Prehistoric Women 
                                             
Director: Michael Carreras
Year: 1967
Rating: 7.0
Aka - Slave Girls

What a wonderful crackpot movie. How can this not be a cult item? It makes absolutely no sense. This would have to be Al Bundy's favorite movie. It is as if a voyeur had a spicy curry for dinner and had a hallucinatory dream filled with beautiful women all in fur bikinis with ample cleavage and the spectacular Martine Beswick as a queen who has another catfight (From Russia with Love being the first and then A Million Years BC with Raquel). They should have hired Russ Meyer to direct this film. Can we ask for more? How about four musical numbers that are actually not bad at all. Or a white male who has to do his duty and bed Beswick  . . . reluctantly. There is so much kooky stuff going on. Unappreciated by most viewers and mocked by many. I thought it was fabulous in its weird cheesy way but my needs are few. How much of this was intentionally silly I have no way of knowing but it hit my pleasure zone of goofiness. Yes, it is a terrible film on most cinematic levels but damn I enjoyed it down to the final dance. Pure camp whether meant or not.



David (Michael Latimer) is a safari guide and his client wounds a leopard that runs off into the fakest looking jungle known to man. It is what you would expect in a Disney Safari ride. David chases it to put it out of its misery though honestly the leopard seemed to be doing fine as it lopes along. He is warned by his porters not to cross into the sacred land of the White Rhinoceros because he will be killed. Of course, being white and the hero of the film, he continues and is soon captured by a black tribe and told he will be killed. By the tribal leader who speaks Oxford English.




First though they put on a great musical number for him. All with rhinoceros masks on. The native woman rubs up against him like a lap dance performer looking for a customer at the end of the night. I would have hired them for Las Vegas on the spot. Before killing him though they magically send him somewhere through a portal in their cave. Into another land? Another time? Another dimension? The Multiverse? Who knows but  damn the women are hot and the men are scarce. Better than a Club Med vacation. And the Queen wants him badly as she lolls about seductively on her bed or in the bath. Martine Beswick even dances for him. 



There are like in every society the haves and the have nots. Beautiful brunettes rule the land and the beautiful blondes are their slaves - though in truth their duties like serving food are not all that severe. Davis being one of those bleeding-heart liberals wants to free the blondes as he has his loins set on Saria (Edina Ronay) who has a pouty mouth that says "come and get it". Oh, and they speak perfect English too. Beswick asks do you speak my language? He seems strangely not to find this a little odd. Another dance by the blondes that looks like something drug induced in a New Age disco. Every now and then they sacrifice a blonde to a native in a rhinoceros mask to be married.



I would be concerned that I would run out of slaves since the few men were all chained up as prisoners and were in no shape to reproduce the slave population. Two times they have the blondes walk in a circle so that the camera could eat up the cheesecake. It is as vapid as it sounds but in a good way. Beswick gets the top credit in this film and as nice as Ronay is I can't help but think he was crazy to upset the apple cart. Go with the flow. Martine is calling. It is hard to understand what Hammer was thinking with this one - it is directed by Michael Carreras, one of Hammer's most successful producers but I expect their thinking was we did ok with She and One Million Years BC, so more girls in bikinis can't miss.