Frank Hayden Movies
- 1970
Former Miss Norway Julie Ege stars in this low-budget variation on One Million Years B.C., playing a scantily-clad cave girl who becomes the object of a fierce battle between the contenders for the throne of the tribe's recently-deceased chieftain. The last of the prehistoric adventure films from England's Hammer Studios, this cheap potboiler discards the usual stop-motion or oversized-iguana dinosaurs -- a concept which may be more (pre)historically accurate but is clearly nothing more than a budgetary consideration for the producers. What's left plotwise is little more than the entire grunting, slobbering male cast trying to get into sexy Ege's sabertooth-skin skivvies and brutalizing each other for the privilege (though most of the sex and violence was excised by the distributors to secure a PG rating). The vibrant cinematography is a plus, but there is very little action, and Ege is no Raquel Welch. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Ege, Tony Bonner, (more)
- 1970
- PG
Singer Robert Goulet had already spent a season (1966-67) as a TV secret agent on Blue Light when he signed for the theatrical espionager Underground. Goulet plays an American spy who is disgraced during World War II for divulging the names of his fellow agents while under torture. To redeem himself, he joins a French resistance group called the Maquis and parachutes behind enemy lines. His mission is to kidnap a Nazi general and spirit him back to France. Arthur H. Nadel, director of Underground, is most-closely associated with the non-human endeavors of the Filmation cartoon studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Goulet, Daniele Gaubert, (more)
The McKenzie Break is an unusual POW escape drama in that the would-be escapees are German prisoners, held in a Scottish camp. When a Luftwaffe pilot is murdered in the compound, British major Ian Hendrey investigates. He suspects that the killing is tied in with a complex escape plan, engineered by German commander Helmut Griem. Before the inevitable break, the prisoners form into the sort of separate factions and pressure groups that fomented the Nazi upheaval in Germany in the first place. Based on a novel by Sidney Shelley, The McKenzie Break was actually filmed in Ireland rather than Scotland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Keith, Helmut Griem, (more)
The Lost Continent is a crazy-quilt of a film, with chunks of several unrelated plotlines sewn together willy nilly. Eric Porter plays Lansen, the captain of a tramp steamer who has agreed to deliver contraband dynamite for a hefty price. His passengers are a polyglot of the good, the bad and the worse. Shipwrecked on an mysterious isle in the Sargasso Sea, Lansen and party find themselves prisoners of a bizarre inbred colony still governed by the long-abandoned edicts of the Spanish Inquisition. The film is no more coherent than the original Dennis Wheatley novel Uncharted Seas, but that doesn't detract from its endearing wackiness. To their credit, the cast members of Lost Continent play the script straight, which merely adds to the kinky fun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Porter, Suzanna Leigh, (more)
Filmed on the sets of One Million Years B.C., this adventure fantasy centers on a hunter who accidentally ends up lost and stranded in a mysterious world ruled by statuesque, raw-meat eating, big-haired and scantily-clad brunettes who enslave their blonde sisters and worship the horns of rhinoceroses. The brunettes capture the hunter place him in a cage with other males who must suffer the terrifying fate of making love to the sexually insatiable Amazon queen (played by Martine Beswick). Over the years, the film has developed a cult following. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martine Beswicke, Michael Latimer, (more)
This film was advertised with the slogan "See Raquel Welch In Mankind's First Bikini!" While archeologists tell us humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs, and our prehistoric ancestors probably didn't look much like Ms. Welch and her co-stars, One Million Years B.C. is a good bit more fun than more scientifically accurate portrait of the era might have been. Tumak (John Richardson) of the Rock People is exiled from his tribe after a fight with his father, and after days of endless wandering is in sad shape before he's taken in by the more peaceable Shell People. He attracts the attention of well-proportioned cave woman Loana (Raquel Welch), but once again finds himself a man without a country after his violent nature alienates the Shell People. Along with Raquel (whose character is remarkably well-groomed given the time period), this movie's greatest selling point are the special effects; legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen created a dazzling collection of prehistoric creatures for this film that still look impressive, even in the more sophisticated era of computer generated imaging technology. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raquel Welch, John Richardson, (more)
- 1955
Peter (Anthony Richmond) is a British schoolboy who has somehow come into possession of a magic marble. The wondrous orb has the capability of granting wishes, allowing Peter to escape such childhood tortures as schoolrooms and bullies. The "one too many" wish of the title involves a toy steamroller, which grows to gargantuan dimensions, threatening to flatten the whole city. One Wish Too Many won a best children's film award at the Venice Film Festival in 1956. Its 55-minute length was ideal for the late-1960s TV anthology CBS Children's Film Festival, where the film was rebroadcast at least a dozen times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Richmond, Rosalind Gourgey, (more)
