PRIMITIVE MAN (1913)
Article #486 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 7-14-2002
Posting date: 12-7-2002

Caveman Weakhands must contend with his enemy Bruteforce and then forms a tribe to contend with the rival tribe led by a caveman named Monkeywalk.

Sound familiar? This movie was made a year after MAN’S GENESIS, and except for a change in the framing device (from an old man telling children the story to the dream of a man who belongs to a club), the first ten minutes is a replay of the footage of that earlier short. It then tells what happens afterwards, which adds twenty minutes to the running time; it’s largely the same story with bigger stakes, more characters, and a subplot about the happy couple trying to find a place to be alone and being interrupted by a snake, a slurpasaur (that’s what I think it is; the costume they slap on this poor gator makes him look like nothing I’ve ever seen) and a big model dinosaur that manages to bob up and down a little. You know, considering the story arc is essentially the first step of an arms race, this whole series of films could have gone on forever; however, since this film is roughly three times the length of the previous, I would hate to see the series continue that tradition; nobody would have the patience to sit through the fifth one.