One Million B.C. - Plot

Plot

In a modern day prologue, a group of hikers caught in a storm seek shelter in a cave. They encounter an anthropologist (Conrad Nagel, "The Narrator") who interprets prehistoric carvings that introduce the story of a young caveman.

Akhoba (Lon Chaney, Jr.) head of the Rock Tribe leads a hunting party. His son Tumak (Victor Mature) begs the right to his first kill, a small Ceratopsian which he wrestles to death. An elderly man in the party falls from a cliff and is left to die. The party arrives at the Rock Tribe's cave with their prey. The beast is cooked on a fire. When it is done, the strongest feed first, next the women and children, then the few elderly pick the scraps. Tumak defends his portion from demands by Akohba. They fight and Akhoba knocks Tumak over a cliff as his mother watches. Tumak recovers to find a mastodon attacking him. He runs and climbs a tree. The mastodon rams the tree and knocks it into a river.

Tumak floats downstream unconscious and is found by Loana (Carole Landis) of the Shell Tribe. Her tribesmen answer her shell horn call and take Tumak to their cave. 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. Tumak looks on, confused by the customs of the Shell Tribe.

Meanwhile, Akhoba leads a hunting party into the hills but is injured trying to take down a muskox. As Akhoba lies injured, a younger hunter asserts authority over the others and takes Akhoba's place as leader, leaving Akhoba to die. Later, Akhoba, crippled, shows up at the cave but is treated with contempt.

Tumak adjusts slowly to life with the Shell Tribe. He helps the children gather food by shaking fruit out of a tree and they teach him how to laugh. He tries to fish with Loana but gets frustrated, as spear fishing is not like land hunting. While he is fishing, an Allosaurus traps a child in a tree. Tumak uses a borrowed spear to kill the monster and save the child, but does not want to return the spear to its owner, believing he has earned it. Later that night Tumak steals the spear and a hammer from their maker, and attacks him when he tries to reclaim them. The tribal leader, Loana's father, banishes Tumak.

As Tumak departs, Loana, who has fallen in love with him, leaves her tribe to follow him, much to his chagrin. Tumak pulls apples from a tree for himself ignoring Loana. Seeing that she has trouble reaching apples herself, he relents and helps her. Along the way they spot an armored creature which chases them up a tree. Later, as Tumak and Loana reach Rock Tribe territory, they are trapped in a fissure during a fight between a dimetrodon and a lizard-like dinosaur. Loana escapes but is menaced by the leader who displaced Akhoba. She blows her shell horn leading Tumak to her rescue. He saves her by defeating the leader and becomes the new leader.

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. Lastly Tumak and the able-bodied men are fed. 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 bad. Loana and Tumak sit and talk but Tumak is called away to help hunt a deer while Loana helps search for a missing child.

A nearby volcano erupts, scattering the Rock Tribe and destroying their cave. A child's mother is engulfed by a lava flow; Loana saves the child but is cut off from the others by the lava flow. She and the child head to the Shell Tribe. Many animals fall into the crevasses opened by the eruption. Tumak searches for Loana but finds only a scrap of her clothing near the lava flow and believes her dead.

Later a Shell tribesman seeks out Tumak and tells him that Loana is alive but the Shell Tribe is trapped in their cave by a large monitor-like dinosaur. Tumak leads his men to attack and kill the animal. Akohba and the women and children follow. The Shell Tribe hold the beast off with torches. Tumak's direct spear attack is futile. Akhoba advises Tumak to distract the dinosaur while the rest of the men climb to higher ground. They start a rockslide that kills the beast. The formerly despised Akhoba becomes recognized for his experience and wisdom. The two tribes unite as one. Tumak, Loana and the rescued child are framed in the dawn of a new day.