden commentary track from film historian and Toby Roan, plus a gallery of images featuring some cool movie posters and lobby cards for the film, and promotional stills. 

Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary by film expert Toby Roan
- Photo Gallery (10 min) HD 

Fans of golden age prehistoric action-adventure are in for a treat, it might not have Raquel Welch in a fur bikini like the 60's Hammer re-imagining, but it still has plenty of dino-carnage and action-adventure fun. Fans of Hammer's One Million Year B.C. (1960) and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) might want to dive into this one, this is where the dinosaur versus man cycle of films began, and the pre-Harryhausen Hollywood dino-magic holds up surprisingly well.