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Caveman (1981)

Posted By: Efgrapha

Date: 9 Apr 2022 19:03:27

SD / DVD IMDb

Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr plays a prehistoric, social outcast who, along with other misfits, forms his own tribe and finds various comic adventures. This spoof is mostly without dialogue besides the expected neanthropic grunt.

Synopsis by Kristie Hassen, Allmovie.com

With all due respect to Ringo Starr, the real hero of ''Caveman'' is not a former Beatle, not the film's top-billed actor and not even a person at all. The real star is a special-effects dinosaur, one of several such creatures this cheery, playful movie has to offer. This particular dinosaur rolls his eyes, waggles his tongue, pats his tummy and has a very sweet smile. He doesn't wear himself out being clever, and neither does anyone else concerned with ''Caveman.'' But the movie is nicely whimsical, and elaborate in a way that no fantasy film this side of outer space has lately been. It's dopey, but it's also lots of fun.

''Caveman,'' which opens today at the Cinerama 1 and other theaters, is set, as an opening title explains, in ''One Billion B.C.,'' on ''October 9.'' Mr. Starr, who is very nearly as charming as his animated friend, plays Atouk, who roams around the countryside being picked on by the much larger Tonda (John Matuszak). One thing that keeps Atouk busy is coveting Tonda's lady friend Lana (Barbara Bach), the only cavewoman with cleavage. Around this, an entire plot has somehow been constructed, which can't have been easy because the characters don't exactly speak. They grunt and gesture in a language the audience gradually comes to understand. This doesn't make them any less articulate than many characters in movies with more elaborate scripts.

The movie is mostly a series of gags, with occasional longer episodes, as when the cavepeople discover fire, cooking and music all on the same evening. Sometimes, led by Mr. Starr, they happen onto strange creatures and even stranger foliage: In prehistoric times, if this film is to be believed, the land was covered by giant marijuana plants. Then there is the pterodactyl egg that becomes an omelette as big as a swimming pool, and the giant blue lizard that bays at the moon and crows at dawn. All of this is handled ingeniously enough to let the movie feel colorful and whole, though it could so easily have been nothing but farfetched.

The special effects smack of 50's Japanese horror films, and the costumes are mostly pelts, but these elements have their wit anyhow. The screenplay, by Rudy De Luca and Carl Gottlieb (Mr. Gottlieb also directed), also has ingenuity to accompany the crudeness. Among the players, Mr. Starr is better here than he's been in anything since the Beatles films, abandoning his former deadpan quality for something more active and engaging. Also excellent are Mr. Matuszak, Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long and Avery Schreiber. All they do is grunt and make faces and gesticulate, but somehow or other they're very entertaining.

There's one fairly disgusting gag in the movie, having to do with a giant bug that gets squashed on someone's face. Mr. Quaid is the unlucky straight man for this one.

''Caveman'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It contains a few gestures that, although unexplained to the audience, really need no explanation.

Review by Janet Maslin, New York Times

IMDB
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Director: Carl Gottlieb

Writers: Rudy De Luca, Carl Gottlieb

Cast: Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long, Jack Gilford, Barbara Bach and other