Our new feature is all about those things in the wide world of film we just plain love, whether that be a director, a movement, a recurring joke or theme and, of course, a film. There is no pomposity here, this is pure childlike love and in my opinion Sam's first entry perfectly personifies that attitude.
Chances are you haven’t seen ‘One Million Years B.C.’
That’s not me being a snob and lording over you with a choice “oh so obscure” truth is ‘One Million Years B.C.’ isn’t that good, it’s schlocky, hammy and apart from a few retro dino fights, quite forgettable. It was made by Hammer Film Productions in 1966 and was a remake of 1940 Hollywood film ‘One Million B.C.’ It is set – very loosely – in the time of the cavemen and is ridiculously ahistorical (a word I just discovered on Wikipedia and have instantly grown quite fond of) pitting scantily clad cave dwellers against a whole heap of prehistoric scaly monsters. Despite attempting to trick gullible film-goers into thinking it was an accurate portrayal of cave life, running a tagline of “This is the way it was”, ‘OMYBC’ couldn’t fool snooty college types but as Ray Harryhausen, stop motion animation legend and creator of the wonderful dinosaur moments in the film, said he did not make One Million Years B.C. for "professors" who in his opinion "probably don't go to see these kinds of movies anyway.”
Even though I’ve begun this in a very negative light I have to say I feel naught but love for this film. I adore the shoddy B-Movie nature of it, I love how it makes no historical sense, I dig how the cavemen are so unkempt and shaggy yet the cave ladies are preened and quaffed like true Hollywood starlets, I can’t get enough of those stop motion dino fights, I praise the pompous narration of the film and my word it is so damn cracking that the characters speak in names, grunts and vulgar looks. However, the real reason that I have plumped for this as the first film I love is also the one thing that anyone not fond of hammer B-movies will know this film for: Raquel Welch. Specifically for this image...
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| Honestly, If you search this film on google all you will get is about 3 pages of variations on this pose. |
A picture I have two of on my wall. They are no different, apart from one is in colour and one is in black and white, but I have two for a very significant personal reason. This image was the very first time I knew for absolute certain that I fancied ladies (I will try my best not to sound creepy from here on in). Not to say that before Raquel came along I was yearning over pictures of Sean Connery in swimwear it’s just that by that point I’d not really cobbled together the whole idea of women as anything more than nice smelling friends of my sisters.
I’m not sure quite how much you’d want me to expand on this… it’s not in any way a seedy or frightening thing. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have never attempted to stalk Raquel Welch, steal something belonging to Raquel Welch, paid over the odds for an object belonging to Raquel Welch or done anything of a questionable nature with, to, around, about or involving Raquel Welch. It’s just that from that moment when I first spied the image of her in that fur bikini, caveman wind blowing through her hair I knew that these things they call women were my kind of bag. It seems quite an odd thing to admit to, and I’d imagine an even stranger thing to read, OMYBC has in no other way influenced my life, some of the other films I will gush about for this section will be one’s that made me somewhat different, changed how I looked at the world, reflected a feeling I couldn't put into words, was the first 18 rated film I saw or made me discover the joys of a type of film-making then unknown to me. Not OMYBC, I may as well just say that it is Raquel Welch I love, and I do. Perhaps Alan Partridge said it best when he called her a “historically inaccurate sexy bikini sex woman.”
In fact, that now seems like a weird way to end this. But hey ho I’ve written it now and am way too tired to press backspace. So there it is, now bate your breath in preparation for Joe’s first films I love feature, where he will no doubt say some very clever things about juxtaposition and how a film has drastically altered his emotional perception of a feeling or time in this world that made him go “J’aime”all the while making me look like a Stella-drinking-Nuts-reader. Sorry I’ve rambled a touch, suffice to say “J’adore Raquel Welch (In One Million Years B.C.”
SO
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