6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Victor Mature stars as Tumak, a young caveman who strives to unite the uncivilized Rock Tribe and the peaceful Shell Tribe.
Starring: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John HubbardSci-Fi | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The University of Utah, my fair (?) alma mater, has had a somewhat spotty relationship with science. On the plus side, the first successful transplant of a Jarvik artificial heart took place at the University of Utah Medical Center in 1982, and while patient Barney Clark didn’t last that long with the device, it marked an important advance in artificial organ technology (some trivia fans may know that none other than ventriloquist Paul Winchell had donated his patent for his design of an artificial heart to the University of Utah, which some claim Jarvik utilized in his design). On the minus side, proponents of abundant (as in infinite) clean energy may remember the so-called “cold fusion” scandal that erupted a few years after the artificial heart implantation when two scientists named Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons insisted they had solved one of the enduring problems of nuclear physics (in fairness it should be noted that only Pons was associated with the University of Utah). With those rather markedly different scientific escapades in mind, it’s with some trepidation that I quote a Scientific American podcast which in turn cited research done by the University of Utah which suggests that only 20,000 or so “humans” (or what passed for them, anyway) were tooling around in 1,000,000 B.C., a datapoint they arrived at by reading genomes in modern humans and tracing various commonalities backward through time. The actual number the Utah scientists came up with was more like 18,500, but no matter how few (or in fact many) “cavemen” or "cavewomen" there may have been back in the day, chances are very few if any of them looked anything like Victor Mature, Carole Landis or Lon Chaney, Jr., the stars of the unabashedly silly One Million B.C..
One Million B.C. is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. VCI has had a somewhat troubled history with their Blu-ray releases, including their first "at bat" with this particular title, one which had even worse "vertical banding" anomalies than what I described in the Ruby Blu-ray review. In fact, you can see this issue in the Main Menu of this rejiggered release, since it apparently still includes scenes from the first, problematic, encode (look at screenshot 20 and you'll get at least some idea of what was wrong with the first version). The good news is the vertical issues are absent from this newer version, and in fact just going by VCI's somewhat spotty track record, this looks pretty spectacular. While some restoration has obviously been done, there are still a few issues, including some wobble (quite noticeable during the UCLA Film Archives title card), and, later, recurrent damage on the right side of the frame (pay attention especially during the volcano eruption sequences). That said, any really horrible scratches and blemishes have evidently been removed, and while I personally found the transfer a bit on the dark side, contrast looks solid. While there is grain in this transfer, my hunch is some kind of high frequency filtering was done, since there really isn't any appreciable uptick in grain during things like optical dissolves or even some of the rear proejection work. For that reason, those who prefer a heavier looking grain field may well want to downgrade the score I gave this presentation.
One Million B.C.'s LPCM 2.0 mono track can't quite overcome some source limitations, but aside from an overall boxy sound, things come across at least relatively full bodied. The film doesn't really have traditional "dialogue", but it's almost through scored, and the music sounds decent if occasionally a little brittle in the upper registers. There are no major issues with age related wear and tear beyond the obviously dated sound of the track.
One Million B.C. is just good, goofy fun most of the time, and those with a certain skewed, jaded sense of humor may find the film appealing in ways that its makers never intended. This is hardly "history" by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some hokily amusing special effects. VCI has eliminated the weird vertical line issue that hobbled their first try with this title, but videophiles are still encouraged to carefully parse the screenshots accompanying this review to see how they feel about this presentation. With caveats duly noted, One Million B.C. comes Recommended.
1966
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1976
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1933
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1970
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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1983
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