We ended things with our T-Rex movie, the venerable One Million B.C. (1940). Starring Victor Mature as a caveman, as seen on the right. There had been cavemen in movies before–Buster Keaton played one in 3 Ages–but this is the grandfather of the caveman movie, establishing all the plot tropes associated with that little genre. This is the one suit (although an elephant was covered with fur and fake tusks to play a mastodon) in the film. The rest of the dinos are fancied up lizards. This is the film that gave us that battle because a baby alligator and an iguana that appeared as stock footage in a million cheapie movies and TV episodes. That’s the one part that hasn’t aged well, as they sort of animal cruelty shrugged off back in the day is pretty winch-inducing now. Ends with the traditional volcanic eruption, again footage reused a million times. It’s pretty good. Check it out on YouTube.
