Slave Girls (US title: Prehistoric Women) is a 1967 British prehistoric fantasy film written and directed in Cinemascope by Hammer’s Michael Carreras. The film stars Martine Beswick as the main antagonist and stage actor Michael Latimer. Steven Berkoff features in a small role at the end. In the UK, the film was released on a double-bill with The Devil Rides Out.
Plot teaser:
David Marchant, a British explorer, along with Colonel Hammond and a guide are pursuing a leopard on an African safari. The Colonel takes aim but misses and only wounds the animal. With nightfall warned by the guide, David decides to follow the party back to camp whilst he puts the beast out of its misery.
He passes various trees with a picture of a white rhino but ignores them. Finally, he shoots the leopard, just as the weakened animal attacks him. No sooner is the creature dead, David is ambushed and captured by a primitive tribe. They accuse him of disturbing the spirit of the white rhinoceros, and take him to their leader’s temple. Just as he is about to be killed for his trespassing and disturbing the spirits, David touches a white rhino statue and there is flash of lightning that opens a giant crack in the cave wall.
Marchant makes his escape and finds himself in a lush paradise jungle within a large valley. Hearing a noise, a terrified fair-haired young woman (Edina Ronay) tumbles out of the bush-growth. David tries to help her but the woman bites him and runs off where she entered. Following her, David tackles her to the ground. But they are both attacked by dark-haired women. David is escorted with them to their village whilst the fair woman is bound and taken with them. Entering into the settlement, David finds the fair-haired woman serve the dark haired woman, who they themselves are ruled over the beautiful Queen Kari (Beswick), who immediately takes interest in David an chooses him as her mate, but he is appalled by her cruelty and spurns her advances…
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Reviews:
“…[Beswick] was cast as Queen Kari in the film Prehistoric Women, a sort of follow up to the successful One Million Years BC. As the seductive and deadly leader of a tribe of lost amazons, Beswick had one of the great roles of a lifetime. Unfortunately, the production was plagued by indifferent direction, a low budget, and the fact that it was following up a gargantuan worldwide box office hit …” Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973
“Idiotic Hammer Film in which the Great White Hunter stumbles into a lost Amazon civilization where blondes have been enslaved by brunettes. Honest! Nevertheless it has developed a cult following due to Beswick’s commanding, sensual performance as the tribe’s leader.” Leonard Maltin’s 2010 Movie Guide
” … came along about three years too early than the point when Hammer jumped aboard the Swinging Sixties permissiveness and allowed a much more frank degree of sexuality in their films – it seems to be all but wanting to get its various slave girls naked. As in all of Hammer’s exotica films, there is a slim to fairly silly plot. However, Martine Beswick takes the opportunity to camp the role up to the hilt and gives it her all, be it draped seductively across her bed, commanding cruelties and heatedly debating the idea of equality. It makes what would otherwise be a rather silly film into something rather entertaining.” Moria
“Hammer was often old-fashioned, but what makes its better films so well-loved is that they would find ways to bring them up to date: make them bloody, sexy, exciting, classy, and intelligent. (Slave Girls was released on a double bill with The Devil Rides Out, which is all of those things.) Carreras’ film throws everything into the mix except for what it really needs to spark everything to life, and as a result, it tumbles over into unintentional hilarity. Which might not be such a bad thing.” Midnight Only
“The cheerful silliness of Slave Girls is rather endearing in a way that an over-budgeted, over-long and over-produced behemoth like Avatar could never be. It might have a reputation as one of the worst Hammer films ever made but it is never less than entertaining.” Bruce G Hallenbeck, Hammer Fantasy & Sci-Fi: British Cult Cinema (Hemlock Books)
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Cast:
- Martine Beswick as Queen Kari
- Michael Latimer as David Marchent
- Carol White as Gido
- Steven Berkoff as John
- Edina Ronay as Saria/Sarah
- Stephanie Randall as Amyak
- Alexandra Stevenson as Luri
- Yvonne Horner as First Amazon
- Sydney Bromley as Ullo
- Frank Hayden as Arja
- Robert Raglan as Colonel Hammond
- Mary Hignett as Mrs. Hammond
- Louis Mahoney as Head Boy
- Bari Jonson as High Priest
- Danny Daniels as Jakara
