The Big Whatsit

‘Travel back through time and space to the edge of man’s beginnings… discover a savage world whose only law was lust!’

You can almost imagine the brainstorming session at Hammer Headquarters. They’ve just managed to sign Raquel Welch to a movie project, and they have to work out what to do with her. The think tank have just two limiting criteria to work with (i) Ms Welch must not be required to do too much acting, because she, well, can’t (ii) Ms Welch must wear as little as possible for as often as possible. The idea of making a prehistoric picture starts to take root, and then one bright spark declares ‘Yes! And we could set it… One Million Years B.C!‘

Perhaps that’s how the film started, but one thing for certain is that it meets the above criteria splendidly. In doing so, Hammer for once got the deployment of their glamorous leading lady exactly right. Compare this with Don Chaffey’s other effort of the time, The Viking Queen (to be reviewed at a later date, and hopefully not too much later as I might have forgotten some parts and could therefore risk having to watch it again) in which Finnish model Carita is given far too much to do without ever being remotely up to the challenge. In One Mill, Welch is perfect. Very easy on the eye, ever clad in a tight fitting, animal skin bikini, which somehow offers underwiring support, her (few) lines dubbed, and required to do little more than jump around and point things out, it isn’t hard to see why the movie was a big hit at the box office. Coupled with some stunning photography of the prehistoric world (in reality the Canaries) and Ray Harryhausen’s special effects wizardry, Welch is the reason for the movie’s success. She might have hated being a sex symbol, but she was very, very good at it.

There’s very little in terms of plot, which is a good thing as all the characters speak in grunts and barely formed words and they’d do little to advance the story. Due to a family struggle, Tumak (John Richardson) is booted out of his place with the Rock People. Crossing a torturous desert, narrowly avoiding encounters with giant iguanas (yes, really) and neanderthals, he collapses by the sea, which by happy chance doubles as the home of the Shell People. This is clearly a step up for Tumak. His old climes were inhospitable, grim, dirty and savage. Even his former ladyfriend, Nupondi (Martine Beswick) abandons him quickly enough once she realises he’s out of the tribe. In contrast, the Shell People lead a tranquil life, fishing and playing and looking for all the world like the bastard offspring of Brad out of Neighbours. True, there’s the odd house-sized sea turtle to fend off, but theirs is an earthly paradise compared to what Tumak left behind. Loana (Welch) is amongst them; she takes a shine to our hero, who hasn’t the sense to do much more than sulk and grunt about his latest development. Soon enough, he’s kicked out of Shellville, and resolves to take his pretty bride back to the rocks. Lucky, lucky Loana.

Harryhausen isn’t at his absolute best here (I don’t think anything quite matches the titanic Talos, the unofficial star of Jason and the Argonauts), but his models are pretty decent, and were probably as good as any dinosaur action pre-Jurassic Park. We start with the aforementioned iguana, in fact a real lizard that has been artificially enlarged and as a result looks more natural than the creatures that follow. The giant tarantula (also enlarged) is forgettable, but the fight between a triceratops and some proto-Tyrannosaur works well and even has a degree of animal realism about it once you overlook the obvious stop-motion trickery of it all. Even better than this is the pterodactyl attack. Ever the scavenging chancers of the dinosaur world, one takes a shine to Loana and carries her off in its beak as lunch for the kids. The pterodactyls look smashing and interact with the actors to surprisingly fine effect.

No comment on One Mill could pass without noting its obvious liberties. The recent, more boring 10,000 B.C. vaguely tried to address this with its mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, though they might as well have not bothered. This film pulls off its scientific impossibilities simply by refusing to care about them, chucking in some fantasy animals for good measure amongst the usual well-known dinosaurs. Besides which, think too hard about what you’re watching and the entire enterprise begins to break apart. Tumak isn’t a very likeable hero; the actor Richardson struggles to show any real emotion when confronted either with Harryhausen’s monsters or Welch’s charms. Loana has amazingly untangled hair for a prehistoric woman, and seems to have little problem with body hair either. At one point, she teaches the women of the Rock People how to bathe, as though the science of water as a cleansing agent has bypassed the tribe completely. Nothing at all to do with getting a near naked Raquel Welch wet, naturally.

Yet these are minor quibbles within a movie that holds together remarkably well. The locations help. Shooting on the volcanic Canaries gives the film a sense of primeval atmosphere, which is added to with the unintelligible gibberish spoken by the characters. For much of the time, they grunt rather than talk, making them seem more apelike. One Mill’s production values are another plus. Hammer’s ability to decorate a mean set was never in question, but the hefty £400k means they can pull out even more stops, creating an environment that has a surprising degree of authenticity. Make no mistake. One Mill is far from vintage Hammer. It isn’t as much fun as She, but it has a lost charm all of its own, and in its prehistoric efforts the studio never matched it.