Teenage Caveman (1958)

A junior member of a bunch of superstitious cave-dwellers (Robert Vaughn looking and acting like an overgrown wolf cub) breaks a semi-religious code by visiting the forbidden side of a river, where a monster, whose touch means death, hangs out.

In due course, he takes a (lightly clad) wife (Darrah Marshall) but still seeks knowledge and again crosses the water. He meets the monster, which is killed and turns out to be a very old man.

The deceased proves to be a survivor of an atomic war, responsible for the destruction of most of the world, and the lad and his folk descendants of another group.

Most of the cast seem embarrassed by their “bikinis” roughly fashioned from animal skins (or old rugs).

There are fights between ferocious monsters and also a twist ending – in which the seemingly primitive civilization is revealed to be post-apocalyptic (predating Planet Of The Apes by ten years) – but the gimmicks scarcely atone for a pretentious and preposterous script.

Made in two weeks at Griffith Park in California, this film was released in the UK as Out of the Darkness.

Robert Vaughn later said in an interview that he considered it to be the worst film ever made.

The Symbol Maker’s Teenage Son
Robert Vaughn
The Blonde Maiden
Darrah Marshall
The Symbol Maker
Leslie Bradley
The Black-Bearded One
Frank DeKova
The Symbol Maker’s Wife
June Jocelyn
The Fire Maker/Narrator
Robert Shayne
The Curly-Haired Boy
Jonathan Haze
Fair-Haired Boy/Man from Burning Plains/Tom-Tom Player/Bear
Beach Dickerson
Members of the Tribe
Charles Thompson
Ed Nelson
Marshall Bradford
Joseph Hamilton
John Brinkley
Barboura Morris
Stephanie Shayne

Director
Roger Corman