‘When your blood mingles with mine, I’ll be the happiest girl under the sun.’
During the last days of the Ice Age, a prehistoric tribe of nomadic sun worshippers found a habitable valley and built a village. However, they are attacked by a rival tribe, who slaughter most of their men and kidnap the women. Fortunately, a travelling warrior comes to their aid…
Unusual adventure for Italian muscleman Maciste, who exchanges the usual trappings of Ancient Greece and Rome for heroic exploits at the dawn of time. Reg Lewis takes up the loincloth under the direction of Guido Malatesta.
It’s been a long, long winter for the wandering People of the Sun. They have travelled many leagues through the cold and icy wastes before finding a valley where they can make a home. Leader Dorok (Demeter Bitenc) orders a village built and looks forward to the wedding of his son, Aydar (Luciano Marin), to feisty redhead Raya (Birgit Bergen). However, a giant lake monster almost kills the young lovers while they’re collecting firewood. Fortunately, wandering stranger Maciste (Lewis) comes to their rescue with a well-aimed spear.
No sooner are they married, however, when the village is overrun by a tribe of Moon People led by the barbaric Fuan (Andrea Aureli). Unprepared for the assault, most of the tribe’s men are killed, and the women are abducted, including Bergen. His father is slain, Marin assumes command of the Sun tribe, and Lewis joins them in an attempt to track Aureli and his forces back to their cave and rescue the women. Lewis scouts ahead but is wounded in a fight with an underwater creature with many heads. Fortunately, he’s discovered by Moah (Margaret Lee), the rightful leader of the Moon People, whose family were slaughtered by Aureli.
Maciste was placed in many different times and ancient civilisations by Italian film producers. However, here he goes one better, mixing it with cavemen and ancient beasts in prehistory. There’s no attempt to address his presence in this era or where he fits into this Neanderthal world. He’s simply a wanderer and a warrior, out to fight injustice wherever he finds it.
There are also no mythological elements, although the multi-headed monster he fights underwater bears more than a passing resemblance to the Hydra.
The film’s main virtue is its brisk pace and short 76-minute running time. Director Malatesta keeps the action moving, even if it’s all fairly routine and anonymous. The only original thing here is that prehistoric setting, but without the budget to take advantage of it, the film struggles to make a lasting impression. The producers obviously had a firm eye on the international market as Lewis and Lee speak their lines in English whilst the rest of the cast do not. This means we get Lee’s rather proper English accent, which doesn’t seem all that appropriate for the era! The American ‘Sons of Hercules’ release also boasts some truly atrocious dubbing in the scene where Lewis has to introduce himself to her by name. He’s not Maciste; he’s Max or Maxus. You know, that famous Son of Hercules.
The cast can’t do very much with the corny dialogue, and the red-haired Lewis fails to make any impression in the lead. It’s little surprise to discover that this was his only significant screen role of any kind. It was also Lee’s screen debut, and she was trying a little too hard, but she improved in leaps and bounds over time and proved herself adept at both drama and comedy in a screen career of over 70 films. She’s not helped by the script either, which gives her a very inconsistent character, capable and confident one minute, cowering against a cave wall the next. The only performance of any note comes from Aureli, who throws himself into the role of the brutish Fuan with some enthusiasm.
The monsters of the title are limited to a quartet or, more realistically, just a trio. The giant lizard that appears is only onscreen for a few seconds, and, given the effort that probably goes into having a real-life lizard run around a miniature set, he was probably appearing with the kind permission of another film. The other creatures are large, working models; the Hydra mentioned earlier, another lake creature with a long neck and large head, and a cave beast, which is the only one Lewis fights hand to hand. None of them is very convincing, but they aren’t as goofy or laughable as some examples in the genre.
It’s also unusual that Lewis gets such a helping hand from Mother Nature. There are a couple of occasions when all seems lost, but she obligingly chips in with a volcanic eruption first and then an eclipse, which both help turn the tables. The film reaches its peak, though, not with any action set pieces but with the marriage ceremony of Marin and Bergin, which contains some of the greatest wedding vows ever uttered in cinema. Not only must Bergin ‘humbly obey’ Marin, but she must also skin the animals he kills and prepare their hides and ‘should she not obey you, you have the right to put her to death!’ How romantic.
Apart from that, everyone runs around a lot, capturing, getting captured, escaping and the like. The Lost Kingdom Dancing Girls get double duty, once in animal skins and once in blonde wigs with many feathers. Lewis wanders off alone into the sunset at the end rather than stay with his new friends because injustice is everywhere and must be fought, and that’s what heroes in these movies always do. Only that’s not quite how it turns out, thanks to one of the film’s few creative moments.
Aureli had an extensive career on the screen lasting over half a century and first encountered the fantasy genre with a small part in ‘Ulysses’ (1954), with Kirk Douglas (who was appearing for tax reasons). He starred opposite American talent again when he appeared in ‘The Loves of Hercules/Gli damori di Ercole/Hercules vs the Hydra’ (1960) with Jayne Mansfield and the misbegotten ‘Duel of Champions/Orazi e Curiazi’ (1961) with Alan Ladd. More Peplum roles followed in projects such as ‘Ursus, the Rebel Gladiator/Ursus gladiator Ribelle (1962) and ‘Hercules Against Rome/Ercole contro Roma’ (1964).
Once the craze for Ancient adventures abated, he switched to Spaghetti Westerns, working his way up from undistinguished projects like ‘Damned Pistols of Dallas/Las malditas pistolas de Dallas’ (1964) to more notable films like ‘Sabata’ (1969) with Lee Van Cleef. He also appeared in Lucio Fulci’s notable Giallo ‘Don’t Torture a Duckling/Non si sevizia un paperino (1972) and cheesy Euro-Horror ‘Lady Frankenstein/La figlia di Frankenstein’ (1971). He worked regularly until the early 1990s and passed away in 2007.
At the other end of the scale, from the ‘we all have to start somewhere’ file, we have notorious schlockmeister Bruno Mattei, who worked on this film as a sound editor. After stepping into the director’s seat in 1969, he first hit his low-budget stride with the Naziploitation shocker ‘Private House of the SS/Casa privata per le SS’ (1977). Further orgiastic delights followed with ‘The True Story of the Nun of Monza/La vera storia della monaca di Monza’ (1980), before he temporarily abandoned sex for horror with ‘Zombie Creeping Flesh/Virus’ (1980). Many delightful exploitation titles followed over the years, such as ‘Nero and Poppea – An Orgy of Power/Nerone e Poppea’ (1982), ‘Rats – Night of Terror/Rats – Notte di terror (1984), the almost impossibly boring ‘Zombie 3/Zombi 3’ (1988) and the wonderful ‘Cruel Jaws’ (1995). He passed away in 2007.
The prehistoric setting is different, allowing the film to sidestep most of the usual Peplum clichés. However, it’s still not very interesting.