is a 1940 American fantasy film produced by Hal Roach Studios and released by United Artists.

They encounter an anthropologist who interprets prehistoric carvings that introduce the story of a young caveman.

The tribe gathers for a meal of vegetables, shared orderly with the children, women, and elderly served first.

Tumak awakes and Loana gives him food, which he guards as he eats, perplexing the tribe who share and do not fight.

He helps the children gather food by shaking fruit out of a tree, and they teach him how to laugh.

As Tumak departs, Loana, who has fallen in love with him, leaves her tribe to follow him, much to his dismay.

Tumak has Loana handle the meals, which confuses the Rock Tribe, since she feeds the women and children first, then Akhoba whom she has sat on his former throne, and then the other elders.

The next day, Akhoba comes outside to see his tribe learning to gather fruits and vegetables, with Loana showing them which are good to eat and which are not.

Tumak searches for Loana but finds only a scrap of her clothing near the lava flow, and presumes her to be dead.

Akhoba advises Tumak to distract the dinosaur while the rest of the men climb to higher ground.

Tumak, Loana, and the rescued child are framed in the last scene as the dawn of a new day begins.

[5][6] Victor Mature had just made his film debut in Hal Roach's The Housekeeper's Daughter.

[9] The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Musical Score (Werner R. Heymann) and Best Special Effects (Roy Seawright, Elmer Raguse).

[10] The "dinosaurs" and "prehistoric mammals" seen in the film include a pig in a rubber Triceratops suit, a man in an Allosaurus suit, Asian elephants with fake tusks and fur made to look like mastodonts, Two dogs, Brahman cattle with fake horns and fur made to look like muskoxen, a sun bear cub, a six-banded armadillo with horns glued on, a young alligator with a Dimetrodon-like sail glued on its back, a rhinoceros iguana, a snake, a coati, a monitor lizard, an anole, and an Argentine black and white tegu.

"[12] Harrison's Reports praised the "good technical work" and called the volcanic eruption "most thrilling", but said the storyline and romance were "slightly silly, and only tend to bore one.

This footage was then used by numerous companies through the years by producers who wanted to save money on costly special effects shots in films with dinosaurs.

These films include Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943), one of the chapters of the serial film Superman (1948), Atom Man vs. Superman (1950), Two Lost Worlds (1950), The Lost Volcano (1950; one of the films in the Bomba, the Jungle Boy series), the American version of Godzilla Raids Again (1955) known as Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959), Jungle Manhunt (1951; one of the films in the Jungle Jim series), Smoky Canyon (1952), the "Yesterday's World" episode of The Schaefer Century Theatre (1952), Untamed Women (1952), Robot Monster (1953), The Lost Planet (1953), King Dinosaur (1955), the Three Stooges short film Space Ship Sappy (1957), Teenage Caveman (1958), She Demons (1958), Valley of the Dragons (1961), Journey to the Center of Time (1967), Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970; the stock footage was tinted in color for this film), the Mexican films Island of the Dinosaurs (La isla de los dinosaurios 1967), Adventure at the Center of the Earth (Aventura al centro de la tierra; 1966) and The Ghost Jesters (Los fantasmas burlones; 1964), One Million AC/DC (1969), TerrorVision (1986) and Attack of the B Movie Monster (1989).

[16][17][18] The technique of using optically enlarged lizards and/or small crocodilians to represent dinosaurs has been given the nickname of slurpasaur by fans.[who?]

The film features several scenes of animal cruelty, including a young American alligator with a Dimetrodon-like sail glued to its back made to fight against an Argentine black and white tegu, which is left severely injured.