Friday, February 16, 2007

Caveman

Caveman was a film that I read about in 1980-81 in Magazines such as Starburst, Fantastic Films etc... as far as I know it never got a UK cinema release, if it did it was no doubt limited to a few select London cinemas. I first got to see the film around 1987 when I used to help out in a mate's Video Store, the Rep from Warner Bros video came in one day and I asked if it was available on VHS. To my surprise although I hadn't seen it for rent at any video shop in my town it was available. This was a time just before the lower budget 'Sell-Through' market had started selling VHS films for a price that the public could afford, most rental titles costing anywhere around the £70-90 price range. Caveman was available for £24 which at the time was a bit of a high price for me to spend on a Video, but I thought what the hell and ordered it.
Quite a few of my mates had heard of Caveman too, so they were chuffed to finally get to see it.
Made in 1981 the film stars Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long, Jack Gilford, Barbara Back. It was Directed by Carl Gottlieb who wrote the Screenplay for Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Now the main reason for buying this film had to be the Stop-Motion Dinosaurs, everyone love Dinosaurs. Animators on this film included David Allen, Jim Aupperle, Randall William Cook, Jim Danforth as well as FX by people such as Rocco Gioffre,Dan Curry, Peter Kleinow, David Stipes all of whom had worked on numerous big and low budget films. Now the weird things about the Dinosaurs in Caveman is they never fight each other, they're old, they're dumb, they're not your typical movie Dinosaurs by a long stretch. The animation is really cool and the film has a nice look being shot on location in Mexico.
There are some really great gags in Caveman and all in all it's a fun movie which I bought a year or so back on DVD as my VHS was getting a bit rough. If you like Stop Motion and Dinosaurs I recommend this film which you can pick up in the UK for as cheap as £4.99 or probably cheaper http://tinyurl.com/39zpsl
It was on the set of this film that Ringo Starr met Barbara Bach who he later married.

5 comments:

Niel Bushnell said...

Thats one big prehistoric rack!

Andrew Glazebrook said...

They're beauties alright !!!

Jim said...

Its been awhile... is this the same movie where he invents the bicycle but with square wheels???

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Jim,I think you might be thinking of the UK comedy 'Carry on Cleo' in which a Cave Person called Hengist Pod invents a square wheel,the wheel later becomes a window frame. Why Cave People are in a film with Cleopatra and the Romans is beyond me though !

Jim said...

HOLY CRAP!!
Dude, I've been trying to find the name of that movie since I was about 8 years old. NO ONE ever knew what I was talking about!!!! "I call it a "Wind Doe""... or something like that... I was 8.
THANK YOU!!!!!!