Caveman (film)
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''Caveman'' is a 1981 slapstick
comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
written and directed by
Carl Gottlieb Carl Gottlieb (born March 18, 1938) is an American screenwriter, actor, comedian, and executive. He is best known for co-writing the screenplay for ''Jaws'' (1975) and its first two sequels, as well as directing the 1981 film ''Caveman''. Early ...
and starring Ringo Starr,
Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The ...
,
Shelley Long Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and comedian. Long portrayed Diane Chambers on the hit sitcom '' Cheers'' and received five Emmy nominations, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Se ...
and
Barbara Bach Barbara Bach, Lady Starkey (born Barbara Goldbach in 1947) is an American actress and model. She played the Bond girl Anya Amasova in ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. She is married to former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Early life Bach is a nati ...
.


Plot

Atouk ( Ringo Starr) is a bullied and scrawny
caveman The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or " ape-like" by Marcellin Bo ...
living in "One Zillion BC – October 9th". He lusts after the beautiful but shallow Lana (
Barbara Bach Barbara Bach, Lady Starkey (born Barbara Goldbach in 1947) is an American actress and model. She played the Bond girl Anya Amasova in ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. She is married to former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Early life Bach is a nati ...
), who is the mate of Tonda (
John Matuszak John Daniel Matuszak (October 25, 1950 – June 17, 1989) was an American football defensive end in the National Football League who later became an actor. Matuszak was the first overall pick in the 1973 NFL Draft and played most of his career ...
), their
tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
's physically imposing bullying leader and brutish instigator. After being banished along with his friend Lar (
Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The ...
), Atouk falls in with a band of assorted misfits, among them the comely Tala (
Shelley Long Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and comedian. Long portrayed Diane Chambers on the hit sitcom '' Cheers'' and received five Emmy nominations, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Se ...
) and the elderly blind man Gog ( Jack Gilford). The group has ongoing encounters with hungry
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s, and rescues Lar from a "nearby
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
", where they encounter an
abominable snowman The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''
Ringo Starr as Atouk *
Barbara Bach Barbara Bach, Lady Starkey (born Barbara Goldbach in 1947) is an American actress and model. She played the Bond girl Anya Amasova in ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. She is married to former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Early life Bach is a nati ...
as Lana *
Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The ...
as Lar *
Shelley Long Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and comedian. Long portrayed Diane Chambers on the hit sitcom '' Cheers'' and received five Emmy nominations, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Se ...
as Tala * Jack Gilford as Gog * Cork Hubbert as Ta * Mark King as Ruck * Paco Morayta as Flok * Evan C. Kim as Nook * Ed Greenberg as Kalta *
Carl Lumbly Carl Winston Lumbly (born August 14, 1951) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Dick Hallorann in '' Doctor Sleep'', NYPD detective Marcus Petrie on the CBS police drama ''Cagney & Lacey'', CIA agent Marcus Dixon on the ABC esp ...
as Bork * Jack Scalici as Folg * Erika Carlsson as Folg's Mate * Gigi Vorgan as Folg's Daughter * Sara López Sierra as Folg's Younger Daughter * Esteban Valdez as Folg's Son * Juan Ancona Figueroa as Folg's Younger Son * Juan Omar Ortiz as Folg's Youngest Son * Anaís de Melo as Meeka *
John Matuszak John Daniel Matuszak (October 25, 1950 – June 17, 1989) was an American football defensive end in the National Football League who later became an actor. Matuszak was the first overall pick in the 1973 NFL Draft and played most of his career ...
as Tonda *
Avery Schreiber Avery Lawrence Schreiber (April 9, 1935 – January 7, 2002) was an American actor and comedian. He was a veteran of stage, television, and movies who came to prominence in the 1960s in a comedy duo with Jack Burns. He acted in an array of roles ...
as Ock * Tere Álvarez as Ock's Mate * Miguel Ángel Fuentes as Grot * Ana De Sade as Grot's Mate * Gerardo Zepeda as Boola * Hector Moreno as Noota * Pamela Gual as Noota's Mate *
Richard Moll Charles Richard Moll (born January 13, 1943) is an American actor. He played the role of Aristotle Nostradamus "Bull" Shannon, a bailiff on the NBC sitcom '' Night Court'' from 1984 to 1992. He has also done extensive work as a voice actor, typica ...
as
Abominable Snowman The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''
Sierra de Órganos National Park in the town of
Sombrerete Sombrerete () is a town and municipality located in the northwest of the Mexican state of Zacatecas, bordering the state of Durango. It was founded in 1555 by Spanish conquistador Juan de Tolosa as a mining center, due to the wealth that the mine ...
in the state of
Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacatecas within Mexico , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type ...
,
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. The river and fishing lake scene was shot in the Mexican state of Durango, and some scenes were filmed at the Churubusco Studios in
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
. The film features
stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
animated
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s constructed by
Jim Danforth James Danforth (born July 13, 1940) is an American stop-motion animator, known for model-animation, matte painting, and for his work on ''When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth'' (1970), a theme-sequel to Ray Harryhausen's ''One Million Years B.C.'' (1 ...
, including a ''
Tyrannosaurus Rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...
'' which in one scene becomes intoxicated by a
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
-type drug, animated by Randall W. Cook. Danforth was a major participant in the
special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...
sequences, but left the film "about two-thirds of the way" (his words) through the work because the
Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Directors Guild in 1936, the group merge ...
prohibited his contracted on-screen credit, co-direction with Carl Gottlieb. Consequently, Danforth's name does not appear on the film. The film's dialog is almost entirely in "caveman" language, such as: * "alunda" – love * "bobo" – friend * "haraka" – fire * "macha" – monster * "aiyee" – help * "ya" – yes * "nya" – no/not * "ool" – food * "pooka" – broken/pain * "ugh" – like * "zug zug" – sex/mate * "kuda" – come * "caca" – shit * "guwi" – out to get * "gluglug" – drowned At some showings audiences were issued a translation pamphlet for 30 "caveman words." The only English dialog present is used for comedic effect, when it is spoken by a caveman played by Evan Kim who speaks modern English but is understood by none of the other characters. Being a
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
caveman, by speaking English, he appears to be more advanced than the rest. At her audition, Long said she did not speak any English, but responded to everything with grunts. Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr first met on the set of ''Caveman'', and they married just over a year later.


Home media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on June 4, 2002. It was then released on February 17, 2015 on Blu-ray Disc by Olive Films.


Reception

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
the film has an approval rating of 35% based on reviews from 20 critics, with an average rating of 4.7/10. On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
the film has a score of 55% based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of a possible 4. The cast was "interesting", he wrote, but the main failing of ''Caveman'' was it being a spoof with "no popular original material for it to satirize. There has never been a really successful movie set in prehistoric times." Ebert and Gene Siskel both gave the film a negative "don't see it" review on their TV show but softened their criticism somewhat by noting that its dinosaur-related sequences were amusing. Janet Maslin of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' wrote that the film was "dopey, but it's also lots of fun", and that the real star was the special-effects dinosaur.
Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...
of
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
gave it a positive review, calling it "a funky, buoyant farce." Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' gave it a mixed review. He was critical with the lack of originality but suggests younger audiences who have not seen it before may enjoy it. Arnold compares the film unfavorably to '' The Three Ages'', where Buster Keaton was able to bring his genius, ''Caveman'' struggles to overcome Starr's limits and director Gottlieb fails to make use of other talented actors such as Quaid, Schreiber, or Gilford.


References


External links

* * * {{Amg movie, 8693, Caveman
Cavespeak: A Dictionary Of Cavese
1981 animated films 1981 films 1980s fantasy comedy films American slapstick comedy films Mexican comedy films Films about dinosaurs 1980s English-language films Fictional-language films Films using stop-motion animation Estudios Churubusco films United Artists films Films with screenplays by Carl Gottlieb Films directed by Carl Gottlieb Films scored by Lalo Schifrin 1981 comedy films Films about Yeti Films about cavemen Films set in prehistory Films with screenplays by Rudy De Luca 1980s American films 1980s Mexican films