Two movies, two looks. The true dignity of this picture is realized when you unwittingly compare it with the color remake of 1966, more famous to our viewer, where, with the complete similarity of the scripts, the British director Don Chaffee emphasized mainly on spectacle - color, new animation techniques in the depiction of prehistoric monsters and, undoubtedly, the external data of the main characters: the stunning sex appeal of Rackel Welch (Loana) and the stubborn fighting character of the alpha male John Richardson (Tumak).
In the 1940 film, the spectacle is replaced by the idea that makes the film deeper, smarter and, if you will, even clearer. And the idea is in the comparison of two tribes: backward, cruel, tyrannical, with the cult of individualism and brute force, and the other with the rudiments of the laws of civilization, “democratically advanced”, if I may say so, living more as a commune than a tribe, in full mutual understanding and mutual assistance.
Of course, in the end, an advanced community puts backward individualists on the path of a new human morality. And all the survivors of the earthquake unite in a single commune and sing cheerfully, sitting around the fire.
I wonder why this film was not adopted in the USSR. Not bad, in my opinion, propaganda of the communist system.
Even the characters of the main characters are different. Soft, gentle and kind Loana (charming Carol Landis) and thoughtful, brave, and most importantly - reasonable and fair Toumak (Victor Matthewr).
By the way, this couple a year later starred again in the title roles of Humberstone in the brilliant crime noir “Nightmare”.
In the two paintings of the same name, even genres turned out to be different. A bright historical melodrama-fantasy after a quarter of a century turned into a horror movie for teenagers, where the main motivating line is a stupid struggle for survival. Whereas the basis of the first picture is the birth in the prehistoric ignorance of love and kindness.
I want to highlight the amazingly organic music in this film. Against the background of the almost wordless action of cavemen and creeping past the intrepid reptiles enlarged in size, music fills every frame with meaning, creates extraordinary expressiveness, successfully replacing the lack of dialogue. It completely eliminates the need for speech. Turn off the sound and the movie fades and almost everything is lost. Even very touching and appropriate in one episode looks unexpected vocalism Carol Landis. And the whole film - you will see this - touching, gentle, kind and sometimes even cheerful.
7 out of 10