One Million Years B.C [Blu-ray]

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

The wait is finally over and with this Ray Harryhausen film making its Blu Ray debut and The Valley of Gwangi being released March 14th (MOD?!), the Master of Majick’s film collection is complete on this format (excluding The Early Years Collection and Animal World).

One Million Years B.C. is one of the odder Harryhausen films, there is little dialogue except in the narrative. The creatures in the film are mostly actual dinosaurs that lived at one time and the film just has a different feel with its melodramatic overtones.

The story of Tumak the cave man and his adventures, discovering new cultures and life threatening obstacles is both fun and humorous at times. It’s easy to laugh at cavemen grunting and using only the simplest forms of communication. We know this, cave men like meat, they like women, are very competitive and don’t give a Rat’s A$$ about the weak or elderly.

The real reason to enjoy this film is to marvel over Ray Harryhausen’s wonderful special effects. I’ve been a fan of Ray’s since I was a small child in the early 60’s watching his early black and white films on TV. I was lucky enough to see many of his early color films on the big screen at Saturday Matinees in my local theater. Yes, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (double billed with Jack the Giant Killer), Jason and the Argonauts and One Million Years B.C. were among the many to shape my youth and love for stop motion effects. It wouldn’t be until The Golden Voyage of Sinbad that I would see a Ray Harryhausen film first run in a theater and actually go to see it because it was a Ray Harryhausen film.

This new 2 disc blu ray release is near perfect, first and for most we get both the U.S. and original U.K. versions of the film looking their best ever. Each version of the film gets it’s own disc with a few nice bonus features. The features include commentary on the U.K. version, U.K trailer (rough looking but it’s here) and a poster and stills gallery On the U.S. version disc we get a 12 interview with RH himself, an 8 minute one with Raquel Welch and a 16 minute one with Martine Beswick (one of the cave women, who shares some candid stories) and the U.S. trailer (also rough looking, but not as bad as the U.K. version) It would have been nice to include a featurette on the film, but if you own any of Harryhausen’s documentaries you already have all that has been said about this extraordinary artist.

The new 4K transfer for both films looks beautiful and identical with the exception of the added scenes. The U.K. cut, (which I do not believe I have seen before) is the superior version, fleshing out some scenes that seemed insignificant in the U.S. cut. The dinosaur scenes have some extra time and both intro and ending of the film are different, not so much as to change the story, but the way they are presented.

I’m pleased they included both versions because they do have a little different feel to them. I grew up watching the U.S. version so it will save some shelf space to be able to discard my old DVD copy.

If you’re a fan of this film or Ray’s work, this is a no brainer, I doubt we will see a better release of this film. the transfer looks virtually flawless with only a few shots of the landscape where the film appears soft. This is one of the best treatments of one of Mr. Harryhausen’s films on blu ray and a must buy for fans.

-The Monster Kid

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Martine Beswick, Percy Herbert, Robert Brown
Directors: Don Chaffey
Format: NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Region: Region A/1
Number of discs: 2
Rated: NR-Not Rated
Studio: Kino Lorber
DVD Release Date: February 14, 2017
Run Time: 100 minutes
ASIN: B01MTZ7SVT