Professor Groves, an expert in prehistoric life, proves his theories with an extract that'll regress a cat to a saber-tooth tiger and man to a Neanderthal.Professor Groves, an expert in prehistoric life, proves his theories with an extract that'll regress a cat to a saber-tooth tiger and man to a Neanderthal.Professor Groves, an expert in prehistoric life, proves his theories with an extract that'll regress a cat to a saber-tooth tiger and man to a Neanderthal.
Robert Shayne
- Prof. Clifford Groves
- (as Robert Shane)
Joyce Terry
- Jan Groves
- (as Joy Terry)
Tandra Quinn
- Celia - Housekeeper
- (as Jeanette Quinn)
Robert Bray
- Tim Newcomb - cattle rancher
- (uncredited)
Hank Mann
- Naturalist at Conference
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen the Professor gives his talk to the Scientific Society, he uses the Piltdown Man in the progression "Chimp - Java Man - Piltdown Man - Cro-Magnon Man - Neanderthal Man - Modern Human." The Piltdown Man was a fake fossil that was comprehensively debunked in 1953, the same year that the film was released.
- GoofsThe saber-toothed tiger's long fangs aren't shown as it's walking around, but does show when he jumps on a car and in other scenes.
- Quotes
George Oakes: By golly, it's gotta be the biggest mountain lion this side of Noah's Ark!
- Crazy creditsEven though he has top billing, Robert Shayne's name is misspelled as "Robert Shane."
- ConnectionsFeatured in Svengoolie: The Neanderthal Man (1995)
Featured review
An awful lot of people don't like this film but it has some wonderful things in it and some off the wall things too. Robert Shayne plays the mad scientist with the ever-adoring fiancee in a truly over the top fashion. In one sequence while he is ranting about being left alone (a sequence straight out of the original Frankenstein), she tousles his hair so that it goes in all directions at once and seems a total send-up of the would-be dramatic moment at hand. In addition, every time the scene shifts to the mountains and countryside an incredibly lush theme is played that seems like something out of an old Lowell Thomas documentary travelogue! In the beginning of the film there is an inexplicably jazzy score playing while a man is attacked in his car by a sabre-toothed tiger. At times we glimpse the tiger who has ordinary teeth and yet when we see it in extreme close-up after being killed or in a kind of freeze frame as it attacks a car it has its sabre teeth. In another sequence we are to believe that an ordinary cat can be turned into a sabre-toothed tiger through use of a regressive serum that takes it back to its ancestors-- at least I think that's what's going on!
Despite all of these oddities the film has a clear narrative and is lively enough to hold one's interest, if just in watching out for the next oddity. One is left wondering why the neanderthal man's teeth are so bad for example when in fact ancient peoples had fine teeth when we find them usually because of their ability to chew and tear with them and keep them well honed. But this fellow seems to have set on by demented dentists. Then there is the whole theory of regression into our ancestors using an argument that brain SIZE is what is most significant, not considering that development of smaller, more effective portions of the brain might evolve over time. Instead, we get here an anti-evolution theory that is so bad it is scoffed at even by the semi-literate faculty in this film. And then Mr. Shayne tells us that in "regressing" to the neanderthal state he will be going back "one million years" when in fact neanderthalers flourished 100,000 years ago, not a million, and it is never explained why he is regressing to the neanderthal state and not some other pathway of human evolution.
I had a lot of fun attempting to find what I thought were staggering gaps in the overall presentation of this film BUT I enjoyed the various goofy characters, the narrative clarity and the ability of director Dupont to keep the low-budget proceedings moving about briskly. I think if you are not too demanding, have a puff of anthropology in your background and enjoy movies made solely to entertain you'll enjoy this one. By the way, the movie was HEAVILY influenced by the Bridey Murphy phase the whole country was going through at the time this movie was made!!! An American housewife named Virginia Tighe, through hypnosis, claimed to have regressed to becoming a 19th century woman named Bridey Murphy. The whole country was taken up with the belief that we could all regress to earlier lives...and that formed the inspiration for the screenplay and the outrageous theories presented in this film.
- soren-71259
- Dec 23, 2017
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- Release date
- Country of origin
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- Also known as
- Dr. Jenkins unheimliche Nächte
- Filming locations
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
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