This was way before PowerPoint; back then lecturers used plain old cut-and paste charts as teaching aids: The one in this film, an evolutionary brain size graphic, is liable to jump right off the screen with its inclusion of "Piltdown Man", that classic paleontological fake Missing Link that kept experts guessing for forty years. Until 1954, just after this movie was released. The hoax spawned a few films on its own, including a BBC series based on Angus Wilson's 1956 novel, "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes." In this satire the bogus bones fast forward to the Dark Ages.
By this time in the action, some viewers are likely referencing Ken Russell's 1980 "Altered States," except that in this later iteration the mad scientist is a "psycho-physiologist" who goes bobbing for atavistic apples in a sensory isolation tank. Nobel physicist Richard Feynman maintained that sessions in one of these relaxed him. Relaxation is something the William Hurt character neither seeks nor gets.
Critics generally dismiss "The Neanderthal Man" as trash, and as an aberration in E. A. DuPont's respectable career. All the same, it boasts a character-actor parade of faces you've seen many times before, but maybe not all together in one feature. These include Richard Crane as Dr. Ross Harkness, chiefly remembered as TV's space cowboy Rocky Jones. The wizened physician, William Fawcett, has too many screen credits to mention. Crazy anthropologist Clifford Groves is played by Robert Shayne; he might be best recalled as Gotham City's top cop on the 1950s "Superman" TV series. And voice actor-dialect coach Robert Easton has likely been heard more than seen.
If there's another movie that features a monster-human rape scene, it's unknown to me. Beverly Garland's character, Nola Mason was out on a picnic when she slipped into a daring (for the 'fifties) one-piece for some cheesecake poses captured by boyfriend Eric Colman's ("Buck Hastings") camera. The photo-op got the Neanderthal's attention. Buck gets his neck broken, and Nola is raped.
Euphemism straitjacket's the rape victim's lines as she's succored by the neighbors. But word travels fast. When Dr. Fairchild (William Fawcett) completes his examination of the patient, the Dr. Harkness character indulgently hopes she "won't suffer any permanent damage." All depends on what you mean by permanent. The MD replies with a non sequitur: "The shock was about as great as any woman could be asked to bear." This might leave the audience perplexed. So just to dispel all doubts, the doc hints broadly that "word of this has gotten around." And that it'd be best if the state police spotted the monster before some of the local boys do. Murdering ranchers and farmhands is one thing, but raping the local diner waitress quite another.
Nonconsensual female human-male monster coitus is rare enough, even in Hollywood. But what might follow qualifies as an event that dare not speak its name. We're talking "Rosemary's Baby." One must be grateful for a timely conclusion that doesn't explore these consequences. But, golly, talk about material for a sequel! Alas, one must be satisfied with Richard Crane reciting Sophocles at Prof. Groves' deathbed: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."
By this time in the action, some viewers are likely referencing Ken Russell's 1980 "Altered States," except that in this later iteration the mad scientist is a "psycho-physiologist" who goes bobbing for atavistic apples in a sensory isolation tank. Nobel physicist Richard Feynman maintained that sessions in one of these relaxed him. Relaxation is something the William Hurt character neither seeks nor gets.
Critics generally dismiss "The Neanderthal Man" as trash, and as an aberration in E. A. DuPont's respectable career. All the same, it boasts a character-actor parade of faces you've seen many times before, but maybe not all together in one feature. These include Richard Crane as Dr. Ross Harkness, chiefly remembered as TV's space cowboy Rocky Jones. The wizened physician, William Fawcett, has too many screen credits to mention. Crazy anthropologist Clifford Groves is played by Robert Shayne; he might be best recalled as Gotham City's top cop on the 1950s "Superman" TV series. And voice actor-dialect coach Robert Easton has likely been heard more than seen.
If there's another movie that features a monster-human rape scene, it's unknown to me. Beverly Garland's character, Nola Mason was out on a picnic when she slipped into a daring (for the 'fifties) one-piece for some cheesecake poses captured by boyfriend Eric Colman's ("Buck Hastings") camera. The photo-op got the Neanderthal's attention. Buck gets his neck broken, and Nola is raped.
Euphemism straitjacket's the rape victim's lines as she's succored by the neighbors. But word travels fast. When Dr. Fairchild (William Fawcett) completes his examination of the patient, the Dr. Harkness character indulgently hopes she "won't suffer any permanent damage." All depends on what you mean by permanent. The MD replies with a non sequitur: "The shock was about as great as any woman could be asked to bear." This might leave the audience perplexed. So just to dispel all doubts, the doc hints broadly that "word of this has gotten around." And that it'd be best if the state police spotted the monster before some of the local boys do. Murdering ranchers and farmhands is one thing, but raping the local diner waitress quite another.
Nonconsensual female human-male monster coitus is rare enough, even in Hollywood. But what might follow qualifies as an event that dare not speak its name. We're talking "Rosemary's Baby." One must be grateful for a timely conclusion that doesn't explore these consequences. But, golly, talk about material for a sequel! Alas, one must be satisfied with Richard Crane reciting Sophocles at Prof. Groves' deathbed: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."