Antonio "Anthony Dawson" Margheriti ("Mar--garehhh-tee") directed, so you can bet its slam bang action will come to you buoyant but deadpan, guileless if sincere but and bedecked with dinosaurs and lasers, mirror halls, and gorgeous and interesting girls--in other words everything and anything men aged 10-18 will love well into their 50s. File it next to FLASH GORDON (1980), THE APPLE (1979), and SHE (1982) and you'll never want for giddy (but too deadpan to be straight-up camp) qua-glam rock-and-roll, post-reality, early-80s sci-fi action madness.
There's no explaining it to those who don't get the need for a good stone knife plunged between the eyes of a dinosaur. Paleontologists never tire of reminding us cavemen and dinosaurs lived millions of years apart, so I always wondered why-60s/70s Hammers like ONE MILLION BC, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, and PREHISTORIC WOMEN foolishly tried to appease them, filling their films with too much ponderous and dour tribal place-jostling, celebratory dancing, and savage landscape wandering as if solemn grunting would convince archaeologists of their sincerity and merit. On the other hand, that approach has aged way better than the campy winks, bad puppets and augmented cleavage of later caveman/dinosaur opuses. YOR is the only one of the type who sees beyond both pitfalls. It swims in a world where past and future happen at once, and there's no time to (conspicuously) leer at boobies (ala Olen Ray) or argue with the tribal elders (ala Chaffey, and even Corman). Instead it just hangs glides into a den of homicidal purple-faced ape giants on the wings of a giant dead bat, while 80s rock suddenly surges on the soundtrack.
There's no explaining it to those who don't get the need for a good stone knife plunged between the eyes of a dinosaur. Paleontologists never tire of reminding us cavemen and dinosaurs lived millions of years apart, so I always wondered why-60s/70s Hammers like ONE MILLION BC, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, and PREHISTORIC WOMEN foolishly tried to appease them, filling their films with too much ponderous and dour tribal place-jostling, celebratory dancing, and savage landscape wandering as if solemn grunting would convince archaeologists of their sincerity and merit. On the other hand, that approach has aged way better than the campy winks, bad puppets and augmented cleavage of later caveman/dinosaur opuses. YOR is the only one of the type who sees beyond both pitfalls. It swims in a world where past and future happen at once, and there's no time to (conspicuously) leer at boobies (ala Olen Ray) or argue with the tribal elders (ala Chaffey, and even Corman). Instead it just hangs glides into a den of homicidal purple-faced ape giants on the wings of a giant dead bat, while 80s rock suddenly surges on the soundtrack.
The moment the "De Angelis'" rock opera anthem theme song churns to life you know this here's a special ride: "He is a man from the future / a man from yesterday / his game is destiny!" You start making room for the film in your top ten of emotional rescue go-tos almost at once:
It's clear though he loves to rock out, Yor doesn't quite fit, because, you see, he's blonde and everyone else is brunette - and what's that strange medallion on his neck? He doesn't remember. He's got some weird past he has to find out about. But for moment - Woo! Some celebratory dancing, crazy drumming, and licentious bonding with the statuesque if slightly weatherbeaten Corinne Clery as Kalaa (!), and we're already feeling the love.
Kalaa's guardian is the trusty Pag (Luciano "Italian Peter Lorre" Pigozzi) who ambles along on the adventures, rounding out their new wandering threesome. Over desert hill and rolling cliff they wander, meeting new faces all the time, and if the goddess of fire worshipping lepers Roa (the comely and overly-made-up Aysha Gul) turns out to be a real hottie, if you'll forgive the expression and if, like Yor, she thought she was the only blonde with a round medallion in the world, then nature must take it's course. Paag reminds Kalaa that in this realm a man may take many wives (Woo!). In other words, this is Flash Gordon if Flash wasn't such a prude, i.e. so he'd throw Aura, Ming's sexy daughter, a well-deserved lay, instead of refusing her come-ons out of loyalty to a jealous Earth girl whom he literally just met only hours beforehand. Yor's no prude, bro. He's got time for everyone. This is Italy, or Israel, or somewhere sex isn't for lewd snickering or indignant eye rolls. it's just a thing that happens and is ver-a sexy when it does.
There will be other women in Yor's life before it's all over: Carol André shows up in the third act, on the mysterious island where lasers and complex machinery rule the day. And the beguiling Marina Rocchi, whom Yor saves from a (again admirably life-size) dimetrodon, of the shell people. Yor has time for all!
One thing that stands out, that really makes this unique is the use of life size dinosaurs, all of which seem very much in their natural element. A lot of the stop motion dinosaur action we get, via Harryhausen, for example, can err on the side of simplicity for staging: we see dinosaurs fight and hang out in the midst of barren desert, i.e. how their habitat looks now, all these millions of years later, making us wonder how they can possibly survive with no vegetation or cover. In YOR, the beasts emerge from behind rocks and jungle canopy and it's hard to tell where they end and their surroundings begin at first. Their natural camouflage means they strike from within deep thickets and pond murk, with Yor and Kala climbing all over these giant (life-size) heads, hacking away, the beasts dying but slowly, from loss of blood, savagely stabbed (or shot with Pag's arrows) in their soft tissue areas. There's no glamorous Harryhausen flourishes to their death rattles - these things don't go down without a fight, leaving everyone involved doused in gore by the end.
Man, what a film. Where has it been all these years? I remember the commercial for Yor! One Saturday morning or late Friday night in the 80s and thinking: Conan with lasers, dinosaurs and Reb Brown hang gliding off a dead bat creature into the thick of a bunch of ape men, looking kind of like the Marvel character Ka-Zar. I mean, I could tell it was pretty low budget, but its imagination and gonzo gumption was clear. We who loved bad sci-fi and dinosaur movies could hardly believe it would ever be as great as it looked. And then, after that one ad, we never heard from Yor again until it showed up on Amazon streaming 30 years later. Had he just been a foolish dream>
Hell, 30 or so years isn't too long and ten bucks ain't too high.
Proud and we desire (..?)Barely have the opening theme's last chords ended when Yor (Reb "the real Captain" Brown) has already killed a life-size papier mache triceratops/stegosaurus combination monster in a vivid, up-close battle. It's one of the best, most realistic struggles between man and dinosaur ever. Yor is right in there, stabbing away, blood dripping down, its eyes wild with fear and fury. We feel complex emotions-- it's a stegosaurus and thus a plant eater, merely trying to protect its young cub caught in a trap set by some gateherers. It's a tough world. At least Yor's kill of the big beast feeds the whole village. Woo-hoo! He eats the heart and cuts the "choice" meats. He and his new friends dance around licentiously and party in ways that the grunting bunch of neanderthals in ONE MILLION BC never would. You can't help but feel Yor is having a good time, genuinely. And it's terrific because hey, it's rare in this murky kill-and-be-killed era. Conan smiles what, one time in the whole movie? It's rare too to see a bro like Yor rocking out and not kind of think he's a tool. But Brown, with his big Treat Williams jaw and blonde hippy hair pulls it off. He can still drop his bowl and pick up his stone axe if the tall ape men decide to raid. It's all in the balance. He conveys that switch on moment when the first flush of whiskey hits and people around you go from strangers to friends in a celebratory alchemical instant.
He's never seen the sun!
He's always on the run!
The list goes on and on.
It's clear though he loves to rock out, Yor doesn't quite fit, because, you see, he's blonde and everyone else is brunette - and what's that strange medallion on his neck? He doesn't remember. He's got some weird past he has to find out about. But for moment - Woo! Some celebratory dancing, crazy drumming, and licentious bonding with the statuesque if slightly weatherbeaten Corinne Clery as Kalaa (!), and we're already feeling the love.
Kalaa's guardian is the trusty Pag (Luciano "Italian Peter Lorre" Pigozzi) who ambles along on the adventures, rounding out their new wandering threesome. Over desert hill and rolling cliff they wander, meeting new faces all the time, and if the goddess of fire worshipping lepers Roa (the comely and overly-made-up Aysha Gul) turns out to be a real hottie, if you'll forgive the expression and if, like Yor, she thought she was the only blonde with a round medallion in the world, then nature must take it's course. Paag reminds Kalaa that in this realm a man may take many wives (Woo!). In other words, this is Flash Gordon if Flash wasn't such a prude, i.e. so he'd throw Aura, Ming's sexy daughter, a well-deserved lay, instead of refusing her come-ons out of loyalty to a jealous Earth girl whom he literally just met only hours beforehand. Yor's no prude, bro. He's got time for everyone. This is Italy, or Israel, or somewhere sex isn't for lewd snickering or indignant eye rolls. it's just a thing that happens and is ver-a sexy when it does.
There will be other women in Yor's life before it's all over: Carol André shows up in the third act, on the mysterious island where lasers and complex machinery rule the day. And the beguiling Marina Rocchi, whom Yor saves from a (again admirably life-size) dimetrodon, of the shell people. Yor has time for all! One thing that stands out, that really makes this unique is the use of life size dinosaurs, all of which seem very much in their natural element. A lot of the stop motion dinosaur action we get, via Harryhausen, for example, can err on the side of simplicity for staging: we see dinosaurs fight and hang out in the midst of barren desert, i.e. how their habitat looks now, all these millions of years later, making us wonder how they can possibly survive with no vegetation or cover. In YOR, the beasts emerge from behind rocks and jungle canopy and it's hard to tell where they end and their surroundings begin at first. Their natural camouflage means they strike from within deep thickets and pond murk, with Yor and Kala climbing all over these giant (life-size) heads, hacking away, the beasts dying but slowly, from loss of blood, savagely stabbed (or shot with Pag's arrows) in their soft tissue areas. There's no glamorous Harryhausen flourishes to their death rattles - these things don't go down without a fight, leaving everyone involved doused in gore by the end.
Man, what a film. Where has it been all these years? I remember the commercial for Yor! One Saturday morning or late Friday night in the 80s and thinking: Conan with lasers, dinosaurs and Reb Brown hang gliding off a dead bat creature into the thick of a bunch of ape men, looking kind of like the Marvel character Ka-Zar. I mean, I could tell it was pretty low budget, but its imagination and gonzo gumption was clear. We who loved bad sci-fi and dinosaur movies could hardly believe it would ever be as great as it looked. And then, after that one ad, we never heard from Yor again until it showed up on Amazon streaming 30 years later. Had he just been a foolish dream>Hell, 30 or so years isn't too long and ten bucks ain't too high.
In short, Yor- your time has come. If you love Conan, Flash Gordon, and even--despite its dour tone--the 1966 remake of One Million BC, as much as I do... and if you sneered like Johnny Rotten when when someone tried to fob some hyper-banal mainstream imitation like Ladyhawke or Legend off on you instead... now is your time of deliverance.
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| Competition of Kalaa (from top); Marina Rocchi, Aysha Gul, Carol Andre |
And like Luigi Cozzi's so-bad-it's-sublime Hercules, YOR scores big with me as there are more women in the cast than men, or it's at least the numbers are even. And though they do get rescued now and again they nonetheless are warriors, net-weavers, and/or holding significant scientific positions.
A special shout to Reb Brown as Yor! He would have been perfect as Flash Gordon, as he lacks the kind of self-conscious aww-shucksitude apparent in Sam Jones' twinkly eyes. Not that that film isn't the best or that we don't all love Sam Jones, but Reb Brown would have crushed it. There's not a gram of self-consciousness in him. I dig that he also encourages those he meets to drink the blood of the slain triceratops in a dim nod to Siegfried. "Drinking the blood of your enemy gives you their power." It's just one of the fantastic little details Marghareti peppers the film with. Not all his films hit the mark but over the years he sure has given us a still under-appreciated canon of energetic termite art. Woo! Proud and we desire! We have all the time in the world to scan their silver discs and figure out if they are our grandfathers or are great-grandchildren. At this point in human history, we could go either way and still be proud to have a YOR in the tree. John Steiner, you're once again going down!
A special shout to Reb Brown as Yor! He would have been perfect as Flash Gordon, as he lacks the kind of self-conscious aww-shucksitude apparent in Sam Jones' twinkly eyes. Not that that film isn't the best or that we don't all love Sam Jones, but Reb Brown would have crushed it. There's not a gram of self-consciousness in him. I dig that he also encourages those he meets to drink the blood of the slain triceratops in a dim nod to Siegfried. "Drinking the blood of your enemy gives you their power." It's just one of the fantastic little details Marghareti peppers the film with. Not all his films hit the mark but over the years he sure has given us a still under-appreciated canon of energetic termite art. Woo! Proud and we desire! We have all the time in the world to scan their silver discs and figure out if they are our grandfathers or are great-grandchildren. At this point in human history, we could go either way and still be proud to have a YOR in the tree. John Steiner, you're once again going down!
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