Slave Girls (1967)

People are voting emotionally.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Excellent adaptation.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Robert Raglen was such a huge success on TV from 1946 through 1983, we tend to forget that he also made quite a few movies. This is not one of his better ones. All the same, as written, produced and directed by Michael Carreras (take no notice of the names you actually see on the screen – they are merely pseudonyms), it's an enjoyable enough romp, featuring a bevy of gorgeous blondes and a cohort of seductive brunettes. And it certainly can't be alleged against Major Carreras that he fails to extract all the excitement possible from the intriguing screenplay he hashed up under his Henry Younger alias. The color camera-work by Michael Reed is first class. So are the sets and costumes. And as for the girls, they can dance for us any time they please!

Prehistoric Women is easily one of Hammer films worst efforts quality-wise, but since it's really an excuse to simply show off as many sexy, fur-bikini clad beauties as possible, who cares? No doubt it would help if one could have seen this on the big screen, around age 14 or so.In summary, hero David Marchand(Michael Latimere) is captured by tribesmen(apparently in British-controlled Africa somewhere), and is about to be slain when he's transported to the lost world of the brunette and blonde Amazons presumably by a lightning strike. The brunettes are led by remarkably evil Queen Kari(the remarkably sexy Martine Beswick), who unfortunately is exceptionally cruel a ruler - the brunettes hold all the blonde's in slavery having once been their slaves, if memory serves correctly. There does not seem to be a great many males left; what there are are kept in a cavern-prison chained up save, I assume, for the lucky few chosen for breeding stock from time to time.Our hero falls for blonde slave girl Saria(Edna Ronay), although he somehow resists the very evident charms of Queen Kari, who wishes him for her own(subservient) mate. He resists her, though, making one wonder seriously about his hormone levels, and is tossed into said-dungeon. Predictably, a slave revolt happens aided by a mass-escape of the surviving men. The tribe's White Rhino God appears during the mayhem at the climax, which leads to unfortunate results for Queen Kari when she tries to bow down to the beast.Somehow, David Marchand finds himself back in then-modern times, and - surprise - a blonde beauty he meets at a train depot is Saria!(or her reincarnation?) Many plot elements are not very clear as others have noted with glee, so one is never sure exactly what has really happened to Marchand. Of course, one imagines this film wasn't meant to be taken terribly seriously at all, but it would be fun to see the restored version if that is what's now available on disc. I rate this six stars simply for the display of beauty on hand, not for any intrinsic filmatic qualities. I shouldn't be surprised if many dark-haired ladies who somehow happen to view this cult film enjoy(maybe secretly) seeing the blonde's endure such rough treatment, though...

"Prehistoric Women" is the most endearing and lovable of Hammer Films' Cave Girls In Trouble films. I fell in love with it instantly during a late night creature feature screening at the age of 14 or so and pursued it for years before finally managing to tape it off cable. Now there are wonderful DVD releases of restored widescreen prints & home entertainment really never had it so good. It's garbage for sure but exquisite garbage, a kitschy sendup of Great White Hunter films that is so poker-faced that one is often tempted to conclude that Hammer was trying to be serious here.Mesmerizingly filmed on interior soundstages made up to look like what a juvenile might think a jungle resembles, the film packs the visual authority of a classic "Star Trek" episode with a plot more fitting for a Playboy magazine cartoon. It's fun, sexy, campy, never boring, and perhaps the ultimate (sic) Jungal Trash movie, where white Anglo types go to exotic jungle locations to have all sorts of fascinating adventures, while the natives carry the luggage.Martine Beswick may have found fame as a Bond girl ("From Russia With Love", "Thunderball") but her iconic image as a topless primal sex goddess rising from a dappled fake studio jungle pool will stick with me at least for the rest of my days. One might have wished that the movie had been made a couple years later so she could have turned to face the camera with her wonderful breasts, but half of the film's charm is that it was made during a different era. The tension between the juvenile sex fantasy it suggests and the need for staid British respectability (cough) adds to the fun.A word must be said about the slack-jawed, lunk-headed portrayal of the native population of wherever this film is supposedly set. It's not racist so much as ignorant, or rather accuracy and cultural sensitivity were not the objectives. Same goes for the misogyny and sexism of the movie, which is buffoonish and groan-inducing, but hey, the target audience was white European males between the ages of 12 and 75, or whenever men stop responding to suggestive fantasies about cavorting with blond slave girls or being dominated by mean, leggy, shapely brunettes. Hubba-Hubba.If you don't fall into that demographic you might want to try something else a bit more sober, or even better yet just down a couple of adult beverages & have fun laughing at the movie. And surprisingly there really isn't any content that goes beyond PG sensibilities and is actually wholesome enough for subversively twisted family entertainment. Just explain to the kids that it's a cartoon, really, and has about as much in common with the real world as a Three Stooges short. Great escapist guilty pleasure fun, and just as silly as it was in 1967. May it stay just as silly for another forty two years.7/10; Check out something called "Luana - The Lady Tarzan" for the Italians' take on the themes at work here. The two would make a marvelous double-bill for a kitsch film festival or DVD rental night.

This film makes it perfectly clear that blondes do not have more fun! The evil brunettes of the ruling tribe in some unamed African country (on the back lot) take all the blondes in the country as slaves as well as all the available men. Leading this group of nasties is the wonderful Martine Beswick, a staple in Hammer films who has a beauty that resembles that of the even more wonderful Barbara Steele. Queen Martine periodically makes human sacrifices of the unfortunate blondes and generally rules with an iron fist(and a whip which she cracks with menace).Into this happy kingdom stumbles a white hunter who immediately falls in love with one of the blonde slave girls and decides to put a stop to all the nonsense. He does so with dispatch and Queen Martine goes to the happy hunting ground on the horn of the white rhino of the alternate title of this film (Slave Girls of the White Rhinoceros).The symbolism in this film is hilarious......the Queen stroking the rhino horn, the cracking whip....it smacks of bondage and domination. It just adds another dimension to an already insane film. It is so much fun that I had to give it a higher rating than it deserves.