Al Zimbalist was a producer of B/C films best known for incorporating lots of stock footage from other movies. This one uses a lot of One Million Years BC
I don't mind that and this has a solid, if fanciful basis for a movie - two men in the middle of a duel, Cesare Danova and Sean McClory, are whipped off on a passing comet which consists of an ancient civlisation and various monsters.
That's the basis of a potentially really intriguing film - it's from a lesser known Jules Verne novel, Off on a Comet. The filmmakers don't do anything with it though - they just rehash One Million Years BC and The Time Machine having two warring tribes of cavepeople each with a hot girl for the guy.
I think they would've been better off spending the cast budget on characters from the modern day instead of random cave people - you could've had them reacting to what's going on on the comet in different, interesting ways, like in the book. But presumably for budget, it's just Danova and McClory a lot of the time.
The male leads, Danova and McClory are professional, but sleazy in their love scenes. The women are good looking but play completely vapid, blank eyed interchangeable cave women. Danova goes for a really long swim with one for one scene.
There's cave man acting, lots of walking around. I wanted to like this more and maybe I would have had I seen it as a kid on TV. It gets off to a good start, with Danova and McClory about to duel - that's different - but quickly gets boring: lots of Danova and McClory walking around, then they get separated and encounter different cave people, then the cave people point sticks at each other.
I actually think the Verne novel is so strong it's worth someone else having a crack at it. This version doesn't do it justice.
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