The new release 10,000 B.C. revives a genre that some of us thought was long past reviving, the dawn-of-man cave people melodrama. The new movie's director, Roland Emmerich, is a technophile size freak who probably thinks that the latest developments in computer animation and other special effects make it a great time to visualize a chaotic, untamed planet overrun with strange forms of wildlife threatening actors who are modeling proposed hair styles for Rob Zombie — though my recollection is that, in the past, the whole point of these movies was to showcase a rising performer (such as Victor Mature, star of the 1940 One Million B.C., or Raquel Welch, star of its 1966 remake) who seems made to be photographed wearing a loincloth. Anyway, this genre received its knockout blow more than twenty-five years ago, in Caveman, filmed in Mexico by the director Carl Gottlieb, who also co-wrote the script with Rudy DeLuca. Gottlieb is a well-travelled show business jack-of-all-trades whose career includes a stint with the '60s improv-comedy troupe the Committee, various acting gigs, and partial authorship of the script of Jaws (as well as full authorship of its making-of book). Gottlieb made his film directing debut with the 1977 Steve Martin short The Absent-Minded Waiter, but Caveman was his first time behind the camera on a feature film. It remains his only feature, maybe because he's yet to find a project that might count as a worthy follow-up to directing a cast, all speaking "prehistoric" gibberish, that included Ringo Starr, John Matuszak, and a stoned Tyrannosaurus rex.
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