A hunter in the High Sierras spots a huge tiger with tusks, and when he tells his tale at the Webb Café in town, he is laughed at, including by the local game warden Oakes. That is, until he drives home that night and the big cat lands on his windshield intentionally. Armed only with the car's blaring horn Oakes scares the big cat away. Oakes makes a clay impression of the cat's paw and goes to see Dr. Harkness, state university zoologist, in Los Angeles. Harkness at first shoos Oakes away as some kind of crackpot, but then suddenly changes his mind and comes back with him. This time, finding a freshly killed deer, they wait for the big cat to return when he gets hungry. They shoot him and go get local academic Prof. Clifford Groves to show him the big cat - a saber tooth tiger that has been extinct since ancient times. The body is gone and Groves asks them to please stop wasting his time.
Meanwhile Groves has gone to a committee of academics with his theories of how Neanderthal man had a much larger brain than current man, and Groves talks about how if somehow man could go back to the Neanderthal state, he would be capable of solving problems he cannot with his current smaller brain. The committee is unreceptive, in part because Groves insults them because they are not jumping up and down with enthusiasm.
There are lots of obvious tip-offs in this film. Groves mood growing worse with time, being rude to everybody, including any guests, his own fiancée, and him calling the committee of academics he is presenting before stupid doesn't do his cause any good either. There is a cat caged in Groves' lab that seems agitated at the sight of Groves syringes. Groves' own fiancée tells him he has changed from the nice guy she fell in love with into a grouchy mean guy and is leaving. And the presence of a passive deaf mute servant girl is always a big red flag for potential victimization.
There really isn't any mystery in this film since the audience sees what is going on most of the time. It is Oakes and Harkness trying to solve the mystery that takes time, although you can see the Jekyll and Hyde ending coming a mile away. Dr. Groves has conveniently forgotten that Neanderthal man had a bigger everything - brain, strength, temper, bloodlust, etc., and that killing picnickers and carrying away their women is not smiled upon in 1950's California. The acting is not wooden here, but motivations jump around a lot with no real reasons given.
I'd say it's a take it or leave it proposition as even the title gives away the plot, but it is by no means boring. Just don't expect to be blinded with science in this one.
Meanwhile Groves has gone to a committee of academics with his theories of how Neanderthal man had a much larger brain than current man, and Groves talks about how if somehow man could go back to the Neanderthal state, he would be capable of solving problems he cannot with his current smaller brain. The committee is unreceptive, in part because Groves insults them because they are not jumping up and down with enthusiasm.
There are lots of obvious tip-offs in this film. Groves mood growing worse with time, being rude to everybody, including any guests, his own fiancée, and him calling the committee of academics he is presenting before stupid doesn't do his cause any good either. There is a cat caged in Groves' lab that seems agitated at the sight of Groves syringes. Groves' own fiancée tells him he has changed from the nice guy she fell in love with into a grouchy mean guy and is leaving. And the presence of a passive deaf mute servant girl is always a big red flag for potential victimization.
There really isn't any mystery in this film since the audience sees what is going on most of the time. It is Oakes and Harkness trying to solve the mystery that takes time, although you can see the Jekyll and Hyde ending coming a mile away. Dr. Groves has conveniently forgotten that Neanderthal man had a bigger everything - brain, strength, temper, bloodlust, etc., and that killing picnickers and carrying away their women is not smiled upon in 1950's California. The acting is not wooden here, but motivations jump around a lot with no real reasons given.
I'd say it's a take it or leave it proposition as even the title gives away the plot, but it is by no means boring. Just don't expect to be blinded with science in this one.