Creatures the World Forgot (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray]

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The ever-reliable Jonathan Rigby provides an excellent twenty-five-minute piece to camera which fills in a lot of information regarding the film’s inception, a couple of early story outlines, and how Creatures came to be made. The most enlightening fact concerns why the film got green-lit in the first place. It transpires that the whole thing was inspired by a repeat double screening of One Million Years and Hammer’s 1965 film She, which had been a massive success with audiences in 1968. With this in mind, it’s hardly surprising so many found Creatures rather disappointing upon release. CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT slipcase box art (Indicator) Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Creatures the World Forgot arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Indicator/Powerhouse Films. 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. Theatrical Trailer - presented here is a remastered vintage trailer for Creatures the World Forgot. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

Their home destroyed by a volcanic eruption, a tribe of dark-haired cave-people cross the land looking for somewhere safe to put down roots. Along the way, they meet a tribe of friendly blonde cave-people, who are happy to share their women. Not one to say 'No' to a hot blonde, Mak (Brian O'Shaughnessy), chief of the dark-haired people, sires two boys: blonde Toomak and dark-haired Rool. On the same day, another baby is born: a dumb girl who is almost sacrificed, but who is saved by the tribe's shamen (Rosalie Crutchley). Toomak and Rool grow up as rivals vying for their father's attention. When Mak is killed by a yak (or some such beast), it is the blonde son who is chosen as his successor, leaving the bitter Rool to try and seize leadership... Watch Out! (1953). The film can be seen with an audio commentary by critic Vic Pratt. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles. (18 min). 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. A cut-down version of the above, but one that really pushes the search for a new female star and the selection of Julie Ege, skipping through her press and portfolio pictures before turning its attention to the film in which she appears. Tony Bonner portrays the "Good' brother because he sports a blonde wig. His bad brother, Robin John, who I found the most colorful and handsome, sports dark hair and he scowls throughout. The highlight of the movie is when both brothers engage in a strenuous fight scene with the winner securing the woman of their dreams.

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The capable actress Rosalie Crutchley ↓ must have been an adventurous trouper. She plays ‘The Old Crone,’ performing bits of primitive rituals and offering her approval for big tribal decisions. It doesn’t bode well for a drama when characters are listed only with names like ‘The Dumb Girl’ and ‘The Old Crone.’ Goodness is indicated by being named ‘Fair’ or ‘Dark.’

What happened next? Did Ege look as ravishing before Chaffey's camera as Welch did? And did Chaffey manage to make Creatures the World Forgot look as good as One Million Years B.C.? Image Galleries – 107 promotional stills; 71 behind the scenes; some of the glamour shots are quite revealing! A fair young maiden is given unto the leader of our group. The girl (Sue Wilson) becomes the mother of fraternal twins, one fair haired and the other dark haired. The mother dies in child birth. At the same time a girl is born to another who also dies and will be raised along with the boys. The boys compete against one another to win their father's favor. SEE prehistoric love rites! SEE primitive chieftains duel in naked fury! SEE the young lovers sacrificed! SEE staked girl menaced by giant python!The story chronicles life in a pre-historic world devoid of dinosaurs, of a tribe of people over the period of some 30 years surviving in a bleak desolate land. It starts off with a hunting party slaying an antelope. One of the party is gored by another beast and dies after which they bury him. They bring home the meat to the tribe, but then in a spectacular sequence two volcanoes erupt and the earth opens up swallowing several members of the tribe. Creatures the World Forgot is, in fact, more in the caveman subgenre of films, which also includes The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) and The Quest for Fire (1981), rather than in the normal prehistoric sort of movie subgenre. It’s also on the violent side, not stinting on injury detail and bloodshed, which may appeal to more traditional horror movie fans. It’s certainly worth a watch as it holds the attention in a fairly unique way, despite not having any understandable dialogue. Julie Ege’s brunette got top billing and the bulk of Hammer’s promotion, mostly in girlie photo shoots showing her in and out of her revealing costume. ↙ But her character doesn’t even show up until the second half of the movie. As pointed out in the audio commentary, ‘The Dumb Girl’ Marcia Fox has more screen time and a marginally more interesting part to play. She’s also given the blonde hairdo. ↑ As the poster on the right shows, Hammer and their American distributors were fairly shameless in cashing in on the success of Million. Indeed, an open casting call was announced for the lead role, though this may have been no more than a publicity stunt. The part went to the Norwegian Ege, who like Victoria Vetri before her had been a glamour model, appearing in the May 1967 edition of Penthouse. She was also one of Blofeld’s girls in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, alongside other Hammer ladies Jennie Hanley, Anoushka Hempel and Joanna Lumley. The same year as this, Ege appeared in Up Pompeii, a comedy starring Frankie Howerd which was one of the biggest hits of 1971 at the British box-office. Creatures? Not so much. Augmenting the spectacle-challenged Creatures are a dozen or so volcano special effects shots lifted from One Million Years, B.C., with cavemen falling into lava-filled cravasses opened up by the eruption. Like so much in the show, it feels like filler for a 95-minute movie that had enough story for perhaps an hour.

Director Chaffey may have happy to film Creatures without dinosaurs. After the successful One Million Years B.C., he likely wasn’t excited to yet again watch all the attention go to a special effects wizard. Directing out in the wild with a game crew, far away from studio interference, might allow Chaffey to discover something different,something good. He could build on those ‘Dawn of Man’ scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, perhaps. A fact-driven skip through Norwegian actor Julie Ege's career, with particular focus on the films she made after Creatures the World Forgot. I have to admit to being unaware that she trained and qualified as a nurse when she retired from acting and returned to Norway, which lifted my spirits for my upcoming hospital visit. Even more detailed with production info is Jonathan Rigby’s 25-minute video lecture-essay. Rigby compares this dinosaur picture without dinos to Hammer’s earlier pirate tales with no seagoing sequences. We get good inside info on the state of executive affairs in Hammer at the time. Rigby traces the development of the Creatures the World Forgot script, and lists other story ideas with stop-motion effects that Hammer was considering. Rigby can name specific Namib Desert locations for specific scenes. Is the awful reputation of Creatures the World Forgot deserved? Well, to get a credible answer to this question it is not a bad idea to consider the context in which this reputation is placed. It is not a bad idea to scrutinize the expectations of the critics that have argued that Creatures the World Forgot is a terrible film as well.This is where a proper evaluation of Creatures the World Forgot needs to begin placing a lot of crucial details in a proper context. First, it is important to remember that One Million Years B.C. was made with a modest budget and is not a very good looking film. (The people at Hammer Films whose opinion mattered the most considered it an experimental project, so a lot was done with minimal effort to minimize the financial effects of a potentially disastrous theatrical performance). It is precisely why in One Million Years B.C. Chaffey's camera spent a lot more time observing Welch's feminine curves than her environment and the special effects turned out quite mediocre. In Creatures the World Forgot, Ege looks terrific but Chaffey's camera is not obsessed with her body. As a result, Chaffey had greater freedom to tell a better and more diverse story with a larger number of unique characters. Second, Creatures the World Forgot and One Million Years B.C. share the same setting but the former looks far more realistic. (The giant dinosaurs that emerge in the latter do not hurt its authenticity. Indeed, their impact on authenticity is identical to that of the giant erupting volcanos in the former). What makes a difference? The superior character arcs, which is quite an accomplishment considering that Creatures the World Forgot is dialog-free as well. (The drama between Tony Bonner and Robin John's siblings alone elevates Creatures the World Forgot to an entirely different level). 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").