This film is so entertaining from the moment it starts that finding out through research that some of the footage was from "One Million B.C.", it didn't diminish the impact of the film for me. I was going to call my review "The Night of the Big Iguana", but I wanted to instill the point of view that having seen "One Million B.C." and this at different points in my life, I didn't even notice the difference. Only one thing in the film made me roll my eyes, and that was the silly looking underground people. But there was nothing else to laugh at, even after the premise of a comet leaving the two men about to duel all alone (as the others are whiffed away in some sort of Event Horizon) and come out of it as friendly as the Geiko gecko.
I'm not really a follower of science fiction to the point where I can call myself an expert on the genre, so I had to simply accept what the two men realized had happened and just go along with the flow with that explanation and enjoy the sight of large creatures they had to hide from. Sure, it is really silly that the Frenchman (Cesare Danova) floats down the river on a palm raft as large creatures (including a snake and lizard) pass right by him as if they didn't want to disturb his nap. It is easy to overlook faulty parts of a storyline when it is presented so entertainingly. Only George Pal and Ray Harryhausen were doing successful films like this at the time, and this one wasn't either one of their talented thumbs.
Fortunately, the romantic involvement between the two men and the cave women they found was subtly done not to overshadow the pre-historic nature and science fiction elements of the film. Young audiences of today might not appreciate it (to quote the son of a friend who watched "Godzilla" and told his dad that it was a man in a lizard suit.) But for those of us who remember the double creature feature (and no computer animation), it remains a lot of fun.
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